TV Review: Lines so bad they're wonderful

Oh, boo, hiss. That was short-lived, again. Last week Fenner got his comeuppance, again.

But not for long. Which is about par for the convoluted course that is Bad Girls (tonight, 8.30, TV1). The new series opened with a broomstick, a bashing, and a voodoo pin in the eye. On Bad Girls the mad and the very bad are still getting away with murder.

It pays to keep a list of the characters and their relationships with the other characters. As in: who's had who and under what circumstances; who's conning who and who has conned who. And to keep in mind that the worst cons are those perpetrated by the screws, not the cons.

We saw the dirty, rotten screw Jim Fenner on his first night on the inside of the bars in the pokey, reduced to a sniffling, shaking shadow of his former scheming, sadistic self.

Fenner had been banged to rights and possibly - even Bad Girls gets squeamish, occasionally - got more than a broomstick in the face in the showers. He was certainly walking funny and if you thought this was too disgusting you are watching the wrong show.

Hard man Fenner requested protection in "Room 43". This he was duly granted only to find himself in a room full of "nonces".

That would happen. As would the scene where Ben the philandering tool man (a typical Bad Girls joke) is accused of raping "psycho slut" Natalie. He, too, was sent to Room 43, even though nobody in their right mind would believe her.

But it got more mileage out of the joke. The Julies asked Natalie whether her "bog had overflowed. We saw Ben in there with his tools".

Fenner saw his chance and there was a monumentally ridiculous plot - even for this show - where Fenner got new wife Di to help him frame Ben for the murder Fenner committed. This involves a blonde wig and DNA and, no ... life is too short to attempt to unravel this nonsense.

There is never any point in attempting to make any sense of Bad Girls' story lines, or the dialogue. Most of which is far too rude to repeat.

Mostly, it's plain daft. Last week there was a classic scene involving Bev, Phyl and the Two Julies.

Bev, who was Alma on Corrie, needed a makeover because she'd been told she looked like a voodoo doll (no, really, don't ask.) "I look like something that crawled out from my own tombstone." This is the truest word ever spoken on Bad Girls. She might have added: "because I'm wearing the worst wig seen on television since Emily's last scene in Corrie".

The Julies, who wear matching pink, down to their rubber gloves, and who speak in unison, ask Bev who her favourite film star is. This is to give them some guidelines for Bev's transformation. "Robert Redford", says Bev.

Now that would have been a makeover worth seeing.

Yes, it's mad and rude and ridiculous but where else would you get a line like this: "You'd get vertigo on the straight and narrow."