What she watched:
Horizon: How mad are you? BBC2
The Commander ITV1
Lead Balloon BBC1
Outnumbered BBC1
Apparitions BBC1

It's entirely possible to imagine that had it not lurked underneath the venerable and trustworthy Horizon umbrella, How Mad Are You? (BBC2) may have been slightly less sheltered from the opprobrium currently being heaped upon all things reality-tinted.

Hell, it's a game show, by any other name, in which 10 contestants - five with a history of mental illness, five with none - compete to convince a panel of experts in all things psych-related of their relative sanity. Call it 'Bonkers?!' and stick it on a commercial channel, give it a celebrity presenter and bung in a couple of ad-break cliff-hangers ('But can Yasmin really be as sane as she appears... find out after the break...down!'), and bingo: Daily Mail front pages, questions in the House, resignations all round.

But this was 'science', so I guess it was OK, even if it felt as though the 'science' bit took a back seat to the competition (as inevitably embraced by every viewer) in which a small but strident voice in one's head (yup, that'd be the old paranoid schizophrenia playing up again) whispered things like, 'Stuart's obviously a nutter!' Or 'Nobody here is thin enough to be an anorexic, even a reformed anorexic. Ah, but maybe it's one of the men!' Or 'No, sorry, Yasmin is far too sane to not actually be mad.'

And while I'm sure that the panel of experts - a Michael, an Ian and a Richard - have a Welsh railway station's worth of letters after their names, one did wonder why the production team couldn't have rustled up a token scientific woman? Surely mental health's very own Cheryl Cole is out there somewhere, empathising prettily while wearing false eyelashes, directional footwear and her learning very lightly?

Anyway, OCD-sufferer Dan was unmasked almost immediately when it came to the mucking-out-cows task, because not even a biohazard suit and lots of cognitive behavioural therapy could cover up the fact that he was planning to throw away his wellies when it was over. And, lo, apparently Dan washes his hands 50 times a day and avoids touching doorknobs or shaking hands, thus the panel declared him to be 'incredibly brave' and 'a really good ambassador' - ironic, given that ambassadors are professional hand-shakers, if not knob-touchers.

So one down, plus the outing of the apparently 'sane' Yasmin, whom the panel - and had there been a woman I think they might have done slightly better with their diagnosis - confidently identified as 'not a psychiatric service-user'.

Yasmin, grinning smugly: 'You're wrong!'

Panel member: 'Help us...'

Yasmin: 'I can't!'

Hmm. For Yasmin, out of the four remaining mental health issues it's either anorexia, depression, bipolarity or a social disorder characterised by crippling shyness, but then perhaps the un-thin, un-shy and relentlessly upbeat Yasmin is also a secret sufferer from multiple personality disorder? Either way, by the end of the show I didn't want a helpline, I wanted a phone vote, and though the alleged purpose is to demonstrate how very thin a (heeeeeeeelp)line it is between being 'mad' and sane, this is, I'm afraid, merely stating the bleeding obvious. Obviously you don't have to be 'mad' to work on Horizon, but it helps.

Oh goody, The Commander (ITV1) was back last week, which meant Amanda Burton giving us fresh opportunities to marvel at the astonishingly thin line between 'glacial' and 'completely frozen', or, indeed, having absolutely no expression on one's face whatsoever and actually being dead. But having as your star an actress whose emotional range runs the gamut from ahhhh to zzzzzz is apparently no hindrance to a writer as versatile and attuned to her audience as is Lynda La Plante; in fact, it may be that Burton's Robocop allows la-la Plante to ratchet up her trademark sledgehammer-in-the-kitchen-sink style of melodrama everywhere else. Thus while old ladies were bludgeoned to death with pokers and newborn babies abducted from hospitals, Commander Clare Blake remained the still, small (quite feasibly lobotomised) voice of calm at the centre of the emotional storm, as well as probably the only lead character in a prime-time drama about whose story arc it is neither necessary nor possible to care.

