At about the same time, a friend of mine was badgering me constantly to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm. “Nah”, I thought, “doesn’t look like my cup of tea at all”. Eventually, I relented and – just to be able to say I’d given it a chance – sat myself down to an episode. Half an hour later, I found myself grudgingly using the words, “You were right”, and berating myself for resisting Larry David’s charms for so long.

Lead Balloon has come to occupy a position that bridges those two stories. Just as I had to cajole people into watching The US Office, so I struggled to enjoy Lead Balloon without subconsciously dubbing Larry David’s voice over the show. Throughout the first series, I struggled in vain to accept Jack Dee’s ongoing claims Lead Balloon was not influenced by Curb. Oh heavens forbid, no! And, to continue The Office parallel, watching Lead Balloon brought to mind Stromberg, the German workplace-based comedy, which the producers insisted was not remotely influenced by Gervais’ efforts. They relented when BBC lawyers came a-knocking.

With this second series, Lead Balloon has hit its stride. Either that or I’ve simply kicked the habit of mentally humming Curb‘s incidental music every time a new scene begins. Not that Dee has made it easy for me to abolish the comparisons – the sight of Rick Spleen stealing flowers from a memorial was astonishing for being exactly what Larry David does in the latest series, recently screened in the US. Plus I must admit in this latest episode, I flinched when the builder character introduced “My wife, Cheryl”. If Dee truly believes Lead Balloon is not remotely influenced by Curb, then writing partner Pete Sinclair must be doing one hell of a job pulling the wool over his eyes.

The thing that finally drew me into Lead Balloon was the realisation Rick Spleen is actually a great character in his own right. Not as loud or as boorish as Larry David, he reacts in a much more understated and, well, British middle-class sort of way. True, he shares many of Larry’s traits, his neuroses, his inability to conceal unhappiness or disappointment, his penchant for taking petty revenge on those who upset him. Spleen’s actions and reactions – not those of people around him – do not stray into the realms of cartoon-ish excess.

Sadly, I have little praise for the supporting cast. The character of Marty, Spleen’s American comedy writing partner, is near-irrelevant. His only function appears to be the one who goes “tut” at Spleen’s whinging, while his one-liners feel hopelessly out of place, conveying a sense someone insisted on occasional gags to ensure people realise it’s a comedy. Likewise, the regular inserts of Spleen writing jokes on a pad seem a pointless diversion from what the show does best. If Marty is meant to be Lead Balloon‘s answer to Richard Lewis, then there is a huge amount of work to do.

Magda, plus Spleen’s daughter and her boyfriend similarly serve little purpose. The East European daily help does little to assist the show, and, like Alan’s girlfriend in series two of I’m Alan Partridge, seems to exist only to allow a string of fairly cheap Borat-style gags about “backward” customs. The daughter and boyfriend, meanwhile, do little at all, other than to make Rick a bit more grumpy … which seems a shame.

This latest episode is triggered by Spleen saving a man from suicide, which leads him to try and milk the story of his heroism – a scenario which nicely shows the vanity of the character. In a rather odd move, the end of the episode reveals the saved man to have been a convicted paedophile, but squanders the opportunity for a backlash against Spleen’s for saving someone so vilified. The ending is doubly strange as it yet again recalls an episode of Curb, in which Larry befriends a man who turns out to be a sex offender, and feels obliged to invite him to a dinner party.

However, the strongest scene in the episode comes when Speen is told the man he has invited to dinner is not the head of drama at ITV – as he thought – but a builder. How he could have made such an error is glossed over, but it does allow a superb sequence showing Spleen’s pretensions, as he tries to hide anything he considers too good for a workman. When capable of attaining such heights, I am able to forgive Lead Balloon its flaws, and this for me was the moment when the show stepped out of the shadows and emerged as a truly enjoyable comedy in its own right.

Shorn of the excesses of Curb (am I the only one who finds that show’s references to Seinfeld hideously clunky?), Lead Balloon reveals traces of true brilliance. Perhaps it would be more palatable to many if they actually did admit the link instead of constantly denying the obvious. After all, it’s infinitely easier to accept Rick Spleen as a British Larry David than to accept Michael Scott as an American David Brent.

