The 1996 trilogy (billed at the time as the finale to the series) eschewed careful plotting in favour of a collection of set pieces (Rodney and Del as “Batman and Robin” being perhaps the most obvious example of this). That this format worked is probably attributable to the quality of jokes and the affection with which the public held the characters. Nonetheless, as entertaining as those three episodes were there was a sense that had Only Fools and Horses continued, a change back to the original format would have been required lest the series began to resemble too closely those sitcoms reliant on stunts for their big laughs (the fate which has befallen Last of the Summer Wine).

Unfortunately, after watching the 2001 Christmas special “If They Could See Us Now” the indications are that Sullivan has elected to stick with slapstick and stunts. The return of Only Fools and Horses is obviously “event” television, but to write each episode so consciously in the shadow of that which has gone before results in a parody of the original programme. It has been said that each of us knows a Del or a Rodney, or a Trigger or a Boycie. However, over the course of the years, Del and Rodney have grown less and less familiar as they have been placed into the middle of increasingly implausible adventures (perhaps the turning point here is “Miami Twice” – arguably the series first truly “non-realist” story). With this latest episode though, the characters have truly moved beyond the realms or realism and have been transformed into cartoon approximations of their old selves. In particular the treatment of the supporting cast (now wheeled out en masse) typifies the programme’s changed remit. It would seem that each episode must now include the roll call of Boycie, Marlene, Trigger, Denzil and Mickey in some shape or form, and that each must get at least one line, just so we can rejoice at their return.

“If They Could See Us Now” had enough of a brief to fulfil without being forced to accommodate an entire supporting cast as well. The deaths of Buster Merryfield and Kenneth MacDonald needed to be addressed and the notion of Del and Rodney as millionaires had to be perpetuated or unpicked. Wisely, Sullivan attempted to address all of these in as economic manner as possible – through exposition. As such the episode opened with Del and Rodney recounting the events of the past five years to their Brief. The desire to “do right” by the demised actors meant that we were told that Mike had been arrested whilst Uncle Albert we were told had died of natural causes. The comic vignette which then followed (the first significant one of the programme) set the level for the remainder of the episode.

Misdirection is a classic Sullivan trick and has resulted in many of Only Fools and Horsesfinest moments (the “chandelier scene” springs to mind from an early episode whilst that inappropriate “Batman and Robin” attire of Del and Rodney is a later example). Yet having the Trotters turn up at the wrong funeral was a predictable a turn of events. It was during this scene that Sullivan sought to re-invoke that other famed facet of the Trotter clan – family loyalty. Del’s angry response to what he took to be a criticism levelled at his Uncle Albert was designed to remind the viewer that Del is – at heart – a sentimentalist. However, for some reason it seemed fundamentally out of character. Had it truly been a stranger making disparaging remarks then Del’s actions would have been more understandable. However this was another member of Albert’s family (or so it appeared) – and someone who it seemed had known him just as well as the Trotters. Furthermore, it was not expressed in a tone of malice, more as a frank recollection of a deceased relative, and as such Del’s reaction was – at best – over the top, delivering a forced eulogy to those who had served in World War II. Thankfully little more was made of this as it soon after became apparent to the Trotters that they were at the wrong funeral. By this time most of the audience had already worked that out.

And so it careered on. Having successfully done away with Del and Rodney’s riches it was little surprise to find the family ensconced once again in Peckham. The remainder of the episode consisted then of two more set pieces, the first another go at provoking belly laughs by having Rodney dress up in a ridiculous costume (this time as Russell Crowe in Gladiator) and the second, Sullivan’s customary attempt at topicality – this time having Del participate in an edition of a faux Who Wants to be a Millionaire game show.

Damien’s “gangsta” talk and references to the internet were rather quaint attempts by the production team to make jokes at the expense of current popular obsessions. Such efforts have occurred regularly throughout the series’ history, and although never consistently successful, they have previously always remained relatively innocuous. Indeed one of the series’ most brilliant throwaway jokes (Del’s attempt to explain away the presence of a police helicopter to an escaped convict in “Friday 14th” as “it’s Barratts”) relied wholly on the audience’s familiarity with a then ubiquitous television advertising campaign. However, the parody of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was far more than a passing gag, taking up the final third of the episode.

As well as being somewhat out of date (The Weakest Link would seem to be a far more obvious target) the hastily constructed Jonathan Ross fronted game show looked utterly unrealistic. Television has a long and undistinguished history of spectacularly failing to create fictional television programmes within a programme, and so Only Fools and Horses was doing little more than adhering to a long time TV tradition. However, special mention must be made to both Jonathan Ross (who was in fact more convincing here as game show host than he ever is on It’s Only TV But I Like It) and the actors playing the contestants (who conversely were truly unrealistic). Ultimately though Del’s participation did little more than take Only Fools and Horses a step further away from its realistic roots, much to the detriment of the series’ original, underlying premise.

Perhaps it is because there is such a rich archive of similarly crafted jokes, concepts and set pieces with which to compare any new episode of Only Fools and Horses to that such scrutiny is applied to any addition to the canon. There were some funny moments in “If They Could See Us Now” (mostly one-liners delivered by the dependable Roger Lloyd Pack as Trigger), but when one gets beyond the euphoria of the return of (according to Channel 4) Britain’s best loved family, those of us who tuned in on Christmas Day will come to reflect that we were presented with an episode that failed to match any of the high standards attained by the 1996 trilogy. In fact, it is difficult to think of a less appealing episode. Perhaps”If They Could See Us Now” will ultimately live longest in the memory as the least funny Only Fools and Horses of all time (although let’s not forget that the series did go seriously off the boil before its triumphant finale of five years a go). Last minute script revisions withstanding, this was a major disappointment. Let us hope it is not saved from the ignominy of “worst ever episode” by the two further stories mysteriously scheduled for “some time in 2002″.

The Trotters are back apparently, and whilst the tabloids have rejoiced in their return and 20.3 million of us tuned in to watch them, one wonders whether they’ll be as welcome on our screens this time next year.

The British Comedy Awards, however, has always stood out from the rest. It’s got a fantastic history, of course: an inventory of drunken barracking, choice profanity, shameless media in-jokes and, courtesy of Julian Clary, media outrage. It has a credibility and prestige that far outweighs that of its individual prizes. Above all it’s a show that tries to pretend it’s some kind of “alternative” awards ceremony dressed up like a big grown-up affair, but ends up something different again. Consequently this year, as before, its arrival was a welcome addition to the pre-festive schedules.

Yet the evening did not get off to a promising start. Shots of celebrities arriving at LWT were set to a mostly inaudible narration from, of all people, “Mr Burns” from The Simpsons. Though it was a nice change to have a cartoon character do the usual routine namechecking, obscure references to showbiz stars of the 1930s were lost amongst the noise of chatter and unimaginative droning background music that would annoyingly surface all through the evening. Once this was out the way, however, action moved inside the studios where Jonathan Ross was in charge, as he has been for most of the show’s 12-year existence. Given how inept his BBC talk show has been in failing to iron out its many faults, it was ironic that Jonathan proceeded to give a consummate performance working for the opposition, thanks mostly to a cracking script from Jim Pullin and Fraser Steele.

His introductory monologue was once again the highlight of the entire evening. In front of a mostly accommodating, but never warm, audience of performers and industry folk, there were the usual gags about comedy being the self-important business that it is – we were live from “an airless room full of egos” – and unsubtle insults aimed at Steve Penk and Johnny Vaughan. Jonathan also informed everyone of how the building had been declared “free of Caroline Ahearne”. This was a reference to the woman’s inebriated ranting at the 2000 Comedy Awards, and actually won some boos from the crowd, though, as Jonathan pointed out, notable for being somewhat delayed in their arrival. “These awards cannot overrun as we’re being followed by The Premiership,” he continued, but for some it was kind of expected, even hoped, that events would run late, just to spite Des.

