My guilty pleasures (No. 1 in a series of 934)

Gilmore Girls! It's a TV series, not some actual girls. I believe it was on the Hallmark Channel, which we don't have - but dipping into the DVD version has become our top entertainment moment of the week (since we finished Deep Space 9 a while ago.)

'Lorelai Gilmore, 32, has such a close relationship with her daughter Rory that they are often mistaken for sisters. Between Lorelai's relationship with her parents, Rory's new prep school, and both of their romantic entanglements, there's plenty of drama to go around' is a good summary. It's very much an ensemble show, with some great performances and witty scripts.

To be honest I didn't care for it at first - the early episodes seemed shrill and frantic, and the characters trying too hard. But after a while I found I wanted to find out what happened next, occasonally laughing out loud at some of the dialogue (which tends to happen less often than Halley's Comet visits), and appreciating a show that was funny without being cruel, and dramatic without being tragic.

I think, as with a lot of fiction, part of the appeal is the self-contained world it offers. The town of Stars Hollow (perpetually bathed in a kind of powdery light) is big and detailed enough to be interesting, and discrete enough to become familiar and knowable.

In some ways it's as fantastic as Middle Earth or the cosy future of Star Trek - not least because the characters seem to eat nothing but pizzas and burgers (with the occasional gourmet meal) whilst remaining lath thin.