Now into its fourth series, David Mitchell and Robert Webb are being seen as the next generation of comedy greats, despite both the ratings, and the fact their other work (sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Look, for example), rarely match Peep Show‘s standards.

Having loved every minute of the first three series, I’m not quite sure what to make of the current run. Although it has contained some uproariously funny moments, there seems to be something slightly different – something I couldn’t quite put my finger on until now.

One neat idea is the inversion of previous theme detailing Mark’s obsession with workmate Sophie. Whereas the first two series focussed on his dismal attempts to woo her, the couple got engaged at the end of series three, just as Mark realised he didn’t actually love her after all. Much has been made this time of his hope for a way of breaking off the marriage without the social embarrassment of having to tell his fiance he’s no longer interested.

The problem, sadly, is that this is pretty much the only constant this time around, and even this storyline has been given scant time to evolve. From a cracking first episode, in which Sophie takes Mark – and, inexplicably, Jeremy – to meet her parents, our anti-heroes have ended up heading off to a new location every week … usually so that Mark can avoid further contact with Sophie. Indeed, as the story becomes more centred on his dilemma, Jeremy has become sidelined, to the point where his whole appearance in certain episodes has seemed a last minute addition.

If it is a concern that Mark and Jeremy appear to be heading off to new locations every week, then more worrying still is the fact the solitary episode of the series so far that had them travel to their new surroundings in the company of the show’s usual array of supporting characters (Sophie, Johnson, Jeff, and Big Suze all joining them at a Kettering conference), we ended up with probably one of the weakest episodes yet. It seems we can have character-based story-telling, or top class jokes, but not both.

And so we come to the most recent edition. A promising start sees Mark and Sophie visit a relationship councillor, where Mark is appalled to find he is not given an opportunity to subtly exhibit his “subconscious” disinterest in Sophie. A truly great idea – and one that could have filled an episode on its own – however, to the chagrin of both Mark and myself, it quickly degenerated into nothing more than Sophie lamenting his poor performance in the bedroom, before drawing to a swift close.

The main story concerned Jeremy taking Mark on a canal boat stag weekend, with Jeremy’s thoughtfulness about the kind of do his friend would like soon giving way to him forcing Mark into a pub, where he sets his sights on one of two sisters – notably the fifth person Jerem’s been romantically involved with in five episodes. Mark, meanwhile, becomes the object of the other sibling’s desires, but he’s more interested in impressing the father, in the hope of being offered a job in India, ensuing the end of his relationship with Sophie. Yet again, the episode involves importing another entirely new cast of supporting characters, a device that’s starting to become excessive.

However, despite things not looking good, the second half managed to be a comic masterpiece. Immediately before the ad-break, Jeremy runs over and kills the sisters’ beloved dog, and – with he and Mark not wanting this to destroy their carnal or career aspirations respectively – set about trying to destroy the evidence. This culminates in Jeremy coming close to a nervous breakdown as he is forced to eat the burnt remains of the animal’s leg after lying it was a piece of badly cooked turkey. All in all, it turned into an even-more-warped version of One Foot in the Grave‘s frozen cat or incinerated tortoise incidents.

Being Peep Show, it almost can’t fail to include some superb lines, such as Mark’s observation of his new admirer, “Wealthy, lovely family – if only she weren’t such a horrible person, she’d be the woman of my dreams”, or Jeremy’s advice to, “Stop going on about the Euro; we’re in it now, and there’s nothing you can do about it”. The frequent joyous dips into the darkest realms of comedy make me muse that, despite the best efforts of Jack Dee and Ricky Gervais, Peep Show is probably the closest we have to a British Curb Your Enthusiasm. And probably the only other programme to routinely make me weep with laughter.

It seems unbelievable that I should be criticising a sitcom that left tears rolling down my cheeks. The concern is that the show may be starting to run short of ideas and, like The Simpsons, is resorting to uprooting the cast to new locations every week, or introducing an endless array of one-episode characters for the regulars to upset, and then abandon.

I do hope that the next week’s final episode of this run it able to tie up some of these problems, and show us more of the support cast. Mark and Jeremy are wonderful characters, but no sitcom can manage just by thrusting the same two people into a different world each week. Hopefully, the already-commissioned fifth season will focus more on the core cast, who provide the richer array of engaging storylines.

For all the quibbles, however, I can’t stress enough that Peep Show is by far the best sitcom of recent years.

