If It Ain't Broke, Update It: The Secret Twin Motto Of Microsoft and ITV

In retrospect it was inevitable after the success of Doctor Who that ITV would realise the potential of ressurecting popular shows that were axed long ago. And so, The Krypton Factor is back. I notice disapprovingly that the show has been entirely ITVed.

It's not all bad by any means. They've kept the green K that morphs into symbols for the rounds, albeit in a more modern incarnation. (The change is probably for the best given that today's new generation of nerds would look at the old logo and say, 'I never knew they made a game show out of Slashdot.') The new set is very impressive, too, if about four sizes too large. They've even kept a couple of smaller touches from the old series, such as the links between questions in the general knowledge round.

They've changed the scoring system slightly. In the old days they'd generally tiebreak the rounds based on some secondary factor, usually time, and give out 10, 6, 4 and 2 points come hell or high water. That wasn't ideal, since a photo-finish could result in an 8-point gap, so the new series doesn't do that, and (learning nothing from Strictlygate II) allocates 10, 6, 4 and 4 in the event of a tie for third place. Potentially, this means you could lose an extra 10 points on the other players just because they happen to tie. I think you'd then have legitimate grounds to feel hard done by. What would be wrong with splitting the total points (i.e., 10, 6, 3, 3 in a tie for third) I don't know. More generally, why TV producers are so repeatedly incapable of inventing scoring systems that work is something of a mystery.

Other changes are more unambiguously bad. The show is now hosted by Ben Shephard, a basically okay but woefully generic presenter who ITV and the BBC seem to drag out whenever a show is so unremarkable that Nick Knowles refuses to do it (this despite Gordon Burns working within walking distance of the studios). The Mental Agility round now takes place in something called The Cube, an idea presumably taken from Families At War. This is a flimsy plastic hut in which questions are delivered by a mechanical female voice, but not until Shephard has "Activated" the Cube. There is also a heart-rate monitor in there for no adequately explored reason. As is TV practice, the heart-rate monitor's output is shown as an graphic designed to look like an ECG trace by someone who clearly knows less about ECG traces than can be easily derived from watching Casualty. The Observation round in the first new episode featured a clip from Emmerdale. The theme music has been replaced with that tune that ITV always use for theme music on game shows. The series winner will be the "Champion" and not the "Superperson". The assault course seems to be much longer and has been totally redesigned in such a way that only two contestants can run it at once and it's in a forest so you can rarely see them both at the same time. The second race is shown interspersed with the first, but delayed, so you're left with utterly no idea what the hell is going on until the times are shown at the end. The order the players are shown crossing the line is certainly not a clue. All it needs now is a phone-in competition.

I also noticed that the show didn't have any flight simulators in it. The Response round had been totally removed. You can't do that! That's like an episode of Jonathan Creek without a mystery: you might watch the show and enjoy it if you didn't know anything was missing, but when you know what is supposed to be there it feels like you're being short-changed. Especially since one would hope that flight simulators would, by now, be better and cheaper to use. Possibly there were fears of terrorists appearing on the show to get practice at flying planes into buildings.

It's as though ITV actively want to make shit television. They've bought a successful show with a sizable following and set about systematically changing things that didn't need changing. I'd chalk it up to plain old incompetence -- after all, few shows from a decade and a half ago could be shown now without seeming preposterously dated -- but let's not forget they did the same thing to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? after no break at all. Hell, it was probably ITV's meddling that killed The Krypton Factor in the first place.

Seriously, ITV, why must you always break everything?

BBC Three To Make Doctor Who Confidential Anyway

According to Chortle, ITV have commissioned a second series of Moving Wallpaper... but not Echo Beach.

Which is fair enough, given that Echo Beach was total shit, but it really was all that made Moving Wallpaper different from every other behind-the-scenes sitcom.

I take this to mean that the whole ridiculous venture was probably a mistake.

3DTV

From the recent media coverage, I am forced to assume that I am the only person in the country who wasn't sent a preview tape of ITV's new impressions show, Headcases. As such, I had to watch it on my actual television, on the actual day it was on (although I was still allowed to skip the adverts).

Because you don't actually see the impressionists, this show is being compared to Spitting Image and 2DTV. ITV have said that the clever CGI methods used allow them to make new sketches very close to broadcast if need be (although this week it appears they chose not to). I'm not certain what it is about pointing a camera at Rory Bremner which makes this impossible but apparently he is a very busy man. To be honest, I don't see how it makes the slightest bit of difference if the show is live-action, CGI, animated, latex puppets, stop-motion, marionettes, sock-puppets, or shot with crap cameras in the dark so we can't see who's who, like that ridiculous impressions show a few years ago that used the Barenaked Ladies' Humour Of The Situation for its title music, this being the best part of the show.