So Mark Lewis Jones as DCI Doug James, the reluctant father turned traumatised father of a missing newborn son, was allowed to steal the show, with fine support from Jennifer Ellison's chav-teenager, Sian Brooke's cool DC Marian Randall, Crissy Rock as a wicked baby-broker and Claire Skinner as a so-obviously-guilty-she-had-to-be-innocent new mother-cum-suspected-baby-snatcher, which left very little for Burton to do except stare into the middle distance with her lips either slightly pursed in disapproval or lurking on the cusp of a smile... such a thin line, isn't it?

Of course every now and again Burton reserved the right to assert her star status with some comically implausible but nonetheless flattering scenes in which she bravely subjected herself to being flirted with by a handsome younger man, and then ended up on the front page of the Sun for stealing back Doug's baby from the so-obviously-guilty mother... only to discover that it was the wrong baby.

But even this flagrant silliness was ultimately forgivable because undermining a potentially cracking yarn by pandering to the ego of its star is probably less of a criminal offence than patronising the audience. And now that Blake has lost the plot and been forced to resign, perhaps she'll have the chance stay in more often and watch a few crime dramas? Or indeed sitcoms, which would constitute a much-needed home study-course in Learning How To Laugh Out Loud.

Last week saw the return of two of the most unashamedly middle-class sitcoms of the 21st century, and while both have a lot going for them - and not only because neither of them are My Family or After You've Gone, and actually funny - it must be said that both cropping up in the same week constituted almost too much unashamed middle-class family-orientated 'goodness, that could be us!'-style comedy even for me. Though this may be because, adrift as I am from the fantasy nuclear family's comedy dreamscape, I actually view this stuff like a management consultant's video, as a kind of 'how-to' guide to family life. Is that wrong? Anyway, I quite liked the first series of Lead Balloon, while being irritated by its obvious debt to Curb Your Enthusiasm, and though the second was more sillicom than sitditto, I am warming to the third already, having got over being almost pathologically unamused by the fact that Jack Dee's character is called Rick Spleen (slightly sadly, I believe character names to be important) and fully appreciating the comic potential of Magda-the-au-pair's limited emotional range, if only because, despite this, it remains infinitely more extensive than Clare Blake's.

I picked up on the first series of Outnumbered (BBC1) so late I decided to ignore it, but it's very hard not to warm to a show in which a small child suggests that his father (hovering outside a locked bathroom containing another small child) 'put beavers through the window and they'll eat the door'. Outnumbered is, effectively, 'Middle-Class Kids Say/Do The Funniest Things If We Let Them Improvise a Bit In Rehearsal (Christ, We Really Must Be Bonkers...) And To Hell With the Shooting Schedule!', which means that the deliciously un-stage schooly creatures steal every scene from the adults, including their 'mum', the excellent Claire Skinner, thankfully rehabilitated in the space of just a few days from The Commander's potentially psychotic baby-snatcher to long-suffering, comically adroit mother-of-three.

Would that all dramatic transformations were as plausible. I watched Apparitions (BBC1), in which Martin Shaw plays Father Jacob, a Catholic priest whose professional calling is - ding-dong! - exorcism, in a state of baffled bemusement, which swiftly gave way to a state of terminal critical ennui of the sort that can only lead to kettles being boiled while hankering for the shipping forecast. Thus, long before the gorgeous gay priest had been eviscerated by Satan in the sauna and little Donna saved from a predictably nasty post-watershed fate at the hands of her demonic daddy, I was praying to God that the plot - simultaneously bonkers and boring - might suddenly be possessed by the spirit of Lynda La Plante.

A royal obsession: Close to the knuckle

While Charles at 60: The Passionate Prince (BBC1) revealed that the heir to the throne is morphing into a less gung-ho, warmer and woollier-round-the-edges version of his father, it was also weirdly obsessed with a hitherto largely ignored aspect of the Prince. Obviously it wasn't his passion for organics, or pottering in Highgrove's lovely gardens, or chivvying business people and cabinet ministers to be greener; it wasn't Poundbury, or the Prince's Trust, or his ability to make animated small-talk with all-comers about virtually anything. No, this film was obsessed with... the Prince's hands, close-ups of which popped up every few minutes. Thus we learned that Charles favours Pentel pens for notes and fountain pens for proper letters, occasionally wears a red string bracelet - which marks him out as either a closet Kabbalist or a bit of a hippy (my money's on the latter). And, most distracting of all, that he has exceptionally sausage-y fingers. Yup, it was a 90-minute prime-time thriller from start to finish.

