Small Screen

Ich Bin Ein Berliner Next week on The Late Show (11.15pm Mon-Wed, BBC2) it's Berlin Week.

Monday's programme, 'Goodbye to All That', examines the future of what used to be East Germany, and the vast project of filling the hole where once there was a nation. The programme uses East Berlin's key cultural institution, Heiner Muller's Berliner Ensemble, as an example of the new artistic freedoms afforded by reunification. The theme continues on Tuesday with a whizz through a virtual-reality model of Hitler's dream Berlin, reconstructed (with the aid of some computer magic) from plans drawn up by his court architect to celebrate a victorious Germany. Also there's a feature on Berlin as the music capital of Europe: you know, Bowie, Cabaret, Kurt Weill, Pink Floyd's bricktastic The Wall concert. And Sir Norman Foster has been commissioned to redesign Berlin's historic parliament building, the Reichstag: how can it come to stand once more for German parliamentary democracy without whitewashing its turbulent past? Wednesday's programme profiles Jewish composer Berthold Goldschmidt, who fled Germany in the Thirties and only recently returned, and tells the story of the withdrawal of Russian troops from Berlin after nearly four decades. Not one to be left out, Mark Lawson takes his Late Review wagon on the road to discuss German culture in Berlin on Thursday. Place your bets now: will Lawson, Pearson, Parsons or the mystery German guest be the first to say 'Weltanschauung'?

Reservoir Hogs The monthly bulletin of complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Council thuds onto Metro's doormat and offers some surprising information. Most complaints weren't upheld - a beheading on News at Ten, sex in Gallowglass and strippers on Channel 4 were all deemed relevant. But the Council did sternly uphold two separate complaints against that bastion of rurality, Emmerdale. An armed siege at a farmhouse and a fist fight both earned the soap a hefty rap on the knuckles. In its defence, Yorkshire Television wheeled out the hoary old argument that drama's function is to reflect 'not only the good things but all of the happenings in 1990s Britain'. But the Complaints Committee insisted Emmerdale had 'exceeded limits'. Coming soon: Oliver Stone directs Natural Born Tillers.

Flan-tastic Days Chris Tarrant is talking to Chris Tarrant. 'I'm so clever,' says Chris, 'I work in the media.' 'Mmm,' says Chris, 'I work in the Midlands'. That was back in the days when Chris Tarrant stood at the vanguard of chaos: a pre-punk anarchist with a very pre-punk haircut. The Tories have been known to lay the blame for the state of the current 25-40 generation at the door of the Sex Pistols; they forget the effect of Tiswas, the Saturday morning show that revived flan-flinging and suggested it was a good idea to lob them at your folks. Now ITC has culled chunks of this seminal lesson in live presentation for video release at pounds 10.99, a hotchpotch of sketches from Lenny Henry, Michael Palin, Frank Carson, Bernard Manning and, of course, co-presenter Sally James. Thrill as Shaw Taylor spoofs his own Police 5, yell that alternative Seventies catchphrase 'Compost Corner'.

Marvel at the fact that you used to get out of bed before 11 on a Saturday morning by choice.

Meals on Wheels Meanwhile, one of the funniest videos of the year: Lumiere's Power Monsters, out on Monday at pounds 9.99. If you've ever wondered what to do with all those su-perannuated Sherman tanks lying around since the cold war, this video provides an answer: turn them into car-eating dinosaurs and parade them across America. Among the flame-belching hydraulic beasties are Transaurus ('C'mon baby,' cries the compere as it chomps a Volvo, 'Pick it up in your big jaws and give her a huge bite from me') plus Transtormer, a robot from whose abdomen a scantily clad foxy chick pops with a squirt gun.

You'll laugh so much you'll drop your Action Man.

(Photographs omitted)