I did quite like Headcases. I laughed in a few places. I liked the political stuff best, because I follow politics more than gossip and because I think there's a richer vein of humour there -- plus the opportunity to make a point (which Headcases did exactly once, possibly by accident). That said, the fact that David Cameron had essentially the same character device as princes William and Harry did mean that about half the show was given over to just one gag. I was impressed by the credits. The show had two pages of performers and one of writers, and most of the names I associate more with the BBC and Channel 4 than with ITV. One or two I associate with BBC Four. That's unnerving. It's the sort of thing that just cannot happen. It's like finding out Alan Titchmarsh has written raunchy novels, or seeing the Prime Minister on Football Focus, or something.

It was a fun diversion, and it got the tone about right. But I don't think it had clever enough writing to make me want to watch it every week. The risk with impression shows is that the writers develop their characters into something quite other than the person they're based on, and then they become just regular dodgy sketch shows. I'm not sure Headcases didn't do that before it started. I guess the test will be how well it manages to stay current and interesting in the coming weeks. (You know, because David And Victoria In America and Northern Rock Has No Money! are bost such up-to-date stories.)

It's The (American) GLAAAAADIAAATORRS!

The news today that The Gladiators is to return to our screens (albeit on Sky One), made my inner-child positively jump around like back when I was 7 years old and my mother had given me too much Um Bongo. If any show has been calling for a revival back to it's Saturday Night slot, it's the cheesefest that is The Gladiators. Thankfully NBC thought the exact same thing I did, although it may have to do with them scraping together any old crap they can make quickly; seeing as how all their actual television shows have ground to a halt due to the writers' strike. But one man's loss or another man's gain, and whilst some poor sap is mourning the loss of a season of 24, I'm experiencing the delight that is American Gladiators.

See, American Gladiators is quite possibly the the craziest show to be put on TV in a long while. It's exactly what you'd expect The Gladiators to be if it were: American, made in 2007, and targeted at teenage boys. Yet somehow it manages to give you so many "WTF!?" moments that make you laugh out loud, even if that wasn't the intention.

So let's compare the old-school 90's Gladiators from the era when ITV on a Saturday night was brilliant, with the new American Gladiators from an era when the kids that are watching can't stay still for more than 3 seconds. It's still the same format, play games, win points, gain seconds, do Eliminator. It's still the visual feast it's always been, only the new version whacks it up about 10 notches. Even in just the intro you have the logo spinning round, exploding, coming back, spinning some more, jumping from side to side, breaking apart, coming back together, staying still for about half a second, then exploding into your face once more. As this time we get to hear the first delights from the commentator who takes it all seriously, like he's bet his house and his family on one of the contestants to win.

Then there's the differences, instead of John Fashanu and Gladiator shag-piece Ulrika, it's hosted by Hulk Hogan. Yes, they thought it'd be a good idea to give an aging old man hosting duties. And yes, he still does that hand to the ear thing and says the word brother in every 3rd sentence. There's the wealth of new Gladiators, all angry, glistening and full of attitude, at one point in a game, a contestant is hanging on for dear life, so the Gladiator does the only plausible thing - kicks her in the face so she falls off. Of course.

The oddest difference to the British version of old is that, for some unexplained reason, most of the events take place above a huge pool of water. Get hit off in The Duel, down in the water you go. Get pulled off The Wall, better hope you can swim, cause it's nothing but pool for you. I was hoping for some kind of morbid twist to mixed in with the whole water gimmick, perhaps the contestants have heavy weights tied to their ankles, so they know that if they fail that there'll be a fight for survival. Or perhaps a shark... and a crocodile... and a bear with snorkeling gear, so they get ripped to shreds when they lose a game. Unfortunately, the only morbid twist is during The Eliminator round, for some reason, again not entirely explained, the pool is set aflame, so the contestants not only have to swim through the water, but they also have to make sure they don't catch fire.... whilst underwater... I'm not sure the makers of this show thought that deadly obstacle through...

The best water related piece in the whole show is the round called Assault. Now this isn't in the British version so let me explain it. The contestant runs from weapon to weapon, each getting more powerful than the one before, in the hope that they can use these weapons to fire Nerf balls at a big circle. But up top is a Gladiator, who also has a big Nerf gun, who is trying to shoot the contestant below with his Nerf balls. Yes, this round is actually sponsored by Nerf. So far so Gladiators, but what's odd is when the big circle target is hit, and the Gladiator i one final inexplicable moment, gets fire from the stage to the other side of the arena, and they end up in the pool. Just because you're as far away from the pool as you could possibly be, doesn't mean you're safe from a soaking. Seeing a 6 ft, 200lb bodybuilder scream whilst airborne and then get dunked in water is the funniest sight you'll see in a long time.

This is the kind of show that's so bad it's good, which gives me high hopes for the Sky One version that is imminent. If it keeps the cheesy nature and the incredible music of the original whilst borrowing a little of the exploding typography and general anarchy from the American version, this could send Sky subscriptions through the roof.

But if they don't bring John Anderson as the referee, there's gonna be hell to pay. I know where you live, Sky One.

Is it "Good Luck Getting Through"?

