Sports/Entertainment

° The best live sports coverage on British television snuck back on to our screen this week with the return of Major League Baseball on five (Sundays and Wednesdays). It may not be the most serious or (dare I say it) professional production around, but I think everyone would agree it's the informality that provides the charm. Like Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday with Jeff Stelling and the boys but with actual live sport, Jonny Gould and Josh Chetwynd's lively balance of banter and analysis provides the perfect antidote to the tired eyes and minds that come with being a baseball fan in the UK. It's good to have them back. I doubt any football fans miss Richard Keys and Andy Gray in quite the same way we baseball fans miss Jonny and JC during the offseason. Welcome back, fellow baseball nuts!

° There was always a sense of the inevitable about it, but this week saw stand-out contestant Heather prematurely dumped out of America's Next Top Model Cycle 9 (Mondays, Living). Getting hopelessly lost in Shanghai in what may have been the worst performance in a Go-See challenge ever, Heather's inability to read a Chinese map proved to be her fatal flaw. It's a decision to make you wonder though: what were Tyra & co. hoping to achieve by putting her in the competition in the first place? Admittedly she flubbed her lines the week before as well, but eliminating her for failing on challenges in which she was so obviously and inevitably held back by her disability seems a strange message to send. She had the best photos by a mile, she was the most frequently complimented and she won several other challenges; eliminating her for failing where she did feels a little bit like ANTM is saying, "I'm sorry, Heather, you're just a little bit more disabled than we'd expected or hoped for. We thought at first you might have been just under the maximum disability quota we'd set, but unfortunately our judgement was wrong and you're just over it. Sorry!". Harsh.

The funny thing about it is that it's probably one of the very few times Tyra has ever made a bold decision that went against the happy-ending story arc they spend so long trying to engineer in the cutting room. And maybe it's right, maybe Heather isn't cut out to be America's Next Top Model. It's just a shame Tyra saved her bold move for a season in which all the other girls are even less inspiring.

° Wooooooooo!! Ric Flair's farewell address on WWE Raw (Monday, Sky Sports 3) was a wrestling moment not to be forgotten. One can only hope that such a fantastic send-off isn't cheapened in future. Knowing Ric Flair, though, it's hard to imagine he'll be able to stay away forever. Being a limousine ridin', jet flyin', kiss stealin', wheelin' dealin', son of a gun just isn't an easy way to live when you don't have a job. At the very least let's hope WWE can keep him out of the ring.

° BBC Three's pilot season concluded this week with Dis/Connected. Looking like a more slickly-produced and better-written version of West 10 LDN, its only real problem was that it felt more like a good single-play drama than the beginning of a series. Coupled with comparatively poor ratings it's hard to imagine Dis/Connected has much of chance despite its obvious qualities.

It's encouraging, though, to see a season of British drama pilots produce shows of such quality and potential. Only one or two have a real chance of being made but it's nice to see with our own eyes that there is talent out there.The outlook has been grim for a very long time so it's nice to have a bit of faith restored.