You Have Been Watching

Television presenter Charlie Brooker (Screenwipe) brings his scathing style to bear on the best and worst the medium currently has to offer. Hosting this new comedy panel game show, Brooker grills celebrities on the week's TV highs and (mostly) lows.

After his successful series Newswipe on BBC Four, the writer and columnist Charlie Brooker has moved to on Channel 4 with a new review show about the joys and miseries of television. In each programme he will be joined by a different line-up of guests to help him to lob bricks at the screen. But the great thing about Brooker is his ability not just to hate magnificently, but to champion the best of television and highlight programmes that might otherwise slip through the cracks. No preview tapes were available because of late editing but, based on past performance, it promises to be highly entertaining.

Remember TV Go Home? Of course you do, it was one of the first great internet sites, along with Fat chicks in party hats, the stinky meat project and the tourist guy. Well, anyhow, Brooker has always been at his bitter best about television - but not really making it, as we've pointed out. So which way will this quiz go? We don't know because they film it the night before and then won't get us previews in time. Early signs point to 'better than Nathan Barley'. Any signs would do that, mind you.

Charlie Brooker: 'I'm not that psychotic'

Best known for shows such as Screenwipe and Newswipe, on which he lambasts TV, Charlie Brooker goes mainstream from tonight with new Channel 4 show You Have Been Watching.

With Harry Hill's TV Burp on its summer vacation, critic, comedian and Dead Set creator Charlie Brooker steps in to help fill the television round-up void - which is rather like asking Hannibal Lecter to look after your new kitten while you go caravanning in Rhyl. In Charlie's new panel show, fans of Screenwipe and Newswipe - his two BBC4 series - will know to expect some joyfully caustic slapdowns at the expense of programming from both the UK and around the world. Viewers can expect to see an edgier guest line-up than the BBC will field in their Telly Addicts update - As Seen On TV - which starts later this month.

If you're not aware of Charlie Brooker through his Screenwipe show on BBC4, then imagine someone stood in the corner of your front room who reacts every time you flick to a different show. These reactions range from staring at you as if you've just tried to douse a trouser fire by pouring on petrol, to slapping your cheeks and calling you a lint-brained disgrace to DNA. That's pretty much what'll happen in this review of the week's telly.

Suddenly, TV about TV is all the rage. Harry Hill's TV Burp may be off air for now, but next week BBC1 plans a new Telly Addicts-style quiz show called As Seen on TV. Meanwhile, this Channel 4 offering promises to be more left-field. Anyone who's seen Charlie Brooker's withering take on our nation's television, courtesy of BBC4's Screenwipe and Newswipe series, will know what to expect: cruel clips, ingenious put-downs and vented spleen, only this time in a panel-game format. When RT went to press, the show hadn't yet been recorded and the guests were unconfirmed (we're promised David Mitchell and Frank Skinner later in the series), but with Brooker in the driving seat, it should be worth a look.

The London Paper Preview

TV's most savage critic will pose the questions in a new panel quiz show. The London Paper asks Charlie Brooker whether his guests should be worried.

Charlie Brooker Time Out Interview

Charlie Brooker, Guardian TV columnist and increasingly recognisable telly face in his own right, is taking another satirical swipe at small-screen cliches. This time he's using the medium of a panel show, as host of Channel 4's You Have Been Watching. He walks us through his latest TV hell...

A comedy panel show about TV? I'm there. Even if it's It's Only TV But I Like It. This show's likely to be head and shoulders above that, devised and hosted as it is by Charlie Brooker, creator of BBC4's Screenwipe and Newswipe. If it softens Brooker's renowned cynical edge, it'll be a disappointment, but chances are this will be the funniest thing on TV all week.