'90s video game TV show GamesMaster may return

For some reason, video games and television have never sat comfortably together. As the video game medium has grown from the status of a toy to that of a commercial and cultural behemoth, the number of television programmes about video games on British television has been static for a long time at, well, zero.

Attempts to bring gaming to television have been made from time to time, including the ill-fated Thumb Bandits, starring Iain Lee and The Guardian's Alex Krotoski, and something else which I think also had Alex Krotoski in it, and which was on at about three in the morning. But the only really successful video game show was GamesMaster.

Starring Dominic Diamond, GamesMaster was a bizarre, tongue-in-cheek magazine show containing reviews, competitions, and the astronomer Patrick Moore. It's difficult to know why GamesMaster succeeded where others failed, but the series starring the excellent but ill-cast Dexter Fletcher was rubbish, so it's likely Dominic Diamond's ironic, self-aggrandising stewardship played a role.

Anyway, it might be coming back, as part of GamesMaster the magazine's planned renaissance in 2010. Whether Diamond will be able to take time away from his busy career as a tabloid columnist and occasional talking head is unclear, but in any case if it's anything like the old show this could be good news.