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Jobless extra goes gun-crazy on Brazilian soap set

And Ricky Gervais quits comedy

Geek TV TV story of the week comes straight outta Rio, where a jobless Brazilian actor stormed onto the set of a soap that had once employed him as an extra. (You know where I'm going with this, don't you?)

Ricardo Dualibi, who carried a loaded gun and was clad only in his swimming trunks, fired two shots and took a member of the Snakes and Lizards crew hostage. He told police he just wanted to draw the studio's attention to his art. According to Reuters, Dualibi "shouted nonsense before guards overpowered him", and he was arrested for attempted murder.

By genuinely scary coincidence, Ricky Gervais this week hinted that he was quitting comedy to "do something with more weight, like The Sopranos".

Ricardo, mate, I think you've found your new employer...

Remember winter? Remember huddling round the nuclear glow of your chilblains, promising never, ever to moan about the Tube being too hot in July? Be careful what you wish for, punters.

One shaft of light in that miserable February of 2006 was Life On Mars, the barnstormingly successful time-travel Mac copper drama starring telly deities John Simm and Philip Glenister. Series two is almost in the can, due to fill a screen near you in autumnish – and you'd better enjoy it, because it's all you're getting.

"John Simm and I are pretty adamant that we don't push the show beyond its natural shelf life," Glenister told US journalists this week.

"We think that's probably sooner rather than later. Whether we wrap things up at the end of this season, or whether we have a two-part special afterwards, we're not quite sure yet."

Roughly translated from junket-speak, this means: "We're bored. And I want to be in the movies."

If it never quite works out for Phil post-Life On Mars, Mrs Glenister is advised never, ever to let him leave the house with only his trunks on.

Top five to watch this week:

1. Alive Sunday 30 July, C4, 8pm
New eight-parter featuring "extraordinary survival stories", like lots of mini-Touching the Voids.

2. Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe, Thursday 3 August, BBC4, 10.30pm
Essential viewing for fans of Love Island.

3. Time Trumpet with Armando Iannucci, Thursday 3 August, BBC4, 10pm
In which 60-year-olds Ant and Dec talk about the day Charlotte Church vomited herself inside out, and other unmistakably Iannucci-penned nonsense.

4. Silent Witness, Sunday 30 and Monday 31 July, BBC1, 9pm
Shocking post mortems, apparent suicides etc.

5. Little Platform, Big Stage, Sunday 30 July, BBC4, 10pm
Zimena Percival's film tells the stories of five Routemaster conductors from five decades of London's history. None of them ever fell off the little platform and broke their foot, though, did they? I did. So there. ®

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