I’m very pleased to report that this Easter, the Beeb are treating us to a host of new reality shows, with not one, but three brand new series beginning across the BBC channels in early March.

Murder Most Famous will be showing on BBC Two throughout the week of 3-7th March, and will feature six celebrities including Brendan Cole, Coronation Street’s Sherrie Hewson and Angela Griffin (Waterloo Road) who will be tasked with learning and following real-life murder investigation procedures and then writing a crime novel based on their experiences.

They will train with the police on subjects including firearms and pathology and they will also meet real-life criminals and victims to ensure their characters are true-to-life. Working under the watchful eye of successful crime novelist Minette Walters, the celebrities will need to complete tasks and show promise in their writing from show to show, as Minette will be “bumping off” one celebrity each day. The finalists will have their works judged by literary experts and the winner will publish a novel in 2009 for the PanMacmillan Quick Reads series.

I’m really excited about this show – it promises to combine a celebrity reality format with grisly police work and creative writing – what more could we ask for? Shame this has been relegated to a daytime slot, but hopefully the Beeb will see sense and take it prime time!

Recipe For Success will be running during the same week in the 5.15pm-6.00pm slot on BBC Two. Very much in the style of The Restaurant/Last Restaurant Standing, Simon Rimmer (the award-winning chef and restaurateur) will be giving couples the opportunity to spend a day running their own restaurant with the opportunity to win up to £5,000 if they beat the other four couples competing during the week.

The couples will be provided with a restaurant, staff, diners and supplies, and they will need to flex their creative muscles in creating a lunch and dinner menu. At the end of their meal, the diners will rate the meal by deciding how much they want to pay for their meal - £25, £10 or nothing at all!

I think this is going to be really good fun – these couples will have to go from a standing start to running a packed restaurant in just one day! Knowing that us Brits are pretty tight when it comes to money, I can see these poor contestants getting a real hard time from their customers so that they can justify not paying anything, but it all makes for excellent television in my book.

Upstaged is a new BBC Three show, which begins on Monday 10th March. Presented by Radio 1’s Scott Mills, contestants have been auditioning online for the opportunity to appear on the show, and the online community has been voting for their favourite artists. The chosen contenders will perform their act on two specially built stages in Bristol’s Millennium Square, and will go head-to-head in a 6-hour show (blimey!) after which the audience will vote for a winner. The winner will stay on for the next round, and a new set of contenders will come on for the next performance to try and “upstage” them. The ultimate winners will be crowned on 30th March, although it’s currently unclear exactly what they will win.

I’m not entirely sure what I think of this – on the one hand it could be great news for new talented acts to gain some exposure, but I also feel like the Beeb are getting a little lazy with our licence fee. I think the user-generated content/social-networking TV “revolution” is a bit of a cheap trick designed to do us out of well-written programmes, however I’m also aware that as a sworn America’s Next Top Model devotee, I’m inhabiting a glass house, so I’ll keep my stones in my pocket for now, and see whether Scott Mills can convince me otherwise.