If you want to be cynical about it, it’s just another attempt at the “non-smiley” game show, a ball that was set rolling by The Weakest Link all those years ago, and while that programme has most certainly outstayed its welcome, nothing has ever come close to what made its early outings so enjoyable.

The crucial thing imitators all missed about those early runs of The Weakest Link was that, although players had to vote each other off, the majority of contestants were shown to be fairly uncomfortable about doing so, and it was rare anyone would take any pleasure in others’ misfortune. In other words, they were shown as perfectly nice people plonked into a hostile environment. Moreover, both thrived on the dichotomy created by the need to work as part of a team, while looking out for number one.

The clones, when they came, failed to recognise and incorporate these key characteristics. The worst offender, Dog Eat Dog, actively encouraged contestants to slag each other off, which not only made for uncomfortable viewing, but also led to the viewer finding contestants so repellent they didn’t actually want any of them to win. Furthermore, whereas we knew the nastiness of The Weakest Link was all pantomime villainy, we were given the impression Dog Eat Dog‘s lot were genuinely not very nice people.

This is where Pokerface hits its stumbling block.

The show reverses The Weakest Link‘s formula of “nice contestants/nasty host”, and sees the ever-chummy Ant and Dec trying to make the viewer care about players who are engrossed in an intentionally hard-nosed game. The problem is that, when a game rewards the very same character-traits that make someone difficult to like, there isn’t that much scope to encourage the viewer to root for a favourite. This was difficult enough to ignore in previous editions, but when we reach the final – with its line-up of the winning (and therefore, logically, the most hard-nosed) players from the earlier episodes – it adds up to a piece of television which is very difficult to enjoy.

Most curiously, the format of the show includes an initial “grilling”, where players can cross-examine each other as they reveal a mixture of true and false information about themselves (complete with captions to tell viewers how much of their story is for real). Whereas this is clearly meant to enable us to build our sympathies with the players, it has precisely the opposite effect on me. With the grilling being part of the game, the players are already in their inscrutable mode, rendering everything they say redundant.

Likewise, after each round of questions, players are allowed to talk to each other in an attempt to bluff, double-bluff, and manipulate opponents into believing they should fold, and thereby voluntarily leave the game. Again, this usually involves one player adopting an overly aggressive and arrogant persona, and once this happens, the others usually follow suit. Again, the result is any sympathy I have slowly ebbs away to the point where I hope there is some method built into the game mechanics that allows nobody to win anything at all.

Of course, another key aspect to The Weakest Link was that the prize money – although theoretically good – was in practice fairly paltry. It was easy to root for people when you knew they were more-than-likely there for the fun of the game. With Pokerface, and its million pound jackpot, the spectre of greed looms large. Not only do I start to feel the players see the game as simply a means to an end, but I begin to dislike the programme for offering such massive rewards to people who are being shown in this rather unpalatable light.

In the end, as I admitted earlier, I did watch the series through to its conclusion, so it must have been doing something right. Maybe it was to do with the hilariously pompous face that Ant would pull every time Dec read from the autocue. Or perhaps there was something more. There were occasions when, thankfully, the game seemed to be played in a more honourable way, but more often than not, the whole thing degenerated into something of an ignominious fiasco, with a group of contestants I simply hated.

Despite Ant and Dec’s attempts to humanise the players, this simply did not work, as the participants remained “in character” throughout. Perhaps a more successful strategy in this respect would be to interview contenders in isolation so we can hear more of their true personalities. As it was, there was always a sense that the hosts knew they were fighting a losing battle.

I suspect Pokerface is a format that would play better in other countries, such as the USA, where contestants’ attempts to win at all costs are generally regarded as more commendable. To make the game truly work for British audiences, I suspect you’d need to drastically reduce the prize money, and up the fun quotient. Huge prizes may draw in viewers, but they can all too often ruin the spirit of the game.

I’ve had to conclude the reason I didn’t like Pokerface as much as I expected is the same reason I’ve never really enjoyed The Apprentice. Quite simply, I don’t like anyone in it. I want to see nice people being rewarded on television, not hard-nosed cynics and bland executives.

