Tasty treats mingle with terror on the telly

It looks like my TV is going to be the bearer of bad news in the next week - and I'm bound to love every minute of it!

First up at 8.30pm is the channel's new local three-part series, 'Line Of Fire', which takes viewers into the secretive world of the New Zealand Police Armed Offenders Squad. Most Kiwis will only see the Armed Offenders Squad at a distance or on TV - and will be thankful for that.

This series sees the untold stories behind some of the key moments in New Zealand's war on crime, as told by the elite police officers that don the black suits.

The first episode one looks at the 'Rules of Engagement'. The teething years for the AOS were never going to be simple; by definition they exist to confront people who have no respect for the law. With many quiet, ground-breaking successes, the early AOS were virtuosos in ingenuity, but still simply policemen, who at times felt tremendous fear.

Then at 9.30pm it'll be time for 'I Shouldn't Be Alive', which shows the death-defying ordeals of people who have kept themselves alive at the edge of human endurance. From a terrifying storm in one of the world's most dangerous seas to a helicopter crash in a volcano, this series relives their stories of survival against the odds.

Created by the producers of the fantastic film ‘Touching The Void', this show uses dramatic reconstructions of life or death scenarios, combined with testimony from survivors. Hee - I love it when they reconstruct the event with actors and generally everyone either looks really uncomfortable or waaaaay hams it up!

Anyway, the first episode shows the story of Melissa Armstrong when she landed what was thought to be the job of a lifetime - filming an underwater volcano in the Solomon Islands with David Tomlinson, a friend and experienced diver. Methinks thinks might go awry for Melissa...

Speaking of unmissable car crash TV, against all my better judgement (ie the man's an arse), I do love to watch Gordon Ramsay on the telly. So I'm delighted that on Tuesday a brand new season of Hell's Kitchen hits TV2.

The knives are out right from the start with 300 of the best chefs invited to Hell's Kitchen - but only 16 names are chosen to proceed in the competition.

Each week, the gastrophiles face the wrath of Gordon and his famous temper, as they battle to win $250,000 and the role of Head Chef at the Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City, a dream role for the aspiring cooks.

This year, there are varying degrees of experience amongst the budding chefs - included in the line-up is a 41-year-old cooking-school instructor, an executive chef and self-proclaimed redneck, and a food-court chicken fryer.

And as the promo peeps at TV2 tell me, the teams are divided into men and women, and as the battle of the sexes boils over in the kitchen, Chef Ramsay is far from impressed with the teams' effort during their inaugural dining service.