In March, after a little less than a year (the service rather tellingly having launched on April Fools' Day), ITV shut down the ITV Play channel, principally because they'd been forced by a sudden and unusual upsurge in national levels of common sense to close all their premium-rate phone lines. This included the ITV Play that comes on at night when ITV have nothing else to show (and, presumably, didn't think anyone up that late would be able to pay enough attention to enjoy a repeat of A Touch Of Frost).

The ‘participation TV’ genre is growing fast and ITV Play will lead the market with higher quality programmes, higher production values and higher and more regular prizes.

So I was rather surprised last night when I switched over after Screenwipe to find a ridiculously cheerful woman soliciting calls from people who knew phrases that start in "good". It looked, as far as I could tell, to be exactly the same as the old-style ITV Play that was so universally condemned, but with one subtle change: every so often, the presenter would remind viewers to set themselves a limit on how many times they were going to play today, and to play within their budgets. She never said you had to be over 18, though.

I didn't watch enough to say for sure if the questions have improved -- though to be honest you could make them as easy as you like and the morons who phoned in and guessed "good likeness" and "good -ie two shoes" still would have been £1.50 of pure profit. Possibly, ITV have put in easy questions so the regulators won't complain and then preyed on viewers who think they've got wise to ITV's game and have started avoiding the obvious answers and guessing "balaclava" to every question instead.

I'm amazed they still get away with this, not least because it has pre-recorded applause and cheers played over it apparently at random, which surely counts as Nasty TV Fakery? Well, apparently, they don't. The show seemed to be taking callers rather less frequently than one might hope -- the presenter managed to go into quite some detail about exactly what she might buy if she won £1,500 on ITV Play that evening. The ideas kept coming -- considering she must have just been ad-libbing for an unspecified time, probably all night, and it was gone 2AM I was actually impressed with her. Except her credibility, obviously, which was in tatters because she was on ITV Play. I usually assume with these things that they charge all the callers and let maybe one in a hundred of them onto the air to have a shot at winning (which they won't, because "good rawlplugs" isn't what you'd call a common phrase), which of course is exactly what they did. But then they "went turbo", which meant they take "more calls than usual". Still nobody got through.

So either they're still running a phone-in competition that's essentially rigged, or else nobody very much phoned in. Which is it? Well, here's ITV's Strategy Update on the subject, published about month ago:

ITV Play’s Call TV programming will be phased out by the end of this year as negative publicity following compliance problems across the sector has seen call volumes drop to uneconomic levels.

So, to sum up, they're running an unpopular feature that's not making them any money. So why are they doing it? Why phase it out? Why not just stop?

Ask The (Dwindling) Audience

According to The Sun (four words that form an inauspicious start to any blog entry,) the idiot bosses of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? are creating a spin-off quiz show based on - get this - the show's '50:50' lifeline. In the show, contestants will be presented with four answers to a question, and will have to pick the two most obviously wrong ones while claiming it to be a random choice. No, only joking. In fact, according to what "an insider" told the "newspaper":

“The couples will be asked a question and then given an answer.

“They can either accept that answer or gamble on another one.

“It’s quite a tense game as the first answer will often sound like the right one.”

Now, this all sounds like a relatively sensible idea, were it not for the facts that a) there's already been a game show called 50:50; and b) the precise format of the suggested show has already been done. Now, to be fair to them, Take It or Leave It is on a relatively obscure channel (Challenge on Sky Digital and maybe Virgin Media or something) and it's possible that 2waytraffic have simply bought the rights to the format. Or already own the format and in fact produced Take It or Leave It and are simply retitling it and flogging it to ITV. (Don't think I've researched this blog.)

Anyway, since it may be heading to an inferior mainstream channel near you sometime, maybe I should explain a bit about the show. Take It or Leave It is a show themed around the idea of deciding between taking what is on offer or rejecting it in favour of an unseen alternative (I know! I had that idea in 2002. It's so obvious!) and more importantly, shoehorning in the question "do you want to take it... or leave it?" as many times as humanly possible. So to begin with, one of the competing couples (couples - how quiantly early-nineties) sees a little video of another couple, and decide whether to take them as their opponents or leave them for an unseen couple. The main section of the game is incredibly dull, and takes ages to explain, but suffice to say it boils down to a true or false quiz and some Deal or No Deal-ey guessing. At the end of it, one couple wins, and goes through to the final round to play for the money they accumulated in the main game - likely ten grand or so.

The final, thankfully, is very clever and quite fun to watch (so if you see the show in the listings - it lasts an hour - only watch it for the last twenty minutes or so). The couple see five questions, each of which comes with a suggested answer, which they either take if they beleive it to be correct, or leave it in favour of the alternative answer which they haven't seen. Now, when this happens in the main game they're then told whether their answer is correct straight away, so all this taking-or-leaving business is just dressing up a true or false question. But here it works a bit differently. They answer the five questions without being told which (if any) are correct. Six safes are presented, one of which contains the prize. The contestants can guess at a safe, or else try to eliminate empty safes with their questions. The five questions are randomly re-ordered, under the condition that the questions that were answered correctly come first, followed by the ones they got wrong. After being presented with each question, they can decide whether to play the question with the answer they came up with, or stop and guess a safe. Playing a correctly-answered question removes an empty safe; playing an incorrectly-answered one ends the game and the prize is forfeit. So if you're confident of a question that hasn't come up yet, you can breeze through all the ones that come up before it, since you must still be on the questions you got right. But if you get right to the end, and the last question you're not quite sure of, it gets trickier. Do you take the 50:50 chance on the questions, or on the two safes remaining? You probably reckon you're more than 50% sure your answer is right. But what would have been the odds you got all five correct, and then they happened to put the slightly dodgy one last? It's all good tense fun.