Though “The whole process is more carefully scrutinized than Barrymore’s pool filter,” the Awards this year were notable for being palpably less relaxed and, somewhat unfortunately, more disciplined than in previous years. This was arguably for two reasons. First, the fact that the running time was only 90 minutes and the whole show had been awkwardly squeezed into such a tight schedule; and secondly because it frankly wasn’t clear what the point of the whole awards ceremony was. The show failed to properly deal with the fact that 2001 has been one of the worst years for TV comedy for a long time. Indeed, as the categories unfolded and programmes like Cold Feet and Bob and Rose – both of which are technically drama series – cropped up time and again, everything began to seem rather bizarre. An uneasiness as to why everyone was here and whether anything really deserved to be honoured in this way fuelled, perhaps, an anxiety that was evident in both host and audience. It was also one that seemed to be tempering any feeling of excitement at watching proceedings on TV.

Maybe the programme could have acknowledged its built-in deficiencies and made an on-running joke out of the fact that, for this year at least, UK comedy has remained meagre compared to America. As it was Jonathan seemed at times all too conscious of this, only to then settle happily back into the role of cocky master of ceremonies, abusing reputations and puncturing inflated egos. While this gave him some good lines – Mel B was introduced as someone “who can still remember the day when it was vodka, not yoga, that got Geri’s ankles behind her ears”, while Lorretta Swit, appearing in The Vagina Monologues, was welcomed with the revelation, “Her biggest fear is presumably drying on the first night” – it quickly became difficult to muster much interest in the award winners or what they were saying.

Earlier in the evening over a million people had rung in to eliminate one of the 10 finalists in Pop Idol. Now the public were asked to pick up their phones a second time to vote for The People’s Choice Award. The options were the episode of The Royle Family shown last Christmas (and possibly the weakest one in that programme’s history); and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Cold Feet and So Graham Norton, none of which were comedies. The number of callers who did bother to ring in was never revealed, but there were reminders throughout the show; and again when Cold Feet won it didn’t feel like anything special had happened.

There were a couple of amusing in-jokes, both in the tradition of mentioning names that the majority of viewers probably would not have heard of. Last year’s Comedy Awards was marked by winners continually thanking Granada producer Andy Harries; so as soon as his name appeared this year, Jonathan was quick to alert everyone to “The earliest mention of Andy Harries’ name in the Comedy Awards!” This enthusiasm was somewhat undermined by the fact his name didn’t actually crop up again. Graham Norton, winning Best Comedy Entertainment Programme, also raised a cheer when he thanked Channel 4 and confessed “Kevin (Lygo) and Michael Jackson, they weren’t that great were they?”

Frank Skinner seemed unimpressed with his Best Comedy Entertainment Personality Award: “Wow – first the plane spotters home safely, now this,” he muttered. In fact the studio audience seemed to become very quickly distracted, refusing to laugh at all when Jonathan tempted winners of the Best TV Comedy Show with “the keys to the executive coke room”. The winner of this category – “one of the big ones,” assured Jonathan a bit desperately – was One Foot in the Grave, which ended over 12 months ago. But then it was up against Coupling and The Office. Even Jonathan had done his best to spoil the mood, announcing to anyone listening to his Saturday morning Radio 2 show that he hadn’t won either of the awards he was up for “because they’ve already told me”.

One area the ceremony seemed to score well in was the choice of guests to present the awards. There were either people willing to ridicule themselves – Huey Morgan and Debbie Harry – or be ridiculed by Jonathan. When Vic Reeves stepped out with Jordan, Jonathan inevitably greeted them with the line, “Well, here’s a pair I didn’t expect to be here at the Comedy Awards!” He and Vic then continued with the breast jokes for a minute or so, which was in its own way quite fun. Steve Coogan showed up as himself, and Jonathan explained how much he was enjoying Dr Terrible’s House of Horrible, even though “I know I may well be in the minority in this country.” Steve then started giving Jonathan the finger, and the camera hastily cut to some clips. A dose of expletives was long overdue; and fortunately this wasn’t the only swearing, as a clip from So Graham Norton featured a “fuck” (at 9.40pm), while later still everyone was treated to a full frontal shot of a naked man.

Despite these distractions, though maybe partly because of them, as the show neared its end it became difficult to concentrate on the award categories or who was winning them, and increasingly easier to focus just on Jonathan’s introductions and the response of his guests. A highlight came when the memorable combination of Charlotte Church (“We’re lucky to get her because it’s Christmas and there’s babysitting work out there to be had”) and Anne Widdecombe appeared to present the award for Best New TV Comedy. Strutting onto the stage to the sound of Afroman’s Because I Got High, Jonathan then engaged Anne in some rather incoherent joking about the Socialist Worker Party, before retreating looking shaken. But The Office won – “The one you wanted,” Anne mumbled to a somewhat terrified Charlotte.

By now the evening was overrunning, and there was a noticeable rush to get through the Writer of the Year (Russell T Davies) and Lifetime Achievement Award (David Jason). Yet given all that went on it was surprising the coverage only finished 10 minutes over time – a reflection, perhaps, of the straitjacket placed on the show which had helped render it one of the more lacklustre entries in the Comedy Awards canon. It’s just as well that this programme always manages to end up more than the sum of its constituent parts when the product it deals with can often, as was the case this year, stoop so low.

Still, Des looked furious at being pushed even later in the schedules, which was worth it.

Right from the start everything fell into place perfectly. The UK group had been allowed onto the island first to make total fools of themselves, which they did. Loads of opportunities for progress were wasted thanks to that familiar British tendency to flap about and moan rather than do anything like find the vegetable patch that had been especially prepared for them, or collect wood so they could actually cook the stuff they did eventually dig up. It was a shambles and all highly entertaining, particularly the way the programme painstakingly dwelt on the already pronounced tensions within the castaways, specifically between the bunch of lazy female sunbathers and the hardworking lads and tomboys. Chiefly responsible for stirring this up was Simon Pegg on voiceover duties, who ladled on the melodrama from the outset and has continued to get away with that kind of “paradise is hell” routine ever since. His commentary forever borders on the edge of total contempt, and all the better for it.

The delayed arrival of the Australians and Americans was consequently projected as the cavalry charging over the hill in the nick of time. We haven’t been allowed to forget how vastly more experienced and committed these contingents were right from that first entrance. This week some of the Brits attempted to sail off to harvest rations from a neighbouring island, but abandoned the voyage after 20 minutes thanks to, well, all-round incompetence. The American and Australian blokes meanwhile were shown leisurely watching this failure from the shore like it was a spectator sport. Finally some of the fuming crew returned to accuse them of deliberately encouraging them to go out knowing they’d fail. Later when a “storm” destroyed the boat itself one of the Australians seemed overjoyed, revelling in this added humiliation for his foreign cousins.

Xenophobia has run rife. Feelings are more tempered now, but earlier in the series everyone was at daggers drawn. Two minorities had been included in the English group: one French girl, Genevieve, and an Italian, Salvo. No doubt the official reason for their presence was that they both had strong, forceful personalities that would work well on screen. But it was surely expected that other characteristics of a more, well, “obvious” kind would soon surface given time. Naturally within a few days Genevieve was branded “sneaky – like most of the French” and accused of stealing.

This triggered off a whole catalogue of revelations and confessions that are still resonating within the group at this late stage. In each series of Shipwrecked the castaways have always had the option of being able to vote someone off the island for whatever reason. It has only been in this series, however, that such an option has been exercised. With amazing ruthlessness the group turned on Genevieve and kicked her out. But previously she had been shown forming some kind of weird pact of a “if you go we all go” kind with four of the English females. These were the same girls who’d been so slagged off for sunbathing, and who admittedly hadn’t helped their cause by droning on about how they regretted bringing along a hair straightener rather than “a big bag of crisps” and making up songs with lines like “We’re the bimbos” like that was supposed to make them look better. Now that one of their number had been sentenced, would the others rally round and stay true to their word?