The family of a baby and his two-year-old brother who were stabbed to death at home expressed their complete devastation yesterday at the loss of their "beautiful, innocent" children.

A senior police officer described the scene inside the home in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, as "something no human being should ever have to see in their life". Police and ambulance crews who attended the house have been offered counselling.

The boys, Romario Mullings-Sewell, two, and his three-month-old brother Delayno, were discovered at 6pm on Wednesday, a few hours after a family doctor had called police to express concerns at the erratic behaviour of their mother, Jael Mullings. The brothers had single stab wounds to their abdomens.

As Mullings, 21, was arrested on suspicion of murder and sectioned under the Mental Health Act yesterday it emerged the family was known to social services, though the children were not on the at-risk register. The admission that the family was on the radar of social services is likely to once again focus attention on the efficiency of child protection measures in the wake of the death of Baby P in Haringey, north London.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was assessing whether to launch a full inquiry after it was contacted by Greater Manchester police. The IPCC is already to investigate whether two officers who called at the house following the doctor's telephone call could have done anything to prevent the deaths.

Teddy bears and floral tributes were left at the house yesterday as neighbours and friends struggled to understand what had happened. Melissa Bell, a 23-year-old friend of Mullings, said: "They were just gorgeous, beautiful, the three-month-old had just started to get a personality of his own."

Details of the hours leading up to the murders emerged yesterday. Greater Manchester police received a phone call at 1.20pm on Wednesday from a GP who had been contacted by Mullings and was concerned for her and her children. Officers arrived at the house 90 minutes later as they had been given four separate addresses for Mullings. Unable to get an answer, they left after checking the back of the house and the surrounding area.

A neighbour told police Mullings had been pushing a double buggy at a nearby shopping centre in a distressed state. Mullings then went to her mother's house. A police spokesman said: "While we were making these inquiries, we got a 999 call which suggested that the children were back in the house, dead."

At 5.45pm paramedics were called to Mullings' home where they found the bodies of the children. The boys' family described their complete devastation in a statement released through Greater Manchester police.

"This family had two beautiful, innocent children called Romario, who was just two years old, and his brother, Delayno, who had only been born in July this year," they said.

"We ... are struggling to come to terms with the tragic events ... We cannot even begin to understand what happened. We hope that wherever the boys have gone to, they are at peace."

Mullings and her children were known to social services but it is understood they were signed off from their care in January Pauline Newman, the director of children's services at Manchester city council, said an urgent review of her team's involvement with the family was under way. "This is an appalling tragedy and we offer our sincere condolences to the family and friends of these two young children," she said.

"Children's social care were not currently involved with the family, however in recent months the family were in receipt of community support services including nursery and childminding provision, whilst mother was attending higher education classes."

Detective Superintendent Shaun Donnellan said his officers had been met by a scene no human should ever witness. The family, he said, were shellshocked.

"This is a lovely family, a fairly close family with two young children who everybody adored and doted on." He said police were alerted because people were worried by Mullings' demeanour and because an "unpleasant" situation was arising.

Neighbours said Mullings had been troubled in recent months. They noticed her shouting in the street and talking to herself on Wednesday morning.

Sandra Barnes, 41, said: "She was shouting 'Are you going to bomb me? Are you going to shoot me?' People were bringing their kids inside."

Donna Rawson, 31, said: "At around 4pm all the kids were outside as they were getting ready for a school disco. She was on her own shouting at them asking if they were laughing at her. She was not with her kids. It makes me feel sick what has happened."

Timeline

Morning Neighbours notice that Romario and Delayno Mullings-Sewell's mother, Jael Mullings, shouting in the street and talking to herself.

1.20pm A family doctor calls police to express concerns at her erratic behaviour.

2.50pm With four separate addresses for Mullings, police officers eventually arrive at the boys' home in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester, but leave after getting no answer. They later receive a 999 call to say the children are in the house.

5.45pm Police and paramedics reach the house, where they find the children's bodies.

Later Mullings is arrested and sectioned under the Mental Health Act.