On the hunt for some truly unmissable telly but don’t know what to watch next? Let our essential selection nudge you in the right direction… This week, FAMILY GUY.

We know they're colourful, and they're just that bit edgier than The Simpsons (alcoholic dogs and murderous infants aren't Matt Groening's thing), but what makes Family Guy so goddamn watchable is how it plays with the normal every-day slog.

Peter is similar to Homer Simpson in many ways. The blue-collar dad and head of the family with three kids and a dog. Like Homer, he has more than a spare tyre, enjoys a beer, and has a put-upon wife who is far hotter than him.

Lois is a great character to watch. Her confidence is key to her likability. While she's a stay at home mom to two dysfunctional teens and a baby, she's still sexy and her own person (even if she does seem to always wear that green blouse despite her knock-out figure).

Meg and Chris are the American teens of today. Bumbling, not too popular, two regular kids suffering adolescence with little grace or irony. But it is their young brother Stewie, with his coniving British accent and menacing glare, who puts them in their place.

But the scene stealer has to be Brian the afformentioned addiction-afflicted pooch, whose obsession with Lois and strong bond with Stewie and Peter makes him the lynch-pin of the house. So while the Family Guy of the title may refer to Mr Griffin, our main man is definitely of the canine category.

To find out more about Family Guy, click here. 

On the hunt for some truly unmissable telly but don’t know what to watch next? Let our essential selection nudge you in the right direction… This week, CARNIVALE.

As American TV hits the history books for its most popular programming, we take a look back to a recent and very decent Great Depression era drama, which shows the other side of what was going on during the time when Knucky Thomson was living it up in fellow HBO production Boardwalk Empire.

Set in the arid environs of the Mid-West American Dust Bowl in the impoverished mid-thirties, the show follows Ben Hawkins (Sin City’s Nick Stahl), a young country boy and jobbing labourer, who discovers a unique and disconcerting power to heal, which leaves him feeling forced to join a travelling circus. Here he meets a band of brothers in the various shapes of its freak-show employees, and their journey is cut against a deeply unforgiving religious undertone running throughout the destitute communities they pass between.

While the dark mood of the time is a stark juxtaposition against Boardwalk’s bright lights and free-flowing liquor, this is the austerity which real people felt at this time, and is something we've had a taste of in the flashback scenes to the youth of Don Draper (or rather Dick Whitman) in passages of Mad Men.  

With various star turns from well-knowns such as Clancy Brown as the fanatical Methodist preacher man Brother Justin Crowe and Clea DuVall as the tarot reader Sophie, it was the graphics and perfectly rendered freakeries which stole the show’s two seasons and make this the perfect TV Gold watch...

To find out more about Carnivale, click here. 

On the hunt for some truly unmissable telly but don’t know what to watch next? Let our essential selection nudge you in the right direction… This week, GROUNDED FOR LIFE.

Family comedies are notoriously long-spun-out (see Everybody Loves Raymond), but this show was neatly ended after five seasons (which ran across two networks), despite being a laugh-filled affair.

The show followed the trials and tribulations of the Irish-American Finnerty family in a blue-collar area of Staten Island, New York. Having started their family early, with mum Claudia (Megyn Price) getting pregnant at highschool, she and husband Sean (Donal Logue) share the toils, money troubles and emotional burdens of raising three kids on a low income and having supposedly missed out on the best years of their lives.

With kids ranging from their eldest, spoilt princess Lily, through curly-headed Joseph Gordon Levitt-like Jimmy, to their youngest, oddball Henry, this is a real family, sharing terse words as well as funny, heartwarming moments.

Adding to the family dynamic is eternal ‘That Guy From That Thing’  Kevin Corrigan as roguish Uncle Eddie, as well as next door neighbour Brad – Reaper’s Bret Harrison - who is constantly crushed in his unrequited love for Lily.

To find out more about Grounded For Life, click here. 

On the hunt for some truly unmissable telly but don’t know what to watch next? Let our essential selection nudge you in the right direction… This week, TWIN PEAKS.

What do you get if you cross David Lynch, Kyle MacLachlan and some serious weirdness? Well it could be a number of 90s projects, but the king of which would be the surrealist dream Twin Peaks.

Set in the idylls of the eponymous town, a small made-up Washington State outpost, the action begins when FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper arrives to delve into the murky case of mudered homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) which leads him to disturbing truths about the community as a whole.

Introducing us to the talents of Sherilyn Fenn (Audrey Horne) and Lara Flynn Boyle (Donna Hayward), not to mention a young Heather Graham (as waitress Annie), this became the go-to-show for hot young up-and-comers with a serious streak, and a wild side, owing to creators Lynch and Mark Frost's darkly comic scripting.

Growing odder and odder by the episode, the first season was by far the most notable, but it also spawned the "explanatory prequel" film spin-off Fire Walk With Me which is also well worth a look.

To find out more about Twin Peaks, click here.