Fundamentally the rules or guidance for writing a good TV review are no different to writing a review for most any other category, actually I'm quite surprised that no guide for this category has ever bothered to find the time to actually write some advice on what makes a good TV review.

For me a good review should be concise, I hate to read padded reviews that do not address the matter in hand, for me it is just another form of abuse, blatantly padding a review to get more words and better ratings, it should be treated as abuse no different to copying, so concise and to the point is a must.

A good TV review should contain some guidance on the target audience for the show, what type of person will enjoy the show, is it similar to any other shows on TV either now or in the past. It naturally needs to contain some opinion from the viewers perspective and to give a real flavour of the programme.

If it is a long running show with a number of series then there is no need to recap every single episode like a track list review of an album however with long runing shows that have a number of series it is important to cover off how the show has developed. For example the sitcom Men Behaving Badly had a very different cast in series one to the one that appeared in series two and up to when the show was ended, likewise Skins has a totally different cast for series two compared with one.

If relevant the quality of the acting and plot lines are very relevant however if the show is a documentary then the style of delivery and the information content will be crucial.

As I stated at the time a review should be informative and entertaining to read wthout the need to waffle. A bit of humour never goes amiss but most importantly there should be opinion.