Of course not. With only mild concern they readily joined in to wish an unhappy farewell to Genevieve. This reflected badly on them; lingering hostility has meant there hasn’t been a female elected “leader” of the group since week one. Two of them made it worse for themselves by later deciding to slouch off anyway, rather pathetically whimpering about missing home in one last effort to seek attention. Once the females were in the minority it was noticeable how much more of the programme became taken up with affairs of a less emotional kind. But if the composition of the group had supposedly reached some new, improved equilibrium, this hasn’t made their life better: for this week they fell even further into chaos, electing a leader – Simon – who promptly changed from a introverted nobody into a loudmouthed dictator (they should’ve checked his background: he apparently works “in the media”) and finally resorting to what’s called the “Man Friday” option: a once-only appeal to the programme-makers for rations.

Watching everything fall apart has been only a degree of the show’s appeal; it’s how we’ve been shown it that really hits the mark. One of the enduring, and actually most appealing, attributes about this series of Shipwrecked has been its total disregard for continuity. No attempt whatsoever has been made to order the footage so it unfolds on screen sequentially. The action simply jumps to whenever something interesting next happens, be it on the following day or the next fortnight. But even then the footage isn’t screened chronologically. The length of the castaways’ hairstyles have often changed even within the same “scene”, and depending on the editor’s whim the group are sometimes show electing a new leader twice during the one half hour. All of this has imbued the show with an “out of time” feel that has fostered an impression of the island as an otherworldly environment. Plus there’s no clue as to how much of their 10-week abandonment the exiles have survived.

Not that this has really mattered, given how within roughly 10 hours of their landing they were all running around worrying about fainting from lack of food. Indeed, the whole programme was shamelessly set up as an ordeal too far. Great play was made of how, unlike previous series, this time the castaways were to be denied access to regular rations and tools. Of equal significance was that unique international mix of inhabitants. Here was a United Nations in miniature, a melting pot of foreigners thrown together without any prior contact. In such unbearable conditions polite negotiation and cordiality were never going to prevail. We all knew – castaways, production team, viewers – that nobody was going to maintain a semblance of decorum and politeness for long. In real time it could’ve taken a fortnight or maybe just a couple of days; in TV time the outbursts always came just before the commercial break.

Envy, disloyalty, exhibitionism, even self-loathing: they’ve all shown up here, played out against this ironically “perfect” setting. It’s been familiar Lord of the Flies territory all the way, but ended up superb entertainment above all because most of the castaways are obvious “characters” and don’t demand much attachment or concern. Actually there’s only one really likable member, and that’s Alan, a cheery guy from the Isle of Wight who’s stint as leader was the most ordered and diplomatic of the lot and who, perhaps thanks to being the oldest, appears greatly aware of the level of contrivance at work. He seems to be genuinely enjoying the experience as he knows exactly what it is: a television programme, and nothing more.

Shipwrecked stands alone as an example of continually successful and enjoyable “reality”-based television. At heart this has to be because it’s not a game show, so doesn’t try, or make a big deal of trying, to be something it isn’t – as was sadly the case with Big Brother and Survivor. The castaways complete their exile next week, and no doubt will testify to it being one of the greatest times of their whole life. None of them, meanwhile, have once been shown confessing to fancying any of the others. Has anyone told Andi Peters?

As the notion of “multi-platform media” begins to become more than just a phrase buzzing around London pubs at lunchtime E4 has self-consciously led the push to blur the edges between TV and the internet. Its on-demand coverage of Big Brother and play-along-at-home comedy quiz Banzai are both important steps in shaping the future of interactive TV. Now taking it a step further they’re plundering from the source and championing what was formerly an unambitious comedy website as a TV show in its own right. As a portent of a possible future, it’s not very promising.

Part of E4‘s remit has to be to innovate. Not only must it draw material from new and unusual sources, it must be seen to be doing so. To stay afloat and to continue to serve a notional audience of media-savvy yet counter-cultural twentysomethings E4 has to exhibit some of those facets itself. The internet is the new fanzine-culture, certainly, but more important than that, it’s easy to access. Whereas 10 years ago a TV channel intent on drawing upon grassroots talent would have to make some effort to locate that subculture (and that would mean distasteful things like reading fanzines and maybe – just maybe – writing letters to people) nowadays they’ll get it all in an email entitled “Have a look at this site” sent from a mate who in turn had it sent to him. Yes, there’s still a word-of-mouth element at work here, but all in all the grassroots is suddenly in your face and all too easy to exploit.

Thus, although E4 are bandying about “from the cult website …”, in reality it’s debatable that they’re getting much in the way of kudos at all by exploiting a commodity that’s well-circulated already. Even subs on The Observer are sufficiently au fait with tvgohome.com to insert a mention of it into an article about TV-related websites. Of course, none of that’s a criticism of the site itself, but rather a swipe at E4 and a misplaced notion of pushing the envelope.

That rather sour analysis aside, what of the show itself? Unfortunately it’s not up to much. If we’d played along with the notion that the existence of a TV Go Home programme was innovative in itself, this realisation would have been doubly disappointing. Utilising a format that looked tired when Peter Richardson pressed it into service 10 years ago for The Glam Metal Detectives, TV Go Home attempts to parody modern television culture. Unfortunately the targets it hits are all too obvious (reality TV/hyperbolic kid’s programmes/pretentious discussion programmes/empty-headed celeb-centric shows etc). These are genres that have already been widely ridiculed and which themselves are now common currency exchanged in every derogatory discussion about the quality of TV today. Alongside this TV Go Home takes sideswipes at other barn doors. The “Daily Mail Island” sketch is a case in point. Here TV Go Home ridicules the newspaper’s unseemly right-wing axis. An unsubtle punchline involving gay bashing would surely have told E4′s audience nothing new: The Daily Mail is homophobic and silly. We all knew that. To take a pop at it is far too easy.

If the writing lacks imagination, the playing is worse. None of the performers strike the right note. Parody is a subtle business, and yet here we have a troupe rolling their eyes and baying at the camera. A spoof news report fails to make much of an impact other than to prompt the viewer to wonder just what we’re supposed to make of the hopelessly mannered reporter. Is he supposed to be a parody of something? If so, what? Worst of all has to be Colin Bennett who one has to hope was pressed into service for reasons other than some vague kitsch value he might carry. The nadir is his representation of a game show host which is simply another outing for You Should Be So Lucky‘s Vince Purity. It’s terrible, ham-fisted stuff.

With TV Go Home, E4 are leading the pack and establishing new trends again. Just as it’s become a cliché to say that a television adaptation rarely transcends the source text, E4 are establishing a whole new standard – “It’s not as good as the website”.

If there was little trace of melodrama or celebration then that seemed to be exactly what Richard and Judy wanted. This was business as usual, no messing. They had less than an hour to play with, not a luxurious 100 minutes. Richard in particular went to great pains to affect a more brusque, managerial tone, hurrying through the menu as if to make everything sound incredibly urgent and frighteningly important. Judy flapped about, already displaying (wholly welcome) signs of drifting into those surreal and heady reveries that typified her last few months on ITV. But there was very little here that was genuinely new. Virtually all the staple features of This Morning showed up, from the defiant celebration of suburban net curtain twitching to the promotion of homespun Madeley kitchen table philosophy. Neither Richard nor Judy appeared concerned about re-treading their greatest hits. This was an exhibition of good-natured arrogance, and consequently remained compulsively watchable.

