Channel 4 is celebrating its 25th anniversary, having been launched in November 1982. The channel's remit was always to produce innovative and distinctive programmes. Channel 4 at 25 (Channel 4) surveyed its history and suggested how much it has fulfilled that remit.

The programme started by asserting that C4 has been "inspiring, sometimes infuriating, but never dull". This is debatable, given that programmes like Deal or No Deal and Richard & Judy are duller than ditchwater. Yet Channel 4 has certainly been innovative: commissioning new films from the likes of Derek Jarman and Hanif Kureishi; introducing the Red Light Zone of adult films; and fostering the careers of many comedians including Ben Elton and Harry Enfield with shows like Saturday Live. Unfortunately it also fostered the careers of undeserving people like Jonathan Ross, Julian Clary and Chris Evans.

Channel 4 was originally financed by advertising revenue from ITV but, when it had to raise its own finance, it started to introduce populist shows about property, cooking and makeovers. It also encouraged the rise of 'reality TV' with series like Faking It, Wife Swap and - worst of all - Big Brother. At its best, the channel aroused healthy controversy but Brass Eye was unpleasantly controversial, while The Word (with the dreaded Terry Christian) was often tasteless.

Channel 4 at 25 reminded us of these failures but also recalled the channel's numerous successes: Father Ted, Rory Bremner, Drop the Dead Donkey, Channel 4 News, worthy documentaries under the banner of Dispatches and Unreported World, and numerous US imports - from such comedies as Ally McBeal, Sex and the City and My Name is Earl to watchable dramas like Desperate Housewives and (my favourite) Six Feet Under. It also screened some adventurous home-grown dramas, like The Deal, GBH (pictured), A Very British Coup, and last week's Britz.

How do this week's TV dramas measure up? Joe's Palace (BBC1) was a loudly-trumpeted film written and directed by the overrated Stephen Poliakoff. Like last year's Friends and Crocodiles and Gideon's Daughter, it was a pretentious bore. The characters behaved with stilted unreality and spoke in dialogue that was equally unbelievable (sample sentences included "I always wanted a wombat" and "That I shall do"). The story had no cohesion and its denouement bore little relation to what had gone before. Admirers of Poliakoff might call it enigmatic and intriguing: I call it pompous and pointless.

A Room With a View (ITV1) was much more satisfying, with a well-told story about a naïve young girl's developing awareness. Remembering the very successful 1985 Merchant Ivory film of E.M.Forster's novel, one might well ask, as the Radio Times did: "Why another adaptation? And why now?" The producer claimed that she wanted to make more of the class distinctions in the novel, and the class element was well stressed. The adaptation was by the ubiquitous Andrew Davies, who kept the spirit of the novel despite unnecessarily changing its ending. The acting was first-class, particularly from Elaine Cassidy as the innocent Lucy, and father and son Timothy and Rafe Spall as the bluff Mr Emerson and his son George. The film was gorgeous to look at, with breathtaking Italian scenery. The only reservation was my usual grouse about the use of anachronistic phrases in the dialogue, like the modern "What?" which Lucy addresses to George when she is wondering what he is thinking.

The Street (BBC1) returned last night for a second series of gritty northern dramas, devised (but not written this time) by Jimmy McGovern. You can tell it's a gritty northern drama because people are generally nasty to each other (defying the image of northerners as friendly, sociable people). I only understood the plot after reading the summary in the Radio Times and even then it defied belief. It concerned a man who adopts the personality of his dead twin brother and is only gradually recognised as an imposter by his wife and mother. It wasn't up my street.