So, if this show does come to ITV, what do you think they'll do? Come up with a better main game to bring it up to the standard of the final? Or just make the whole thing a sub-Deal guessing game with a few true-or-false questions? If you answer after lines have closed, your entry will not be counted but you will still be charged.

Can I Poke a Friend on Facebook, Chris?

A new series of blog favourite Deal or No Deal started on Monday. (I use the phrase 'blog favourite' only to annoy everyone else who contributes to this blog.) I found it slightly disturbing watching it really. You see, I occasionally have dreams where I'm watching TV shows, and these shows are invariably different in subtle, slightly freaky ways. These are really astonishingly mundane dreams, but that's not the point. The point is that Deal* has been made slightly different in largely the same way. These are not changes what would concern any normal person - the set is slightly new, the opening credits are a bit different, some new incidental music, and the phone-in competition has been changed to appease ICSTIS (see How Dare You Mislead The Very Stupid? below) - but they concern me. Why can't everything just stay exactly the same?

In a move desired to drive lovers of routine and of slightly tired game show formats to nervous breakdowns, the same has been done to ITV1's premiere quizzer Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, only, this being ITV1, they've done it to a much less forgiveable degree. When Millionaire* returns on Saturday (with a special celebrity edition of course; this is ITV1) some changes will be afoot. Most notably, contestants will only have to answer 12 questions to win the prize. Cleverly, this has been accomplished by removing the first three questions that are pathetically easy anyway, so that the first question is now worth £500. Hopefully, this has been done with an eye to getting through more contestants and more interesting questions, but a more worrying and likely scenario is that it is so the show can be padded out with more crap like the 'text game' that has blighted recent series.

Not content with this change, the middle rungs of the money ladder have also been messed with. instead of the pleasingly mathematical-looking £4k-£8k-£16k-£32k-£64k-£125k-£250k-£500k-£1m, it will apparently proceed: £5k-£10k-£20k-£50k-£75k-£150k-£250k-£500k-£1m. While I can see some kind of logic in switching things around to put a smaller increase after the last milestone (now £50k) where there's no effective risk anyway, this clearly is just change for change's sake. It's wrong. I'm personally too old to be said to have grown up with Millionaire, but I assume kids today are born with an innate knowledge of the rules of the show in the same way I was with The Crystal Maze or Family Fortunes. I'm sure ITV1 will say they're trying to 'refresh the format' and 'shake things up', and the falling viewing figures may seem to justify this. That's all well and good with The X Factor. But there's a higher responsibility here. ITV are messing with our culture! (More specifically, 2waytraffic are, having recently bought the rights to the format from creators Celador. Just so you know who to write in to.) I frankly don't care if their viewing figures fall to three people and their pets. This sort of fiddling isn't going to help. Neither is finding contestants by audition as is now going to happen - it would take an entire new rant to cover what's wrong with that.

So stop it, ITV. Stop being useless. Please.


*Why anyone uses abbreviations like DoND and WWTBAM is beyond me. Look how stylish I look referring to Deal and Millionaire like that. Lovely.

Frost Among Equals

Some time ago I noticed a bit of a pattern emerging in ITV's programming and since I've just found a new programme which follows it roughly to the letter, I think it's well worth spelling it out for anyone who hasn't yet noticed. Here's how it works:

1. Find a famous actor. Ideally one known mostly for one or two really iconic roles.
2. Put them in a slightly over-long detective show.
3. Surround them by minor characters too stupid to solve even the simplest cases on their own.
4. Give it a name slightly more pretentious that the last one.
5. Tell no-one.
   

So this started, as far as I'm aware, with David Jason (whose big iconic role, of course, was the parrot in Victor And Hugo) in A Touch Of Frost, which ITV now use mostly to plaster over cracks in their scheduling. Next, possibly skipping over a dozen or so that I never heard about or watched, comes Robson Green (whose iconic role was playing Robson in Robson And Jerome) in Touching Evil, then Jericho starring Robert Lindsay, and that was followed up by Eleventh Hour starring Patrick Stewart.

And now Robson Green is back, in Wire In The Blood which Wikipedia tells me has run since 2002 but apparently nobody bothered to tell me, thus robbing me of the opportunity to tire of it aged 19 instead of tiring of it aged 24 when Heroes appeared and took over its slot, but equally granting me the chance to learn the word "nocebo" about a week earlier than I otherwise would have.

