HERE we are, thick within the festive season.

Heavy of stomach and programmes upon which to catch up on.

Where to start ? and which to delete because, really, who has time to watch all this stuff ?

I don't really want to be watching anything that is specifically Christmassy when I am starting to think about taking the tree down.

So if I haven't watched the Strictly special by Jan 1 then very often I just can't be bothered.

And I may well strategically ditch the very many reunion shows which seem to have suddenly appeared to clog up our planner thanks to the 12 year old.

I hate myself but I actually sat down mid-washing up the other day and got side tracked into watching the Christmas Love Island show.

I can save you an hour or so of your life by saying it was pretty much like the summer one but, mercifully, much shorter.

Instead of swimwear, they were wearing festive onesies but there was the usual contrived angsty arguments and intense discussions whilst stalwart couple Dani and Jack tried to keep everyone calm while also cooking Christmas dinner.

The producers had even made sure the luxury country house hotel/spa where they filmed had its own pool so the young good-looking people could jump into it fully-clothed.

I didn't feel like we moved any further forward in learning what everyone had achieved since leaving Love Island - not much in some cases and global wealth without doing very much in others.

Jack and Dani are still the leading lights, both in personality and relationship.

And having watched most of the series alongside my daughter just a few months ago, I struggled to remember some of the contestants.

But this juggernaut of television shows now signs of slowing down - no doubt a host of wannabes are recording their application interviews as we speak, forgoing that seventh leftover mince pie with half an eye on having to wear a bikini on television soon.

Thankfully, there have also been a host of really gritty and high quality dramas to enjoy both over this year and in the past few days.

The Long Song was moving and powerful and both Luther and Les Miserables will be keeping us busy over the next few nights.

Not Cheerful, admittedly, but top drawer none-the-less.

Each series of Luther has diminished in length as its star Idris Elba's fame in Hollywood has taken off.

I feared this one, patiently awaited for the past few years, would be reduced to just a feature length special but happily this has not been the case.

And the beauty of the way we now watch television is that it is not too late to catch up with all that went before.

You could have a bit of an Idris binge in the lead up to the opener of the latest series on New year's Day and introduce yourself to Elba's moody, maverick cop who doesn't follow the rule book.

On paper this does sound a bit hackneyed, and in the hands of anyone else it probably would be, but the writing is just superb and Idris, well, he can even make you root for him in a terrible film where he is married to Beyonce but ends up in a pickle have been unfaithful to her.

Seriously, it is an actual film. But probably not worth catching up on.

Luther, on the other hand is.