However there’s a couple of basic problems. One is the set, which is too claustrophobic. The lack of gigantic windows gazing out over waterfront vistas actually worked against the fabric of the show, deflecting everything ever-inwards and re-focusing attention with increasing intensity on the words and actions of our hosts. They might think this personally worthwhile, but in reality it means that Richard’s hectoring bounces off the set’s tiny walls and never seems to disperse, in contrast with Judy’s sappy rejoinders that instantly and eerily fade away into nothing. It also means that visiting guests and experts may perhaps find it harder to interact with the pair and also the fabric of the whole show.

Secondly, little thought seemed to have been given to programme structure. The show had begun promisingly, with a classic This Morning-style take on the world of weird science. Two sportsmen appeared, seated in comfy chairs, wired up to various medical machines to measure their heartbeats and pulse rates. The aim was to test an American theory (it’s always American, of course) that stated it was possible to expend energy slumped in front of the telly by simply imagining you were doing exercise. A doctor was on hand, sporting a lightweight grey jacket, to make it all look official. We looked in on the progress of these “armchair triathletes” throughout the show, a neat device that gave the whole programme coherence and, by returning right at the end to reveal the experiment’s results, some symmetry.

However the various features that filled up the rest of the hour seemed badly sequenced. Rather than lead off with some special guests, Richard and Judy headed straight for one of their favourites: a consumer issue. A man had found his bank account wrongly credited with £250,000, but he wasn’t going to give the money back. What would we do? Judy was tickled by the dilemma. “You can’t get away with it for the rest of your life!” she shrieked. Richard quickly took charge with his usual assertiveness: “You’ve had a bank statement, right,” he began, as he sought to impose his own logic on the situation. It all felt a bit pointless and uncomfortable – both presenters were shamelessly poking fun at what they believed was the man’s foolhardy bravado – until, at last, Richard explained, “You’ve got some brass neck – and it’s given us an idea for a phone-in!”

There had been rumours that the phone-in was to have no place in this new show, which would have denied Richard his chief vehicle for vocalising his many prejudices. Its re-appearance may prove to be a bad decision. When the phone-in took place towards the end of the show, there wasn’t enough time to give as much attention to callers’ problems or queries as they perhaps deserved. While on this occasion the topic was fairly innocuous – moral scruples – darker subjects might end up compromised for the sake of running to schedule. And though it’s always fun to hear Richard’s bizarre interrogations – “Would you give the money to charity?” he demanded of a caller who’s been offered the chance to kiss and tell – even his pearls of wisdom could lose their appeal when forcibly reduced to a 10 second soundbite.

Judy, however, still took up several minutes giving an example of how she faced a moral dilemma back at school over whether to pick up a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover she’d found lying on the pavement. “That’s not a scruples story,” immediately corrected Richard, before he went on to say there wasn’t time for his own personal story about how he once pretended to give up smoking … but then told it anyway. An American female psychologist joined them for this phone-in, but – as with all the guests – wasn’t billed on screen, which was somewhat bizarre and frustrating, though maybe intended to ensure everyone knew they were second fiddle to the real stars of the show.

Other features included the repeated playing of a short videotape they’d obtained from a society called Strange Phenomena Investigations. This pandered to Richard and Judy’s well-worn obsession with anything of a freakish nature. The footage showed an ordinary person – or “Spookman” as Richard instantly dubbed him – whose face ostensibly changed into others as you studied it. The studio crew were convinced, gasping on cue, and Richard was rapt: “Oh man, I could watch this all night” he gushed. But later another expert showed up to rubbish Spookman, so it was a rather meaningless item despite Judy’s attempts to make it sound relevant – “It’s a real-life transfiguration, like in the Harry Potter movie.” Both Richard and Judy also made sure we knew they were experts on this sort of thing, referring back to one time they’d interviewed a man who had denied murder but was later convicted – yet “we knew he had murdered her,” all along.

A dose of outrageous nosiness came in the shape of an item about how Oldham council have been going through people’s private rubbish on behalf of the Government. “I think it’s terrible,” snapped Richard straight away. This was pure That’s Life! territory. Richard relayed to us an account of what the programme had tried to find out, and how, “The bosses told us … well, they would say that.” Another uncredited guest came on who had suffered at the hands of a man that had “stolen his identity” and set up bogus bank accounts. Nothing to do with stealing rubbish then, though it gave Richard the chance to reveal to viewers how he made sure he burns all his unwanted mail rather than throw it away, and that if we had any sense we should do the same.

The proper guests, when they finally showed up, were Les Dennis and Amanda Holden. “Well, we know you’re both very happy,” began Judy, implying that everyone else, including the press, were therefore wrong to doubt the pair’s notoriously rocky marriage. Les had been on the very last edition of This Morning but this wasn’t referred to once. Instead we were treated to a rather distasteful display of ego-massaging, Richard’s face set stern when talking about the tabloids and using the fact he and Judy were close neighbours of Les and Amanda to conclude “it’s obvious that you’re happy.” Both this, and the interview with two cast members from EastEnders (splendidly conducted entirely in character) took place in a special part of the set: a kind of parlour area, with Richard and Judy perched on a lovers-seat and the two guests propped up in thrones. This contrasted with the main area, a sofa and easy chair set-up that was sinisterly reminiscent of early-era GMTV. It was also possible to make out a fish tank built into the wall, and some pots and plants standing self-consciously about. All in all not that impressive.

There was one final element to the show. Not only were viewers able to join in via the phone-in, but also through the memorable quiz game “You Say We Pay”. This has huge comic potential, as callers have to describe to Richard and Judy an object that is projected onto the screen behind them but without referring to its actual name, and the pair have to guess what it is. Amusingly it all went wrong, the lucky caller unable to grasp the elementary concept which caused Richard to leap up and down in his chair like a five year old. It’s “Midday Money” by another name, and just as enjoyably annoying.

So it all ended, and in much haste and confusion as they’d run out of time, unsurprisingly, and we were left with a garbled farewell involving those armchair athletes and rushed goodbyes. It must be a historical first to have a debut TV show end without any credits or proper closing sequence. There had been other problems, mostly of a technical sort (poor sound quality on the phone lines and several jerky camera shots, all fuel to Richard’s fire: “It’s just the first night, we’ll get it all straight!”) The pair also seemed uncertain of how to deal with commercials: when the first break approached, Richard pleaded, “We’re going to take a very quick break, it’s just one minute long,” and Judy echoed “We’ll see you in just one minute,” as if that mattered.

But Richard and Judy is a wholly welcome addition to C4, a station short of really big name signings for too long. In the event The Weakest Link beat it in the ratings by almost two to one; and it seems the show also lost viewers over the hour. Its future cannot be in doubt, though; the bizarre, the titillation, the kitchen table pontificating: it’s all there. Just not in the correct order.

Many have remarked upon the welcome inclusion of Ant and Dec to preside over the Pop Idol experience; and indeed over the many weeks in which this series has been running it has proven to be a wise move. The immediacy of presenting “live” from the auditions has brought a fresh perspective to the genre, but more importantly it has allowed us to pry even further into each contestant’s moment of despair. Whereas before, it felt a little unseemly for a camera to suddenly corner a weeping auditionee; here it is perfectly acceptable, simply because whilst Ant and/or Dec attempts to console or commiserate the broken hearted contestant, we can – with conscience clear – observe at the closest quarters that most precious of television moments – the shattering of an ego.

Showmanship on the part of the contestants is one thing, but – as with Popstars – some of the judges are trying to influence opinions too. Whilst Nicki Chapman and Pete Waterman appear focused on getting the job done; Simon Cowell and Dr Fox have their minds on other matters. For Foxy here is an opportunity to expand upon a public persona that has, until now, labeled him as simply a rather faceless, opportunist DJ with a cheesy moniker. With such a persona, anything he can do here to allow the public to appreciate that he has any depth of musical opinion, or human kindness will do him no harm whatsoever. Simon Cowell is closely tied to Pop Idol and to its success or failure, so his motivations are more complicated, and perhaps on occasion somewhat suspect.

