IT WAS touted as the next 24, but Channel 4's latest American import Sleeper Cell is more '12 and a bit' so far.

The series, which was nominated for a Golden Globe across the Pond, follows the exploits of a terrorist cell planning an attack on Los Angeles.

Head honcho Farik has gathered a multi-national band of brothers to the cause, including a blond all American boy, a Bosnian ex-soldier and a Frenchman with a major attitude problem. The cuckoo in the nest is Darwyn Al Sayeed, an FBI agent who also happens to be a practising Muslim.

We are supposed to nail our colours firmly to his mast, as he tries to avoid being exposed. Unfortunately, Jack Bauer, he isn't. In fact, Michael Ealy, who takes the role, just reminds me of one of the singers in Boney M.

Farik (Oded Fehr) is far more attractive, which presents the female viewer with a problem. Do you root for the terrorists, as they plot the murder of US citizens on a grand scale, or do you put the obstacle of Rivers of Babylon to the back of your mind and back the spook?

In the first two episodes (the 10-hour mini-series is being shown in five two-hour slots), the most shocking scene was the stoning of one of the terrorists, who was buried up to his head in sand. Farik believed the man to be a traitor after taping one of his phone conversations.

Strangely enough, although Darwyn spends half the time speaking to his FBI boss on his mobile phone almost under said Farik's nose, he has thus far escaped the same fate.

Stoning might be a tad harsh for Charlotte Church, but 10 minutes into her Channel 4 chat show debut on Friday night I was hard pressed to stop my hand reaching for a large piece of Welsh slate. When she and her guests, Denise van Outen and Michael McIntyre, had finished telling us 'what they had learned this week', I thought nothing about how to entertain' and reached for the remote control.

I might give the girl another chance, if she could just get over the fact that she is Welsh and stop harping on about the land of leeks and rugby bores.

You could never accuse Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe of being bores. Even in the midst of each murder investigation, there is always much to chuckle about.

In this week's new Dalziel and Pascoe case (BBC1, Sunday and Monday), the untimely death of young Lateef weighed heavily on the atmosphere in the second episode, but earlier we were treated to the sight of Dalziel's sat nav system leading his car down a muddy farm track. That famous bulldog scowl was immediately in evidence.

The storyline involved a murder some years ago coming to light when a woman's mummified body was found by potholers, after it had been washed into an underground cave by heavy rain. The crime involved a couple of cops from the higher echelons of the force, but that was never going to stop Dalziel from pursuing the perpetrators.

After a summer of lightweight, mindless reality shows and a legion of awful repeats, how wonderful it was to see excellent drama performed by actors at the peak of their craft.

Now that's what I call entertainment!