It's that time again. The plaintive, forlorn cry you hear from the corner of the sitting room is coming from the Playstation.
JK Rowling: The Interview
BBC2, Thursday
Apply Immediately
BBC2, Wednesday
Real Lives: Love on the Run
ITV, Monday
What the World Thinks of America
BBC2, Tuesday
"Yoo, hoo, remember me," it's asking, "you know - bang, bang, splat, splat, vroom, vroom?" But the 10-year-old doesn't even hear its pleas, his face buried in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, his thumbs now exercised by the turning of 766 pages, rather than 'up', 'down', 'left', 'right' and 'fire' buttons.
As Jeremy Paxman put it to JK Rowling, "it's not a bad thing to go to your grave with - having invented this entire world and made children want to read". Indeed.
Paxman, then, was granted The Big Interview, the theory being that if Rowling had opted for Martin Bashir over on ITV, allegations of an improper relationship with Harry might have arisen, The Order of the Phoenix would flop and she'd never write again. All things considered, Paxman was probably a safer bet, then.
However, would he ask her 13 times "who dies in The Order of the Phoenix - come on, it's a simple question, answer it for heaven's sake"? No. There was no interrogation - just soft focus, soft lighting and soft furnishings - but what's to interrogate JK Rowling about? Well, Paxman did raise the issue of the merchandising machine that Harry and his pals have generated, mentioning, specifically, the "Harry Potter Ice Pumpkin Slushie maker, and all that junk".
"Is that a real thing or have you made it up?" asked Rowling. "I'm serious," he replied. She grimaced. She reassured him, though, that it could have been worse - she had, after all, rejected the proposal of a Moaning Myrtle lavatory seat alarm.
"But do you never worry that perhaps your legacy will be not this entire world that you created but lots of bits of plastic?" he asked.
"No," she replied, firmly, "I think the books will always be more important than the bits of plastic."
Later, on Newsnight, Michael Morpurgo, the children's Laureate, agreed. "If there's going to be hype let's have hype about books - when have we ever had hype about books? I think it's fantastic. She's a genius."
Try telling your average 10-year-old boy or girl she's not and they'll probably bang, bang, splat, splat, vroom, vroom you. And you'd deserve it.
Rowling, of course, went from being a divorced mother of a baby daughter living on social welfare in a tiny Edinburgh flat to being the possessor of one of the world's most recognisable names, with a wealth greater than that of Queen Elizabeth, a transformation that has resulted in her not feeling "quite such a waste of space anymore".
The transformation Neil Snape hankered after in his life seemed somewhat less dramatic but, in the opinion of most of his advisors on BBC2's Apply Immediately, infinitely more implausible: the 35-year-old Welsh dairy farmer wanted to become an 'upmarket' interior designer.
"They do their own kitchen and their own bathroom and they think 'goodness, I can work with clients', but it's much, much more complicated than that," sniffed traditional English designer Jane Churchill, when told of Snape's ambition.
Snape's dream was kindled when he did up, as Churchill suspected, the kitchen and bathroom in his cottage, an experience that encouraged him to "read quite a few of my Mum's Ideal Homes magazines, when she finishes with them".
He travelled to London ("a bit overwhelming for a country lad - all those people pushing and shoving"), taking his CV and dreams with him and presented both to 'careers performance coach' Mary Spillane, who specialises in helping people reinvent themselves. Or, in Snape's case, putting them off reinventing themselves.
"It's a pretty lousy CV," she said upon perusing his employment history. "We have JCB diggers, double glazing and he also took farming courses - things that outside the farming world are weird with a capital 'W'. Nothing here to do with design or interiors," she sighed.
By the time Snape left his meeting with Spillane and interior designer Justin Meath Baker he "felt absolutely ripped to shreds". Unbowed, though, he enrolled in a three-week crash course for aspiring designers in which he learnt how to draw lines with a ruler. At the end-of-course party a fellow student asked him what he did "last yaar - interior or gardening design?". "Eh, farming," said Snape. "Oh raaaayly," said the woman, before dissolving in to a fit of giggles. Upon realising that Snape wasn't jesting, she smiled sympathetically, tilting her head slightly sideways, her expression saying "poor pet".
Next step: Churchill, at the request of the production team, took Snape under her wing for a day, introducing him to a client who wanted her 21-year-old daughter's bedroom done up. Churchill gave her apprentice half an hour in a Chelsea store to find suitable fabrics for the job and then got him to present them to the mother. As Snape suggested "loads of bows everywhere, in that sort of creamy material" the mother tried to smile nervously but what appeared to be cosmetic surgery had seen to it that she would never smile nervously, or otherwise, again. (At first it seemed she was shocked, but then one soon realised that she would probably look in a permanent state of incredulity for the rest of her life).
Snape moved on, but not before Churchill advised that he jettison his farmer 'look' and go "for a cross between Prince William and Ralph Lauren". Instead he opted to spend half his life savings (£10,000) on filling the gaps in his mouth, where five top teeth and one lower once dwelled. His surgeon showed him a 'before' and a computer-enhanced 'after' photo.
"One looks like Goofy, the cartoon character, one looks like a proper person," said an impressed Snape, who emerged some hours later with a set of gnashers that would be the envy of Donny Osmond.
Armed with his new teeth Snape was next taken on by trendy agency United Designs which asked him to create and present a design for a restaurant in a museum. The night before the presentation he legged it, never to be seen by United Designs again.
"It really wasn't for me," he said.
Any way, it all ended happily, Snape found his calling, getting a job as a cabinet maker with kitchen designer Johnny Grey, but turning down a junior design post with the same company because he couldn't sit behind a computer all day. He was thrilled with his new lot, though, as the Colgate smile he gave us proved.
If Apply Immediately ended on a cheerful note Real Lives: Love on the Run was wretchedly dismal from start to finish, one of those programmes that makes folk vow never to whinge again and to be blissfully contented with their lot, no matter how grim.
Wendy Kelly ran away with her school-bus driver, Adrian Bristow (38), who was married with two children at the time, when she was 16. A month before her 17th birthday she married him, a week later she had their first baby.
"I wasn't expecting to have one just yet," she said to him. "Well," he replied, "you wanted experience of children, didn't you? You can't get much better experience than having your own." She nodded. "It was a surprise, though" she said, "but ... I'm happy with, whatever. It's life, isn't it? You get all sorts of things thrown at ya."
Her wedding took place in Gretna Green because you can't get married in England at 16. She wore trainers under her wedding dress because "my feet keep swelling", the only guest at the ceremony was Bristow's mother Pat. It was pitifully sad, the forced cheerfulness of the MC only adding to the gloom. Wendy Kelly should probably have a word with Apply Immediately and ask them to find her a new life.
If Real Lives: Love on the Run made for bleak viewing then What the World Thinks of America wouldn't have been the most heartening 90 minutes your average US resident has ever watched. Mind you, there was nothing hugely revelatory about the findings of the global poll, the most quirky discovery being that Americans fear the US morethan Israelis fear the US.
The big news, though, was that Homer Simpson held off the challenge of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Mr T (from the television series the A-Team) and Thomas Jefferson to earn the title of the "greatest American ever" on an online poll ahead of the debate.
It was, perhaps, the first success of Homer's life, a nice boost to his brittle self-esteem. "Sometimes the only way you can feel good about yourself is by making someone else look bad," he once said, "and I'm tired of making other people feel good about themselves."
Those days are long gone, Homer. You are now officially the greatest American ever. But we knew that already.
Shane Hegarty is on leave
tvreview@irish-times.ie