It will surely have escaped no one that the real talking point behind Popstars was “Nasty Nigel”. Whilst the popular press has yet to find an appropriate alliteration for Cowell (Surly Simon, Sarky Simon, Snooty Simon), there is no escaping that he has surpassed Lythgoe (Executive Producer of Pop Idol) in terms of mythic status. Like Harry Potter, Cowell is now permanently encased as an exhibit of British Popular Culture – November 2001. Yet this has been a calculated course charted by Cowell and the Pop Idol team. A talent competition in which there appears to be nothing at stake does not make for enthralling television. Whilst there is an alluring star prize in Pop Idol, it is the battle to avoid humiliation that most captivates the viewer; and Cowell is integral in this process. In a recent interview he decried the anonymity of Star for a Night: “It’s had two winners so far but no one has a clue who won, so the show didn’t work.”

As a result of Cowell’s obvious desire to keep Pop Idol in the public eye, one can expect a disparaging remark to be delivered as least as often as is required to keep the programme exciting. For this Saturday’s programme this was required pretty frequently, as the least charismatic of the remaining contestants were put through their paces. Of course the final heat sees the return of the series’ two most controversial contestants – Rik and Darius. Cynically held back until the end (and pitted up against the poorest of competition), no one really minds that the whole stated purpose of the programme (to find a pop idol) is being compromised to fulfil the real purpose behind Pop Idol – to entertain.

A word about the ITV2 broadcasts is required. Obviously attempting to ape the popularity of E4′s Big Brother coverage, ITV must have felt they were on to a real winner here (particularly with the introduction of interactive Who Wants to be a Millionaire shown later in the evening, thus giving the station its first genuinely attractive evening line up). Broadcast from 4pm to 7pm Monday – Wednesday, the carefully crafted formula behind Pop Idol is noticeably absent on Pop Idol Extra. Perhaps this is down to Kate Thornton’s presentation (she is patently out of her depth), or – more likely – due to the fact that the contestants are shown at their most indulgent. Removed from the high wire of performing for the Judges, these three-hour broadcasts remain slow and repetitive with the attention residing foursquare on the “talent” of the contestants.

A massive misassumption has been made here: the contestants do not fascinate us, per se (in the way we were with Big Brother); they appeal to us only during those moments in which they are either losing or winning. The humiliation or the glory is central to Pop Idol. As the series progresses and defeats grow ever more creditable, one is left to wonder exactly how Ant and Dec will – in their charming way – maintain the emotional tension that currently so superbly underlies each show.

We didn’t see the face of Children in Need for almost 10 minutes. Westlife shuffled about doing another of their karaoke hatchet jobs on Never Can Say Goodbye, and an infobar scrolled across the bottom of the screen to explain what was coming up later, which was just as well because no-one else had bothered telling us. Eventually Tel and Gaby Roslin appeared, heralded with a suitable fanfare. This is Terry’s one surviving really big telly gig at the Beeb now, and whether by accident or design he seemed strangely subdued, even downbeat, right from the start. Gaby ruthlessly sidelined him from the opening link – but as the evening unfolded Tel seemed more and more content to step back (literally) and look around, pull a face or gaze into the middle distance.

So while he boomed, “There’s no time for slackers tonight!” if anyone created an impression of not pulling their weight it was himself. After the “Children in Need official band” S Club 7 had performed, Tel resorted to rather meekly chirping from the sidelines “I can do that!” as Gaby goaded the group into repeating some of their spectacular dance moves. Then he tried the insults. Waiting for us in Belfast was, well, “It’s a forlorn hope – but it’s only Eamonn Holmes.” Perhaps taken by Gaby’s renewed determination to speak over the audience whenever possible, he then made the first of many references to her attire, specifically her tiny denim skirt. Then he tried the sight gag – going for a clinch with Gaby in a prop hospital bed. But if Tel’s strategies were flopping one by one it wasn’t his fault alone: for throughout the evening there was hardly any atmosphere in the studio, and consequently precious little excitement translating onto screen.

None of the OBs seemed to work, at least in terms of creating real event television. Up in Doncaster lurked Katy Hill, her first bit of proper work for months. Unfortunately when we joined her A1 had already started performing on stage, so the camera cut to them halfway through a song, then back to Katy (who trailed the group Liberty, who then never showed up), then back to A1 again for another tune. “We always like a bit of an A1 moment,” was Katy’s summing up.

Members of the public always play important and symbolic roles on Children in Need nights. They are the padding between the celebrity acts, the points where everything is brought back to basics and the viewer encouraged to feel affected by seeing people like themselves doing distinctly abnormal, even disturbing activities. Sadly the first batch of fundraisers seemed to merit more sympathy than the people they were raising money for: an unhappy-looking man who had worn a diving suit all day, plus “two very kinky looking ladies” who Katy wanted to speak with at length but ran out of time. The OB felt dangerously pointless: why Doncaster? Why Katy?

Back in London Gaby quickly introduced more entertainment, including some dance routines from the Cirque De Soleil performing troupe. It seemed the whole evening had been sequenced as a non-stop cabaret showcase, conceived around a stream of musical acts, cued in quick succession. This made for little diversity or imagination. Non-singing celebrities were singularly absent – it was just endless show tunes and corny ballads (Geri Halliwell was the worst, though she was late on because, according to Tel, she was “removing her ankles from behind her ears”). There again, when we moved out of the studio there always seemed to be problems. When Gaby showed up in the Top of the Pops Star Bar dreadful sound quality hampered attempts for “Tanya the Web Mistress” (“I’ve got my whip, so be careful!”) to explain how we could donate on-line or via digital TV handsets (this year’s big innovation).

Whenever Alan Deddicoat announced an update on the amount of money raised so far, a brief musical “celebration” followed. These came in a range of styles – the twist, the waltz and so on – but also in the form of a marching band who broke into The Floral Dance. Terry couldn’t resist it, and some vintage Wogan vocalese followed, much to Gaby’s (all too real) discomfort. Here was another area where the evening faltered. There was never any real chemistry between Terry and Gaby. There’s was a relationship based on out-and-out patronising on Tel’s part, and total submission by Gaby. Matters weren’t helped by continual mis-timed cues between presenters and the orchestra – for example, Tel being helplessly drowned out by another fanfare when pretending to produce a Radio 2 cheque from Gaby’s skirt. It all left Tel looking silly, and Gaby even more furious.

“Welcome to Leicester – woooh!” Here was Anna Ryder Richardson, standing in front of some girls wandering about looking bored and an old woman sitting down. Once again we joined the on-stage act – Atomic Kitten – mid-song. Her co-host was Richie, ex of Five, who held his mike like a pop star and really got into the mood of things: “Down here the atmosphere is absolutely electric!” They talked to some proud parents who relished relating how much money they’d raised in as boring a way possible. Even the venue looked seedy. After a brief shot of Richie going “Wa-hey”, Anna chatted to a bloke from Warburton’s who’d run for 106 miles and then two women chained together, to whom she giggled, “How are you going to go to the toilet?” This memorable segment ended with Louise singing “her brand new hit” – of several months standing – Stuck In The Middle With You. Sometimes the OBs came good. Phillippa Forester was in control in Portsmouth, bragging, “This is possibly the hottest party in the country,” while a hyper Rhodri Williams was working the audience with relish in Cardiff. For most of the evening, however, they just didn’t gel, merely continuing the sullen stream of musical acts from a different location.