Maybe I’m overly romantic in feeling TV should provide a means to reward people for niceness, modesty, and selflessness. But, remember, the premise of The Weakest Link and The Mole was that nice, genuine, gifted people would triumph over the oppressiveness of the game. Pokerface, as it stands, rewards those who make others feel inadequate, and that is something I simply can’t forgive.

For me, the Radio 4 series of The Mark Steel Lectures was a delight. In each episode, he proved himself to be one of the few people who can talk passionately and entertainingly about relatively academic subjects. Some were naturally more interesting than others – a subject like Aristotle is always going to be difficult to sell to a comedy audience, after all – but all were entertaining, with a good balance of facts and jokes. This was often achieved by concentrating as much on the subjects’ personalities as their achievements, and usually the best moments would be the asides, reflecting how modern society would interpret each subject’s activities and eccentricities.

For me, there was one episode of the radio series which had a particular impact. I had never had any interest in Charlie Chaplin until Steel dedicated an edition to him. As far as I was concerned, he was just a silent film star from a distant age, who wore a bowler hat, waved a cane, and had a moustache. After listening to Steel’s fascinating account of his life story, I was soon inspired to start investigating his work. I watched Chaplin, Richard Attenborough’s biopic, starring Robert Downey Jr. Later, I read Chaplin’s autobiography, and was startled by the sheer expressiveness of a man famed for his silence. I started watching Chaplin’s later, more controversial, films. I discovered real gems in the forms of his final silent flicks, Modern Times, and City Lights. I discovered the deliciously dark satire of his first (and again, highly eloquent) talkie, Monsieur Verdoux, and the emotional resonance of Limelight. More than anything, however, I discovered what became my favourite movie ever, Chaplin’s courageous attack on Adolf Hitler, The Great Dictator.

While I was busy building up my Chaplin DVD collection, The Mark Steel Lectures transferred to TV, and suitably to BBC4. Through the first series, I eagerly hoped for a televised version of the Chaplin lecture, but it never came. Second time around, however, brought with it the topic I was so keen to see. Surely of all the subjects covered in the radio series, Chaplin was the one that would be most suited to a TV version? There was, after all, a certain irony to using radio as a medium to advocate the greatness of a silent movie star.

If you compare any of the TV lectures to their radio predecessors, one thing is obvious. Mark Steel is a much better performer on radio than television. There, his delivery is quick, sharp, and passionate. On TV, there is always a sense of being a rabbit caught in the headlights. The delivery is slower and less natural, the jokes more laboured. The sense of Steel being an enthusiastic advocator of the subject is replaced with more the aspect of a teacher who tells the odd joke to keep you interested.

This formality is as evident in the Chaplin lecture as any other. Material delivered as an aside in a radio lecture is here padded out into short sketches that turn a decent throwaway line into a clunking pause in the story. Although some of these sketches contain good jokes, these are mainly the silent ones that play to Steel’s continuing narration, such as Chaplin taking inspiration from a newspaper full of headlines like “Man ties woman to railway” and “Piano falls on man’s head”. Less successful is some of the material copied directly from the radio version. On the wireless, it is just about possible to convince yourself Steel’s asides and tangents are at least semi-spontaneous; but on TV the same material falls flat, each line being delivered with an uncomfortable silence where the studio laughter should be.

The stiffness of Steel’s delivery also acts to the detriment of the lecture’s content. For example, the radio version’s semi-serious tone allowed Steel to make points that a conventional documentary could not. Much of the reason for my admiration of The Great Dictator lies in the fact a popular comedian is able to take a then-controversial political stance against the Nazis, which Steel rightly mused would be impossible today: “You couldn’t imagine Patricia Routledge being called to 10 Downing Street to be persuaded to tone down the political indictments in her latest series of Keeping Up Appearances“.

Such pithy contextualising is largely missing from the television version, and the overall programme is worse for it.

Still, that doesn’t matter with the Chaplin lecture, surely? Steel can do the teaching, while the jokes can be left to the movie star. Furthermore, the big advantage of this lecture over most of the others is that we have footage of the man himself -the whole reason for his fame is his films, after all. Bizarrely, we don’t get to see any footage of Chaplin. Instead, Lectures regular Martin Hyder (who looks nothing like Chaplin), recreates some of his most famous scenes, managing to spectacularly jettison every scrap of humour or emotion that Chaplin strove to create. Indeed, the dismal enactments of famous scenes from The Kid and Modern Times had me cringing, while the take on The Great Dictator was so poor as to make me contemplate throwing the TV set through the window. Surely if you are making a programme about Chaplin and don’t have access to the real footage, the solution is to either work around that, or abandon the show? The solution here truly was the worst of both worlds, akin to making a programme about Fawlty Towers in which Arthur Mullard acts out John Cleese’s best scenes. Surely Steel, a professional political comedian professing admiration for Chaplin, would see this?