I can only presume that there are loads more of these programmes out there. I'd never heard of Touching Evil until now and had Wire In The Blood run for three or fewer series I'd never have heard of that either. I can only assume that while ITV are happy to advertise Coronation Street, a show which everyone in the world knows exists and must by now either watch or be bored of (or both), they don't like to advertise their slightly over-long detective shows featuring respected actors (or Robson Green). Which seems odd to me, because they're about the only thing ITV can do passably well. (That said, if they will insist on showing it opposite Heroes, advertising it would probably be a lot like throwing money down a big hole.)

What's On This Week - 2nd to 8th July

After a week in which many of the must-watch or even just slightly interesting shows of mine ended; the finishing on a rubbish note Doctor Who, the surprisingly excellent Talk To Me and the not that interesting yet still oddly unmissable Seven Ages Of Rock all coming to mind, the next week of TV brings a mix of some interesting, if not essential, shows, yet another massive concert that will destroy more of the environment than it’ll save, and most importantly, the return of a simply superb comedy. Time to grab the Radio Times and see what is worth watching this week.

Wimbledon continues to take a huge bite out of the BBC for the second, and luckily final week ending on Sunday and being annoying until then. Big Brother does the same for Channel 4 and E4 but unfortunately does not terminate on the same day, unless it’s dire ratings become even worse. The Saving Planet Earth series takes a smaller bite with it’s half hour shows every day till Friday, in which a celebrity of some kind makes some noise about an endangered animal; coupled with a marathon live show which lasts pretty much all evening on Friday (think Children In Need without Terry Wogan getting paid) hosted by Alan Titchmarsh and Graham Norton (the new Ant ‘n’ Dec) where they’ll be presenting music from such animal activists as Natasha Bedingfield and Avril Lavigne. Let’s hope Avril’s singing will distract at least one hunter enough so a tiger can avoid being skinned or mounted and go on to live a happy life killing deer, cause that’s the only way I can think that Miss Lavigne constantly singing “Hey” and “You” as well as a bit of “I don’t like your girlfriend” will help the environment, but what do I know, Keane will be personally stopping the polar ice caps from melting on Saturday.

Monday brings nothing of interest unless you like repeats. Eastenders looks to have a powerhouse of an episode in which “Peggy lays on a spread to entice punters through the door at the grand re-opening of the Queen Vic”. If this was Carry On Barbara Windsor then that storyline would be ripe for some innuendo-filled shenanigans, but as it is, Eastenders Barbara Windsor is probably just doing some food, in which case the episode is probably gonna be a bore-fest. Shrink Wrap on Channel 4 continues the theory that you can’t just have a normal talk-show anymore, this one has Pamela Connolly (nee Stephenson) put her Psychology degree to use and front a show that plans to get deep into the mind of their guest… Sharon Osbourne. Coupled with 24 Hours with…, me thinks chat shows are getting too deep now, I just wanna hear Peter Kay tell a funny story and something about his past, not whether the psychological pains of growing up in Bolton mentally scarred him for life. On the digitals, we’ve got a new episode of the terrible Touch Me, I’m Karen Taylor and a new series of Britain’s Next Top Model on Living, if you want to look at some marginally attractive skinny women.

The One To Watch: Crimewatch – Purely cause you might win some money if your mate flashes up on the screen robbing a house.

The only thing that really matters on Tuesday is the return of The Thick Of It, an absolutely brilliant comedy on BBC Four, back for a one hour special. I’m not gonna say much, just watch it. There’s literally nothing else of interest on. Lenny’s Britain is alright but is on at 9, so clashes with The Thick Of It, but it’s worth a record I suppose, he’s not as funny as he used to be. Two new Family Guy episodes show up on BBC Three if you haven’t downloaded them already. A documentary on Jack The Ripper gets an extremely odd presenter in the form of Vic Reeves on Sky One whilst BBC 2 hosts Paris, a documentary about the city, not the whore.

The One To Watch: The Thick Of It – Not only cause it’s brilliant, but there’s also nothing else on.

BBC 2 continues it’s rush to get Rome over and done with before the ratings slide too much, with this Wednesday being 3 weeks since it started and already halfway through. Shame really, it’s actually pretty good. BBC One has both The Real Cherie Blair (we’re all dying to know the real gurning witch with shit hair, aren’t we?) and also the final Imagine…, which details was Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett of Gorillaz fame did next. It involves China, opera, and the classic TV show Monkey. BBC Three shows Tomb Raider for the second time this week for some reason. E4 has Runaway and Living has Boston Legal, two American imports I’ve planned to give time to but never have, so are going to be my nights watching.

The One To Watch: Marcus Brigstoke’s Trophy People – Cause he’s usually pretty funny… even with Trevor McDonald.