There were a few great moments. Blue Peter‘s tribute to Eurovision was always going to be a winner the second Tim Vincent, John Leslie, Anthea Turner and Diane Louise-Jordan appeared dressed as Brotherhood Of Man. Peter Purves was the MC (“A definite douze points!”), Mark Curry did two Cliff Richard songs complete with costume change (which went wrong, giving Mark the chance for some patented buffoonery) and best of all the current team performed Making Your Mind Up, with Matt Baker really getting into it. In fact he got so carried away that when, in a neat twist, it was the lads who ripped their own trousers off, he knocked his mike off the stand. But this didn’t matter. Even Peter Duncan singing All Kinds of Everything (as Dana International – do you see?) was bearable, and for a finale the whole ensemble united for a chorus of Waterloo, with Peter P on keyboards.

The other highpoint, providing a welcome break from the endless singing, was Celebrity 15-To-1. Contestants representing quiz shows past and present (including Phillip Schofield Tim Vine, Jeremy Beadle, Des O’Connor, Nicholas Parsons, and, naturally, Tel himself) were grilled by a charged-up William G. Stewart. When a giant Bill And Ben appeared to hand him the questions, Bill quipped, “Frightened the bloody life out of me!” He was on form – “There’s always one know-all in the audience,” he moaned, “I should’ve written these questions instead of this lot at the BBC!” While Tel came over all cocky when he didn’t know the answers (“It’s my show, I’ll do what I like”) Bill was far more likeable, dropping in spontaneous gags, telly facts (one question, remarkably, was about the IBA) and taking no nonsense from the assembled egos. Sadly the quiz was cut short as time was getting late, though Bill still found room for a shout out (presumably) to his kids.

But these successes were all too rare. Sometimes the entertainment was charmless (your usual bit of film showing BBC newsreaders behaving foolishly); contrived (S Club 7 – again – singing together with thousands of kids); or just dreadful: seven Big Brother contestants joining in a tuneless rendition of I Will Survive. Craig was there, of course, still desperate for any chance of national exposure going, along with all the jokers including Darren, Bubble and Helen. Amusingly someone had to run on halfway through so they could all split up into pairs for a dance. You think they could’ve persuaded just one more contestant to show up to make up the numbers.

The latter half of the show, after the 10pm news, boasted a shocking performance by Cliff Richard of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Tim Vine cracking a joke about hi-jacking (“I’m sorry, I wrote it months before …” he began, before there was a quick cut back to the main studio). The roster of acts seemed to be repeating itself, such was the similarity in choice of artists and material. Viewers voted for Cliff to sing his first ever hit, Move It – “I don’t know why I bothered continuing,” the man snapped, sentiments many would be quick to agree with. He got a rapturous reception, but had to do an encore singing into Gaby’s chest mike, and then Des O’Connor crooned a short number despite Terry yelling, “The public don’t want him!” (which visibly shocked Gaby).

Once we reached midnight the show became a gruesome cavalcade of musical theatre as all of those who’d finished their duties up the West End streamed back to Television Centre to repeat some of their most bombastic numbers. Rhodri in Cardiff was still having a great time despite the late hour, proudly introducing a video of The Stereophonics (“They were supposed to be here!”) and footage of a woman who “wowed the audience, and me for that matter – Bonnie Tyler!” Proceedings became more cosy and self-indulgent as that familiar we-know-hardly-anyone’s-watching attitude kicked in and Terry led the audience in wishing Dave Arnold, the conductor of the studio orchestra, a happy 50th birthday. After the obligatory striptease involving various young hunks from the soaps we were faced with a series of clips showing stuff we’d already seen – “So you know what everybody is going to be talking about tomorrow,” explained Gaby – plus some other bits we’d missed from the various OBs.

When the end came, there was palpable relief that they had raised more than last year, but only just: £12.9m – “We’ll call it £13m,” said Tel enthusiastically. And that was it for another 12 months. “Hope you’ll join us again next year when we celebrate 75 years of Children in Need!” Terry signed off bizarrely. Then, to a huge feeling of anti-climax, they re-showed S Club 7 from earlier on, before the show suddenly ended – no credits, not even a BBC copyright. It’s a curious experience, the Children in Need TV show. Compared to Comic Relief – its younger brother – this year’s effort contained surprisingly few “serious bits”, hardly any sense of occasion, a really unimaginative attitude towards choosing the featured artists and acts, and a presenter who didn’t show any respect towards his audience. Sometimes you feel that just raising the money isn’t enough.

Was it really only 16 months ago? In July 2000 BBC2 screened I Love 1970, the first instalment of what turned out to be a 30-part series – and whilst it’s almost too neat to refer back to this first edition as I Love reaches its climax (at least within it’s current format), it is instructive to measure how far the series has come (or fallen) since then.

“From start to finish I Love 1970 showed much the same sense of an attention to detail and careful research that there was on the Top Ten shows – no tired old clips wheeled out for the 100th time, no tired old celebrities wheeled out either.” That summation from OTT’s review of I Love 1970 has almost taken on its own quaintness – its own nostalgia. Since then the I Love strand has exhausted itself (and so it seems has the now lacklustre Top Ten). Where once it was an entertaining curio it is now a cliché – a recognisable franchise ripe for parody (cf. the upcoming TVGoHome series on E4). It’s the new “docu-soap”, the new Driving School, destined to be remembered as “what everyone was watching in 2001″.

Moreover, as I Love has charted out the 1990s, it’s transformed itself into everything it once wasn’t. The clips are now tired. The celebrities have become the same-old faces, now placed as sign-posts signifying what we are about to see/are seeing/have seen. Although in part it’s been a victim of its own success – establishing a durable format that has now became over-familiar – the ’90s series has lacked the depth of research evident in the ’70s and ’80s editions. It seems that there is no longer much love for the source material.

And whilst we’re dwelling on the problems of the series as a whole, it is worth noting that documenting the ’90s has proven deeply problematic for I Love as many predicted. It’s plainly the case that the recent past eschews being catalogued in terms of trends, crazes and moments shared en masse. We’re happy enough to reformat our childhood years into recognisable, communal touchstones, but when it comes to the recent past it’s all too much a part of who we are today. We don’t want our present selves sub-divided into neat little sections. We don’t want our current preoccupations or interests defined for us by Gregg Proops – it’s too complicated, too personal and grown-up for that. The process undermines our own sense of individuality and its irksome. Whilst we’re happy to have the ’70s dished up in the form of sub-headings that trigger happy memories, we’d rather the recent past was left to mature a bit before it enters the catalogue.

Thankfully I Love 1999 proved to be a slightly more stylish foray than recent episodes, but still failed to throw much at us that would stick in the mind after the credits had rolled. Building the programme around The Blair Witch Project proved to be a sound decision providing the episode and, more importantly, the year with a firm identity. Indeed, the section on Blair Witch was quite interesting, chiefly in that it featured a pundit getting dewy-eyed over a website – a TV nostalgia first perhaps, and certainly a juxtaposition that will surely be used somewhere to lambast this final edition.

Whilst the appraisal of Britney Spears was run-of-the-mill, the section on The Big Breakfast was slightly odd due to talk in the past-tense about the programme’s poor ratings – yet that’s the state of affairs in the present day too. However, it was great to hear Kelly Brook’s side of the story regarding her ill-fated tenure on the programme. Her recollection of telling her mother (upon joining the show) that she was going to be herself and everything would be “OK” was quite endearing. Best of all, for those of us who’ve grown to loathe the BB, was that the programme was by common consensus held to have acted contemptuously in its treatment of Brook.

