Dee or not Dee, that is the question

neighbours, channel 5, weekdays

THERE are usually two responses when I tell people I watch Neighbours.

One is: “Why?” The other tends to be: “Is that still on?”

As far as I’m concerned, life just wouldn’t be the same without my daily visit to Ramsay Street.

Now, that may not say much for how exciting my life is, but it’s storylines like the current goings-on in Erinsborough that make it worth sticking with the show.

Long-time viewers and lapsed fans might remember one of the soap’s classic deaths, when Toadie and Dee’s wedding car’s brakes failed and they careered off a cliff. Toadie survived but Dee’s body was never recovered.

That was in 2003. Fourteen years later, Dee has turned up at Toadie’s door, seemingly alive and well.

If this sounds a bit too much like Harold Bishop’s return from a watery grave in the ’90s, you would be right and, at first, I wasn’t convinced.

But the writers have played a blinder here. Quickly they dropped hints that all was not as it seemed – or are these simply red herrings that would make Agatha Christie proud?

Is Dee actually Dee or is it an elaborate scam that would involve lots of very good plastic surgery? Why is she so nervous around the police? And is that really Toadie’s daughter with her?

With more twists and turns to come, this has the potential to be one of the best plots ever seen on Ramsay Street.

Go on, give it another try.

scot squad, bbc1, wednesday

The spoof fly-on-the-wall comedy following Scotland’s finest is over for another series.

Let’s hope it’s not too long before we’re back on the beat with traffic cop Hugh McKirdy, long-suffering Officer Karen and her pal Bobby and woefully inadequate chief, Cameron Miekelson.