Something big happens on Eastenders on Thursday, hopefully without a spread. I don’t know exactly what, I stopped caring a quarter of the way through the synopsis, but it got to be one of Today’s Choices in the Radio Times so it must be big. Straight after is The Big Day, which I’m only watching because my mum is in it, and I’ll be killed If I miss it. Holiday Showdown Extreme sounds fun to me because it conjures up a mental image of a family from Stoke running down a sunny beach in Majorca wielding Samurai swords, but the actual show will probably be a lot more sedate. Elsewhere, Scrubs will be nice if it hasn’t been on your hard drive for months, E4 really are terrible at bringing Scrubs overseas at any sort of quick speed, this episode two days shy of being 7 months late. Still, it’s a cracker, and ends even more lovey-dovey than usual for an episode of Scrubs.

The One To Watch: The Hampton Court Palace Flower Show – Seriously, can you get any more gripping than finding out how they change a garden pond into an aquatic paradise?! Yes, yes you can, on Five at the same time in fact, House is on.

Friday will mark a departure to the usual Friday night watching schedule for me; Paula Abdul is on The Friday Night Project. A horrible show, but that Paula Abdul likes a drink, especially before she does something that people will actually watch. See here for what I mean. Apart from that, there’s the usual Big Brother dominance on Channel 4 and the aforementioned Saving Planet Earth-athon on BBC One, with a Doctor Who repeat on BBC Three for those who are still confused as I am about the whole blandness of the finale. Also on the digitals is America’s got Talent, some more Glastonbury on BBC Four, and very little else.

The One to Watch: Inside… Spontaneous Human Combustion – Sky One really do know how to make the most serious of documentaries.

The second huge televised concert in a row takes over most of Saturday, with Live Earth starting at 5 and ending at 4am altogether, showing bits from around the world, along with the usual VT every 15 minutes on how to save the earth by taking out your charger from the plug socket, turning off your lights and not kicking endangered birds with a big leather boot when you see them. That takes over BBC One and 2 (also HD), Three and Four pretty much relegated to showing repeats. Channel 4 gives up without much of a fight for the ratings by showing the 100 Greatest War films, ITV puts up a bit of a fight with Harry Potter stuff, and a new series in which the public battle to become Lyric Champion 2007 or something odd like that, the kind of show that makes you want to become a TV show pitcher, if this really is the best idea the professionals can think of.

The One to Watch: Al Gore and His Ego – Not a programme, but just watch his smugness level rise every time he comes on stage at Live Earth; I predict a crown on his head made of recycled cans by 9pm, a velvet robe with energy-saving light bulbs spelling out “Al Gore Is The King Of the Earth” on his back by 10, and a throne that is pulled by actual penguins by the time of his final speech.

And to finish of the week with Sunday… nothing, absolutely nothing is worth particularly noteworthy. Repeats? Yet another episode of Rome? F1? Tour De France? Heartbeat? Anyone? Hello?

My Name's Peter Jones, and My Idea is to Create a Highly Derivative TV Show That Nobody Wants to Watch

Today, ITV1 have announced that their Apprentice rip-off Tycoon, starring business guru Peter Jones, is being relegated from its hour-long Tuesday evening slot to one more befitting its dismal ratings, late on Monday nights and cut down to half the length. This will make watching Jones close down the contestants' failing ventures deliciously ironic. Also gone is the programme that follows it, Tough Gig, in which comedians are put into unfamiliar situations and forced to perform stand-up routines. The one I saw, with Dara Ó Briain doing comedy for a group of real-life Fantasy Role-Players, was excellent (what I saw of it anyway; the reception went for a bit owing to the Great Rains) which is highly unusual for a show on ITV. Probably they've only got rid of this one because they need a ninety-minute slot free to fit in their emergency A Touch of Frost repeats, which I like to imagine are kept in a red wall-mounted case behind glass in the scheduling department at ITV headquarters, with a sign reading In Case Of Viewing Figures Emergency, Strike Glass Hard With Hammer. That hammer's been getting a lot of use lately.

If you especially care, you can watch Tycoon online at itv.com/tycoon.

Tycoon Tower

Congratulations to ITV. They've managed to rip off another TV show. First came Torchwood, then came Primeval. First came Deal or No Deal, then came For The Rest Of Your Life. First came The Apprentice, then came the wonderous Tycoon (Tuesday, 9pm).

Tycoon has been advertised all week as Dragon's Den meets The Apprentice. Multi-millionaire and self-made smug bastard Peter Jones has been kind enough to choose six people to start their own businesses. In fact, he's so generous, he's investing £10,000 in each of them! Brilliant! The only flaw is each one of their ideas for a brand new scheme or invention seems to exist already. I don't know if you agree with me. Let's go through the list shall we.

First we meet duo Kathy and Helen. They are a couple of girl gardeners (in other words, unemployed). Their entrepreneur-tastic idea is to make a bunch of gardening tools for girls. What would fall into this category then? How about pink wellies. These two girls are seriously suggesting selling pink wellies as an original idea. I've seen pink wellies. I'm pretty sure they exist already. But, they seem pretty confident that their idea will make millions. Next up on the list is Elizabeth who wants to invent a new Vodka Juice Drink aimed at girls. Her plan is to use fresh fruit juice like orange and pineapple. Again, I draw a blank. I had a night shift at a pub on Sunday, and I'm pretty sure I made a couple of vodka and oranges.

