Carl Jones: Fantastic TV will help us beat those winter blues

And there's plenty more to get excited about on our TV screens this year – the difference is, it won't necessarily be the terrestrial networks serving up the star turns.

Streaming services like Netflix launch their own original programming in the spring, opening up a whole new field of choice (as if we didn't have enough channels to choose from already, eh?)

A case in point is Halo, with Steven Spielberg on board to produce exclusive content based on the best-selling game franchise for Xbox.

Details are scant at the moment, but this production which was originally slated for cinemas is bound to be a huge hit amongst gamers and sci-fi fans alike.

Netflix, meanwhile, premieres the second season of its award-winning political drama House of Cards on February 14. Slimy Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), is now vice president, but remains as vicious as ever.

Another to look out for is Mob City, starting on the Fox channel on January 17. Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont returns to TV for a gritty crime series based on real-life accounts of Los Angeles mob wars in the 1940s. Judging by the trailers, it looks gorgeously grimy.

Real life characters are clearly the mode with producers on both sides of the pond right now. I'm looking forward to seeing Shameless star David Threlfall play legendary funnyman Tommy Cooper in a film for ITV called Not Like That, Like This.

It focuses on the dilemma that the much-loved comedian faced when he fell in love with his assistant and embarked upon a relationship that would last 17 years behind his wife's back.

Then there's A Poet In New York, starring Tom Hollander as Dylan Thomas. This BBC Two show explores how the Welsh writer wound up dead in 1953, aged only 39, while on his way to Hollywood to write an opera.

Sky Atlantic's big new year offering is Fleming, a four-part drama starring Dominic Cooper as the James Bond author, based on his pre-007 days as a naval officer.

People say the secret agent was based largely on Fleming's own wartime experiences, so expect a very Bond-like adventure full of womanising, espionage . . . and drinking to excess.

There is a flipside to all this grit and glamour, though. This weekend sees the return of the dreaded Dancing On Ice, the most irritating reality show on television.

Actually, the pill's not quite as bitter this time, because it's the last ever series. Light at the end of the tunnel.

This, remember, is the programme which forces Z-listers who can't skate to humiliate themselves at three-mph each week. Then, when it's narrowed down to a couple who are actually half decent, it turns them into Peter Pan, flying above the ice rather than dancing on it. Go figure that one out.

To be fair, it's not half as ludicrous as those TV commercials for computer games over Christmas, which have been illustrating their wares by featuring "not actual game footage".

Where's the trades description department when you need it? Imagine a trailer for a movie, or a sitcom, which pulled together hilarious footage which was bookended by the announcement "Sorry, none of this actually features in the show".

Is it me, or has the world gone mad?