TV Baftas BETTING: Best Drama

Don't bet on Skins, it's rubbish

And the programmes are... The Street (8/11), Life on Mars (15/8), Rome (5/1), Skins (8/1)

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Back in the 1960s parents would be driven to a belt-thrashing rage by the sight of their teenage son deliberately growing his hair (is he a homosexual? This is an outrage!). So, imagine how your nan feels as she settles down with her Horlicks to watch a spot of E4, and on comes Skins, where the kids smoke dope and show each other their private parts like it was totally fine, just another boring Tuesday. Either way, the young ones seem to lap it up, and they might win a big posh award (although they won't).

The Street
The big favourite for the prize, The Street nabbed this one last year (beating Life on Mars, Sugar Rush and Shameless), so it would be a commendable two in a row. The last show to do that was The Cops in 1999 and 2000.

Life on Mars
The last zany fantasy show to win the prize was Doctor Who in 2006, which is a good sign, but a bad sign is that the rest of the last ten winners have come from a more gritty real life school of contemporary drama.

Rome
This is some seriously sexual television, which promises bosoms in every single episode - something which might actually turn off the straight-faced voters in the academy. Also working against the oily sex and sandles nude-a-thon is that a BBC2 drama hasn't won the big prize for the last seven years. Gutted.

Skins
Calm down, don't freak out, dude, this is just the Bafta's way of appealing to the kids. Any show that makes Bod look like the Citizen Kane can't win this prize. It just can't.