We finish with some model whose name I didn't catch because it kept showing us images of her in a bikini.

Out of the six teams, my favourite is Justin. He lives in "Worcester in Worcestershire", and has come up with the most brilliant invention. A plastic bag... that you put other plastic bags into! How original is that idea? It's so brilliant, my own Mother also came up with this idea about ten years ago, and now we can't put anything in the airing cupboard for all the plastic bags filled with other plastic bags crammed inside of it. Justin also claims to have invented recycling. Justin is brilliant.

Next we move onto fitness instructor Ian. He's invented, well... designed, the next future Boy's Toy. A remote-controlled helicopter! But it's not just a normal remote-controlled helicopter.. it's for indoors! Ian has essentially invented smashed vases. Kudos to Ian. It's still better than 17-year old Tom's idea to create a newspaper aimed at teenagers and schoolkids. Hate to break it to you Tom, but that's what The Sun is for. We finish with some model whose name I didn't catch because it kept showing us images of her in a bikini. She wants to invent hair extensions that you just clip onto your hair. Now I know this already exists. If it doesn't turn out that this show was actually filmed in 1998, I don't think I'll be impressed by anything that features in it at all.

Now, the show wasn't too bad. It was an enjoyable watch, and would be mocked on TV Burp if it was still on the air. The downsides to it involved a rather loud musical backdrop underneath each of the character's backstories. It really didn't work.

*Sounds of violins and drums and stuff*

"Yes, I want to design a remote controlled helicopter"

*Choir singing dramatically*

There's also the brilliant name of the building where all the Tycoons-in-waiting worked. "Tycoon Tower". It's such an exciting name. I'm also pretty sure that's where the Animaniacs lived.

After watching 55 minutes of these idiots dawdle around wondering why the public don't want to buy pink wellies, it came to the exciting climax: who would Peter give a further £20,000 to? Well, the answer would be Ian, the helicopter-crazed lunatic. After a while explaining why Ian deserved the money the most, Peter decided to have a word with Elizabeth; the woman who invented Vodka and Orange.

Now to have an exciting business-orientated show, you're going to need a gritty catchphrase. "You're Fired" was made famous by Alan Sugar. "I'm Out" was made famous by the Scottish one from Dragon's Den. What is Peter's gritty catchphrase? As he stood by Elizabeth on a pier, he had to give the sad news.

PETER
"I didn't think that two weeks ago, I'd be talking to somebody about.. pulling the plug on their business. I'm sorry."

ELIZABETH
"I'll do better!"

PETER
"Okay, I'll think about it."

And then when it showed you "Next Time on Tycoon", it showed Elizabeth happily sat at her desk designing labels for her stupid drink. Peter's catchphrase is essentially "You're about to be fired, oh wait, no you're not".

Well done ITV. Well done.

Britain’s Got Talent and the Relative Future of British Telly

So I thought I’d start off with a clever title, even though it has very little to do with the actual article I am about to portray, hell it probably doesn't even make any sense on its own. I just wanted to counter pretty much everything what has already been said about Britain’s Got Talent. I bloody loved it. I absolutely, positively, toe-tappingly loved it. And as good as Jekyll may or not be, Britain’s Got Talent is without a doubt the better of the two for Saturday night telly.

Saturday night telly is all about the silly, the wacky, and yes, occasionally, about a 9 year old flying about and uncontrollably smiling so much she’d probably been attacked with a botox needle the night before by her parents who saw their chance to be rich and famous. Think back to the greats: Brucie, Gladiators, even Doctor Who. At least they used to use their serious sparingly. Even then it’s either a salt shaker killing a tin robot or a muscle-bound lady getting smacked with a foam baton and breaking her neck on the floor below whilst a whole nation cheers and, deep down, hopes she can never walk again. Or maybe that’s just me...

Ant (left), Paul Potts (centre), Dec (right), Not Pictured - Bad teeth

Saturday nights in shouldn’t be about being immersed in a plot-rich drama. Whack that on a weekday and I’ll give it a watch. Saturday night is about laughing at someone make £250 for falling into a bin or aww-ing when a 6 year old goes on national TV and sings a lovely song, even though she is a bit shit, and being wowed by a man who apparently sold mobile phones for a living when he hits that note perfectly for the 8^th time this week. It’s what X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Pop Idol did perfectly. I’m just confused at why they spread it across a mere week when there was a Summer’s worth of Saturday night ratings wrapped up perfectly for them there.

Thanks to all of you, for the 4 minutes he sings, the Queen won’t be able to nod off and we’ll all have a cranky Queen.