For Russell T Davies it was a busy night as he bobbed onto screen here to contextualise Queer as Folk and would repeat the act just an hour or so later on Channel 4′s Top Ten. Alas there was little here to satiate those who already had more than a passing interest in the programme, bar the revelation that Davies equipped the character of Stuart with a jeep because a gay character in Byker Grove had driven one. It seems Davies’ long background in children’s telly has continued to advise his work ever since. Gina Yashmere, meanwhile, wanted to tell us that Stuart was a “cool guy”.

A section on Red Bull was business as usual and then we had a surprising finale centred around Baz Luhrmann’s hit Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen). This mawkish and overly sentimental track received a nicely taut summation, taking us from its origins in a Chicago newspaper to its realisation by Luhrmann as a tribute to his dying father. Throughout this sequence flashes from I Love the Seventies and Eighties began to appear. Drawing from what now must be a large cache of Super 8 style footage, I Love 1999 suddenly became self-reflective. Married to the music it flashed up various idents from the first episode onwards marking its own tribute to the I Love series as whole.

Faced with a footnote like this we could only reflect upon the history of the programme itself. It was a nice touch, an appreciation of the common ground shared by us and the programme. A history that spans back both 30 years and 16 months.

The I Love series, taking in all 30 episodes, has been a fantastic achievement even if the final 10 did cause us some concern. BBC Manchester should be congratulated for one of the most enjoyable TV “events” for a long time. However, with TV nostalgia set to eat itself here’s hoping this is where the story ends.

10 years ago Jonathan was doing what only Hollyoaks has since been able to match: turning up on Channel 4 three times a week at 6.30pm, resolutely, endlessly, for months on end. His ubiquity became an unfunny on-running media joke, and after labouring hard with little ratings success he paused only for one last throw of the dice – the superb Saturday Zoo (1993) – before quitting Channel 4, his own company Channel X, and talk shows, apparently for good. But after a period of purgatory (too too many dreadful turns for ITV) and thanks to one of the best radio shows ever, the man feels able to return to his arena and beam straight into the camera to announce: “It’s great to be at the BBC.”

His new talk show, running for seven weeks up to Christmas, was certainly much anticipated by this reviewer. Its progress from script to screen has been plotted in exhaustive detail by Jonathan himself on his Saturday morning show on Radio 2; consequently expectation was really high. And so it began, with a stylish title sequence: a stream of archive TV faces, objects and places, all very nice and classy and attention-grabbing … but nothing whatsoever to do with what followed, and therefore confusing and pointless. The theme music was also awful: a lame 12-bar blues riff that was struggling to be exciting, and written purely to call attention to itself and not the programme, which is the worst kind of theme tune possible. The end credits revealed who’d perpetrated this travesty: erstwhile Chris Evans lackey Dan McGrath.

The set-up was all pretty conventional: a desk centre-stage, an audience in front – well, presumably they were there, because we didn’t see a shot of them once, which was bizarre given how great a role audiences (both in the studio and at home) have come to play within the fabric of chat-based, light entertainment shows. Their absence from view was discomfiting.

To Jonathan’s left skulked sidekick Andy Davies, his producer and foil on Radio 2. Here, of course, the runes portended ill: another experienced professional of behind-the-camera stock, with a lot of years in the business behind him, now presuming the right to develop some new personality on-screen. Again, the TFI parallel loomed terrifyingly large: to wit, Will “Pub Genius” McDonald, court jester of the most repulsive and unctuous kind. Andy plays an important role on the radio show: he motors the programme totally, being responsible for sequencing all the records, bringing in the guests and basically maintaining a workable context within which Jonathan rants, jokes and gossips. Out of that dynamic has flowed a relationship that needs no superfluous gimmicks or subtexts to justify Andy’s presence or role. It’s obvious.

In this changed set-up that dynamic faltered. Andy’s role here resembled little more than that of a glorified usher – “We should get Neil Hannon on” – and to be seen laughing at Jonathan’s gags or contentedly twiddling a pen. He kept moving between his bizarre “TARDIS” (as he called it) where some kind of computer-like equipment and an open copy of an unnamed magazine rested, and the other side of Jonathan’s desk, summoned over rather tersely, moping back unseen. He personally didn’t seem too bothered about all this, but viewers unaware of his significance as Jonathan’s radio stooge would’ve firstly wondered who the hell he was and then why he even presumed to give Jonathan the time of day. It’s fun hearing them squabble on the airwaves, and there’s a kind of pleasure for the fan seeing them “re-create” that on screen; but again, for the uninitiated it could appear terribly self-indulgent.

A couple of other aspects to the format were instantly unlikeable. Sticking a camera feed into the hospitality suite must have sounded great in the office, but in practice left you smarting from endless shots of celebrities indulging in free booze and food and, worse, pretending to get on well with each other. This is not what we want; the line between backstage and out front needs to be kept fixed as there’s already been enough subversion in this area (from Larry Sanders to Bob Mills’ The Show). The house band, “Four Poofs and a Piano”, was the kind of anti-PC-yet-still-PC gesture best left behind at the arse end of the 1990s. Even the upright piano looked like the one that sat in Evans’ “bar” on TFI Friday.

But within all this clutter there was a lot of substance. A team of four writers provided more hits than misses in the way of jokes; and Jonathan has retained that sharpness in delivery and response that can salvage the lamest of punchlines and the flakiest of interviews. The review of the week’s press, lifted wholesale from the radio show, was slightly flawed by limiting the material to picture stories only; but it was nice to see some blatant Barrymore-baiting later on.

Jonathan seemed over-awed to be in the presence of first guest John Lydon, to the extent of letting Lydon ramble on about the state of the country and not asking him why, if he’s so disgusted with America and American culture, has the man been happy to live there for over a decade. It was ridiculous to have “fuck” beeped out as well. A proper musical interlude was provided by a fantastic cover of The Power of Love (the Frankie Goes To Hollywood version) by Neil Hannon: the kind of stunt Evans used to attempt on TFI, of course, when ordering his guests to do covers at the drop of a hat with diabolical results. Here it was refreshing to hear a decent, sincere performance of a fine song (thanks not least to it already being part of Hannon’s repertoire).

The final interview with Tamzin Outhwaite, however, was just a hurried bout of shameless flirting to which none of us were invited. In fact none of the interviews were long enough, and all suffered from a major problem: ham-fisted editing. What looked like a load of dead leaves appeared on the floor of the set halfway through the show for no reason. The house band vanished as well, suddenly showing up again at the end. It’s also a real pity the show couldn’t go out live and perhaps even a bit later; it would make it so much more of an event and add even more excitement. Even better, there’d be potential for all kinds of RDA-style quirks: Jonathan commenting on the previous programme, or the show running on late and holding up News 24.

Less than 12 hours later the protagonists were giving their own verdict. Back in what they seemed to appreciate as the more relaxed, comfortable environment of Radio 2, Jonathan and Andy grumbled and grouched. The programme had indeed been badly edited. The mess all over the studio floor was the remnants of some audience participation game they’d forgotten to sweep up. They also acknowledged how, to be honest, even Andy’s chief role of introducing the guests had been cocked up, in the sense of failing to supply a bit more information than the simple: “Here’s John Lydon”.

This bout of on-air self-analysis swerved close to that irritating Evans “did that joke work?” spiel … but here, as with so much else, it ultimately didn’t matter because of the gut-level charm that Jonathan and Andy possess, a quality Evans has rather remarkably never once displayed through his entire broadcasting career. Moreover you feel that they’re willing and sensible enough to admit mistakes and make improvements, again unlike Evans (though it’s a bit unsettling to see ex-TFI producer Suzi Aplin supposedly doing the same role here). So though the choice of guests will probably remain distinctly Radio 2, over-30s-ish fare, in return BBC1 have landed one of the most promising new music-and-chat series for ages. A second, longer run of 15 shows is planned for the New Year. If Friday Night With Jonathan Ross does nothing else than exorcise the bilious ghost of TFI Friday forever, then that’s enough.

