Shameless

Frank Gallagher's drinking with a turtle

Shameless character Frank Gallagher has a pint-sized new drinking buddy - Terry the terrapin.

Yet again Shameless jumps from the searing to the ridiculous. After the high of the previous, strong episode, now we're back down among the trashy storylines, which have always been an integral part of the show's makeup but have recently lost their verve. Most promising is the pairing of Shane and Jackson as the Chuckle Brothers of daylight robbery - their ineptitude leads them to stealing out-of-date food from shops' bins.

Meanwhile, Frank is showing signs that he's actually capable of feeling real emotion - admittedly over a terrapin he somehow "liberated" from a petting zoo - and there's a scene that almost touches on poignancy as he and Carl say goodbye to each other.

Shameless star Alice Barry recreates famous pin-up pose

TV madam Lillian Tyler shows she really is shameless as she recreates a cheeky poster pose for Sport Relief. Actress Alice Barry - who plays the Chatsworth estate's vice boss - bared her bum to update a timeless saucy Athena pin-up.

It's often hard to follow the blurred moral line of the Chatsworth Estate and lately, young Aidan has seriously lost his way. After standing by during last week's casually brutal crime he is racked by guilt and struggles to find reconciliation and redemption.

Jamie has his own moral dilemma in a strong, gripping episode when a face from the past turns up, as the bent copper played by Steve Evets (Rev's Colin) is interested in far darker things than sitting on a bench drinking cans of lager with a vicar.

Hold on to your hats for a real rollercoaster ride through the darker recesses of the Chatsworth Estate, encompassing everything from incest to gay-hate crime and rape.

The central story is of Micky being brutally beaten after cruising for sex. Micky's normally a figure of fun, but Ciaran Griffiths manages to tone down the tics and grimaces to portray a man struggling to deal with what's happened. The story's power is diminished by being squashed against so many other competing storylines, some comic, some unbearably bleak.

Shameless may have always poked the fetid underbelly of British society, but the way this episode veers from blackly comic to sickeningly brutal just leaves you queasy.

It's all sex and violence on the estate tonight. On a lads night out Carl (Elliott Tittensor) falls for a beautiful girl but struggles when he discovers she's not all she seems. Meanwhile, Mickey (Ciaran Griffiths) suffers an attack which leaves him not only physically scarred, but mentally too; and the Maguires' troubled niece Ruby (Kari Corbett) arrives in town - with more attitude than even the Chatsworth residents can handle.

On a night out with the rest of the Chatsworth boys, Micky finds himself the victim of a homophobic assault. The attack leaves Micky shaken and, unable to talk to his family about the incident, he instead looks to seek out and wreak revenge upon his assailant. Meanwhile, another of the Maguire clan's seemingly inexhaustible supply of distant relatives appears on the estate, in the form of Mimi's niece Ruby. Regular viewers will be unsurprised to find that - in keeping with the rest of the Maguires - she isn't what you'd call a wallflower.

Shameless plot is like real-life heist

Gritty Channel 4 drama Shameless will feature a tunnel robbery - echoing a real-life heist.

Shameless sex scene screened in background on TV news

Ed Miliband's Labour leadership was being discussed on live TV when a background monitor started showing a naked woman having sex.

Three episodes in, and the Chatsworth estate continues to have a livelier feel than in recent series. Tonight, while the rest of the estate thinks Kelly (Sally Carman) is coping well with the loss of her baby, only Marty (Jack Deam) sees how her refusal to grieve is making her unstable. Elsewhere, Billy (Michael Taylor) reluctantly accepts Mimi's (Tina Malone) insistence on an open marriage.