So to end the rant abruptly, what did I think of Britain’s Got Talent? Well you already know I loved it, even though it had the depth of an empty child’s swimming pool. I honestly wanted the man and his monkey to win, purely because it’d probably send the Queen over the top and snap her out of the boredom coma she elapses into every night of the Royal Variety Performance. As good as watching a monkey dance to Earth Song again would be, seeing the Queen snap and grabbing a microphone to call her public “fucking morons” for putting this act on stage of the most prestigious of events whilst throwing chairs at the audience below in a fit of rage whilst denouncing the Monarchy and biting Camilla’s face off would… well it’d certainly stay on the Sky+ for a while. But no, we all decided to be sensible and put the good act on stage. Thanks to all of you, for the 4 minutes he sings, the Queen won’t be able to nod off because he’ll be so bloody loud and we’ll all have a cranky Queen. After the show, she’ll probably push a small child down some stairs at the end of the show. So I hope you now all realise that you’ll soon have a young girl’s cracked skull on your conscience.

Just once, please end the Royal Variety Performance like this.

So in summary: Jekyll, ace at any other time. But, if you air it against Tiswas Reunited, I think I'll pass.

Jekyll and Hyde on BBC, Heckling Jibes on ITV.

It's a pity, because I've heard nothing but bad things about Steven Moffat's latest drama, "Jekyll", which aired on Saturday night. This is possibly because nobody actually watched it and just assumed it was rubbish. I blame Anthony and Declan's latest "Who Can Sing or Juggle" reality show on the other side. Apparently, people aren't willing to give new dramas a chance. They'd rather be entertained by clapping non-entities and singing six-year olds. This said, there hasn't really been a decent BBC Drama since their "Only Human" series back in 1999 which nobody remembers.

This said, I decided to give both shows a chance. The new updated version of "Jekyll" starts James Nesbitt, the voice of the Yellow Pages, and is written by Steven Moffat. Moffat is responsible for twenty-eight brilliant episodes of Coupling, four fantastic episodes of Doctor Who and the more-than-silly Press Gang. He is a big fan of writing non-linear plot driven dramas. He also has a bloody sharp wit about him. This opening episode of his new drama is no different. We jump into the first episode with James Nesbitt already coping with his new life as two people, and he's oddly already used to it. He's got a family, Alan Johnson from Peep Show following him about, as well as two lesbians and a black van interested in his evil counterpart. And I've got to tell you: it was a bloody scary 55 minutes. If you've ever seen Moffat's Doctor Who episodes, you'll notice how brilliantly scary he can be without the need to kill anybody. Nowadays in Film and TV, the only way to scare somebody is to kill every third teenager who dares meddle with whoever the lead Psychopath is. Not true. Moffat's already succesfully given us scary gas mask children, clockwork androids and statues that only move when you blink; without even killing a single person! He successfully manages this brilliant formula to this new drama.

As mentioned in the script, this alter-ego is "a child in a man's body". Keep your dirty Gary Glitter jokes to yourself.

My favourite character is definately Nesbitt's interpretation of Hyde. It was a brilliant mix of Professor Snape and Jim Carrey's The Mask character. And, despite his violent streak, it's bloody adorable! As mentioned in the script, this alter-ego is "a child in a man's body". Keep your dirty Gary Glitter jokes to yourself.

So, on the BBC, we have great suspensful drama without the need to kill anybody. What have we got on ITV.

Oh.

"Britain's Got Talent."

Now, ITV haven't really had a successful Saturday night show since the days of You Bet. In fact, they've basically been screwed since the arrival of a certain Timelord on the other side of the airwaves. I will say this was entertaining. I'll also say that some of the talent displayed was particularly enjoyable. It's just... that infuriating Amanda Holden! It's always the same. She's a sucker for ugly people, old people and young children who think they can sing. She can't be a fair biased judge if her maternity instinct kicks in whenever there's a four-year old in the room. People always give Simon Cowell a hard time, but he always gives his brilliant opinion which is always fact. Then, people go on and rant "Oh yes, but Simon, you signed the Teletubbies to a record label! Ahahaha!". Yes, he did. But he made a truckload of money out of it. He makes smart decisions does Simon. He doesn't turn into a blubbering wreck of emotions like Amanda Holden.

Moving on, and we had.. oh.. a guy with a monkey. A miming monkey. What the jam-mastering hell is going on?

Still, I was able to catch the finalé in the pub last night. Little Miss Muffet who kept singing showtunes annoyed the blithering hair out of me. Was her speaking the lyrics to "I'm Getting Married in the Morning" whilst cockney-jumping around the stage a talent? There was also that little six year old girl who sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Which was... as good as her audition when she sang exactly the same song. That's not a talent, it's a party peice. Moving on, and we had.. oh.. a guy with a monkey. A miming monkey. What the jam-mastering hell is going on?

Still, we had a brilliant guy singing opera. He won, which was the only choice it could have been as he was the only person on the show displaying any sort of talent. Still, at the end of the day, this show is no different to Pop Factor or Any Show Will Do. Well, with the difference that people who can juggle bottles of vodka can apply to be on it. It annoys me that people would rather sit down and watch a bunch of nobodies sing rather than sit down and watch a good drama on the BBC.

Did I mention how brilliant Steven Moffat is? Okidokey.