review

What is it about Delia? Over the last month the isle has resounded to the hiss and judder of air-brakes, the roar of diesel engines, as juggernauts loaded with cranberries and puy lentils scatter throughout the land, preparing for the ingredient rush that inevitably follows a broadcast (the supermarkets still remember the terrible Mascarpone Riots of '94). The Radio Times even printed an early warning of the ingredients she would be using in the new series, Delia Smith's Winter Collection (BBC2), so that really zealous adherents could stock up well in advance. But where does this cult-like devotion spring from, this slavish obedience to her culinary commandments? It can't really be said that the camera loves her, even if it has settled down into a companionable affection for her unthreatening prettiness. And though her status as a housewife-superstar finally seems to have driven the tremor out of her voice, she's still not a natural performer. Where her male counterparts zoom around in fast cars between shots, bullying the camera with their exuberant enjoyment of self, you suspect that Delia is at her happiest when she is an off-screen voice, describing what her capable hands are up to. The only moments of vocal drama come when she has to raise her voice over the sizzle of a frying pan.

The absence of charisma is almost certainly the secret, of course. Delia is as unpretentious as mashed potato, and as dependable and comforting too. I did notice, with a shudder, that she said of one dish in the that it "would eat very nicely", a most un-Delia-like affectation which she may have picked up from Gary Rhodes. But the moment only emphasised the flat-shoed common sense of most of her pronouncements.

She is, to put it mildly, unafraid of simple instruction: "The first ingredient you need is water," she said, at the beginning of a careful demonstration of how to poach an egg. She courteously pretended that the lesson was "for younger viewers" but the truth is that most of her viewers will be perfectly happy to have such basics explained. And there is another clue to her popularity in her accent, or rather the lack of it. When she talks of foreign ingredients and unfamiliar dishes Delia domesticates them with her voice. You are told to include "choritso", not "choreetho", advised how to make "rosty cakes" not "ruhrstee cakes". Delia takes such foods and removes those indigestible dipthongs and fricatives, so unfamiliar to our suspicious palates.

Bliss (ITV) began with a sequence seen a hundred times - a woman walking at night, pursued by a cruising, predatory pair of headlights. The difference in this case was that the headlights belonged to an ambulance, an "innocent" vehicle which eases the woman's suspicions, so that she leans trustingly into the door to help the driver with his directions. Cut to the victim trussed in the back, watching their blood drain into a transfusion bag. This was quite a spooky idea - menace masquerading as medical assistance - but it was one of the few inventive strokes in an increasingly ludicrous thriller. The title was a cheat, incidentally - its emotive promise turning out to be nothing more than reference to Dr Sam Bliss, the media-friendly scientist who stumbles on a ghoulish attempt to extend longevity through genetic meddling.

Every now and then you could see something darker and more complicated trying to escape from the melange of ancient curses and mad scientist technophobia. Is Bliss's sexual attraction to a woman half his age another example of the futile quest for youth? Should we feel slightly queasy that he uses the same endearment for his young lover as he does for his pretty daughter? But such matter remained at the level of potential only, stifled by coarser pleasures - the thrill of peril avoided and Faustian intelligence punished.