Do you remember I Love 1998? It wasn’t that long ago, but don’t worry if you’ve forgotten stuff because part of the fun is half-remembering something, then humorously recalling what really happened while wondering what you could’ve been “on” to generate such side-splitting amnesia. Coming up over the next 1600 words: Lisa Snowden stating the obvious, Mark Steel being irritating, a fussy list of errors and gaffes that the programme makers could’ve avoided, and some abuse about Cornershop. “Was it good for you too?”

Just because the end is in sight doesn’t make the warped logic of I Love the Nineties any easier to tolerate. If anything the nearer to the present we get the more arrogant and cack-handed the production becomes. It’s perverse that there seem to have been more factual blunders and inaccuracies within the programmes covering the events of the last five years than any of those stretching back to 1970. I Love 1998 included a section on South Park introduced with Blur’s Beetlebum (released January 1997), and one on combat trousers introduced with All Saints’ I Know Where It’s At (released September 1997). Yeah, splitting hairs maybe, but these are elements that are all the more annoying for being so unnecessary and trivial and which would have been easy to correct. As it was we didn’t hear half the most important, popular or successful music of 1998, including Cher’s Believe, Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On or anything from B*Witched, Billie, Aqua, Madonna and The Spice Girls: perhaps not a bad thing, but again, that was what you heard everywhere on the radio and on telly in 1998. Or so I thought. Well, it was three years ago.

Once again with I Love the Nineties the programme had doomed itself instantly through its choice of presenter. Dana International was not the face of 1998. Her micro-bubble of national fame popped after about a week, and the event she remains most well known for is falling over at the Eurovision Song Contest of 1999. Her one hit never made the top 10 so while she may have deserved a passing mention her victory and the concurrent media frenzy over her (already ancient) sex change seemed undeserving of so much attention. After all previous Eurovision winners, let alone contests, have not had much of a look in here. Handing her the spotlight, meanwhile, did her no favours, merely exposing further her musical shortcomings, vanity (“I wanted to co-operate with everyone!”) and poor sense of humour.

More puzzling was the way the programme didn’t even begin with Eurovision, instead opting for another dodgy film. There’s Something About Mary was once more no way emblematic of 1998. The problem of using films as elements within nostalgia based formats was effectively nailed in the review of I Love 1997; but if anything that situation became worse here. Having seen neither this or the other film featured – Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – I found the programme’s attitude glib and patronising, alternately presuming too much then talking down at me for not understanding enough. But even in my relative naïveté I somehow failed to appreciate having Lisa Snowden yet again pop up to describe clips we were about to see. In fact everyone was at it. Joining Lisa in a roll call of serial stating-the-obvious offenders were Ed Byrne, Jenny Powell, Jeff Green and the particularly snide, over-knowing Marcus Brigstocke (who merits a special mention for going that extra bit further and impersonating the voices of characters we were just about to see).

OK, it’s very easy to knock such contributors, so who would go in their place? Who’s left to oil the wheels of the nostalgia industry now Stuart Maconie and Peter Kay have packed up and gone elsewhere? Fear not, because I Love 1998 saw a return to peak form of Jamie Theakston, standard-bearer for cheap shots from reviewers ever since the I Love franchise first began. Even at this late stage in the day Theako delivered the goods, casually chuckling over how he thought Dana International “looked just like a fella!” and how the dreadful Brimful of Asha by Cornershop tickled him because the line “Everyone needs a bosom for a pillow” made him keep “thinking of Claire Rayner – for some reason!” He must be aware of how his contributions to this series have made him look, and how he’s become a byword for the art of talking about a topic and still appearing confused despite having watched a clip on the subject 10 seconds earlier.

However even his performance paled alongside that of Mark Steel. Never a man to make it easy for you not to dislike him, Mark has cleverly used the whole I Love the Nineties series to set about cultivating even more reason for viewers to become consumed with irritation the second his giant face looms onto screen. His pompous comments boom out thanks to the way he’s filmed (like Fi Glover) in ultra-close up, which also amplifies the degree to which everything he says is so unfunny (ditto). There’s Something About Mary, therefore, was like “Breakfast at Tiffany’s, except Audrey Hepburn never had spunk in her hair!” During a section on the Coronation Street storyline involving the wrongful imprisonment of Deirdre Rachid, Mark helpfully reminded us how foolish we all were for confusing fiction with reality: “I hope they never go to see Shakespeare – they’ll be running on in the middle: ‘That’s murder!’”

Even though he later he faced stiff competition from Paul Ross (telling us about a trip he made to Leicester), Vanessa Feltz (trying to remember when she remembered something to do with the papers) and Peter York (looking at a bottle of Sunny Delight), on balance Mark has to rank as the most useless, counter-productive element of any I Love the Nineties programme. He’s one of those who’s done the most to drag this series so far downwards and belittle the fine work done by his forerunners in I Love the Seventies and Eighties.

The inevitable lewd content came in the form of an officially “lewd act”. George Michael’s arrest for indecent exposure was a big event of 1998, but typically mis-handled here. We had to endure a whole stream of “careless Wispa” style gags reeled off by “comedians”, and the chance for a bit of insight into George’s career up to that point (the wilderness years during the court case, the comeback LP), or even previous celebrity scandals was swapped for the sight of a George Michael impersonator listing his diary engagements for the week his alter ego got banged up. It was interesting hearing about how the video for Outside was made, but it felt out of place and sat awkwardly amongst so much trivial conjecture. The end was botched as well, as Johnny Vegas fluffed some pointless joke about Panini stickers, for which Panini then got a credit at the end.

Goodness Gracious Me began life on Radio 4 but this wasn’t mentioned once during the short section designed to convince us it was the most important programme of 1998. I’ve always found it a rather patchy series, with fantastic sketches rubbing shoulders with really banal, obvious ones. Being reminded of all the dreadful musical pastiche sequences was not pleasurable (nor enduring the requisite bit from “Going out for an English”). Intriguingly, though, the song Vindaloo was played during the background: a very popular hit, of course, and to do with the World Cup, though again neither were properly mentioned. We stayed with TV for the bit on Deirdre Rachid, a segment memorable for Margi Clarke confusingly describing her on-screen relationship with Deirdre as being “like Ronnie Barker to her Porridge.” It was somewhat bemusing to see the programme making so much of this age-old tactic of involving the press in soap opera storylines. Don’t they remember “Give Us Our Crossroads Back”? Owen Aaranovitch also appeared, complaining about how nostalgia programmes are holding his career back. You didn’t have to show up, Owen.

Combat trousers were laughed at for having so many pockets. All Saints wore them, so they were mentioned, not because they had some of the biggest selling singles of 1998. Gangsters were praised to the skies in the Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels section, making me not want to see the film even more; and to demonstrate the controversy over Sunny Delight we saw a child putting orange make up on his face. Brimful of Asha – a song that has less chords, and imagination, than Three Blind Mice – was causing a problem for Marcus again: “What’s a brimful of asha?” he asked. “I should imagine it’s something to do with drugs,” suggested Wayne Hemingway (nice to see him back). But it was good to see the song’s eponymous hero – Asha Bhosle – interviewed, and let’s not forget Cornershop’s fine work in providing backing music for Mark Radcliffe’s Radio 1 shows for the last four years.

Finally we had South Park, a show, it’s true, you either “love or hate”. I fall into the second category, and I knew nothing I Love 1998 was going to say would persuade me otherwise. So again, here was something I’ve never really “got” being presented to me as obvious, and my bemusement made a source of humiliation by implying I was just the same as the fusty expert who didn’t like it because of all its swearing. A really miserable end to a deeply unsatisfactory, instantly forgettable programme.

Anyway, I Love 1998 – was it good for you too?