Maybe you could say I am too much of a Chaplin devotee to make a reasoned judgement here. Maybe I was always destined to be disappointed in the way that advocates of the series’ other subjects might pick fault with Steel’s account of their hero. How ironic though, that I should feel this way, given that the sole person responsible for arousing my passion for Chaplin is Steel himself. Can I imagine being similarly stirred by the television version? Probably not, which is a shame, as a few original clips of Chaplin’s finest moments, mixing the silence of the tramp with the engaging fluency of his later work, would surely convince more people of Steel’s basic argument, that it is wrong to see him as nothing more than “a bloke with a silly walk who bumped into things … ideal for Saturday morning kid’s telly”.

As for Steel himself, he is certainly an excellent radio comedian, and with a studio audience, could almost certainly translate his talents to television. As it is, however, The Mark Steel Lectures is an excellent idea, generally well made, but somehow doesn’t gel in the way it really ought. Tweaking the format, such as ditching some of the more obviously scripted tangents, or delivering the lecture to an audience in a mock-academic setting, might help to turn the TV version into the kind of success both the radio version, and the concept in general, deserve.

I first saw Lucas and Walliams late one night on the Paramount Comedy Channel. They were appearing on Paramount Presents under the moniker “Mash and Peas”. I recognised Danny Mash as being Matt Lucas from Shooting Stars, but Gareth Peas was a new face to me. Their sections involved a series of fantastic spoofs of late night ITV shows, like Littlejohn, Gaz Top Non Stop, and Bushell on the Box. Other episodes included nightmarish Americanised versions of familiar UK shows, and Walliams’ spectacular performance in a spoof of the pre-downfall Michael Barrymore. This sketch alone was enough to convince me that he was the finest comic talent I’d seen in years.

My love of Lucas and Walliams (or more precisely, of David Walliams) continued with Sir Bernard’s Stately Homes, in which Lucas’ Sir Bernard Chumley attempted to host a series of historical documentaries despite being far more interested in a competition that offered a year’s supply of free crisps. Next came Rock Profile, which had the odd duff episode, but generally worked well, particularly the episodes that allowed Walliams free reign to steal the show. I still smile at the moment when Lucas’ George Michael is talking solemnly about his solo work, only for Walliams to burst onto the set as an over-enthusiastic Andrew Ridgeley, who can’t accept that Wham ever split up.

Little Britain didn’t really work on radio for me. Without the sight of Walliams either staring blankly into space, or flailing his limbs through the air, much of the comedy was lost. Nevertheless, the prospect of a TV version was something to relish. Indeed, the pilot episode, shown in the early days of BBC3, suggested there was a lot of potential for the show to turn into something quite extraordinary. What I did not expect, however, was for it to become anywhere near as popular as it eventually did.

Now, Little Britain has become a lumbering behemoth. There would have been a national outcry if the first episode of series three had been without the likes of Daffyd, Vicky Pollard or Lou and Andy, despite the fact these one-joke characters have clearly run out of steam. How many times can Andy get out of his wheelchair and run around behind Lou’s back before people start to tire? Or to put it another way, how many times can Lucas and Walliams retell the same gag and get away with it? Dare I be the first to suggest that Little Britain could do with resting these characters for a while? Dare I even suggest that Tom Baker’s narration has gone from a masterpiece of comic subtlety to a garishly unfunny mess?

Watching this first episode of series three was a strangely joyless experience. All the ingredients were there, but without any hint of subtlety. The attempt to develop another one-joke character, Bubbles De Vere, was dismal, with a sense of severe desperation as she began to pronounce words phonetically (the “i” in marriage, for example). The “computer says no” sketches have been transferred from a bank to a travel agent, but made no tangible difference to the skit.

Even my favourite characters, Sebastian and Anthony Head’s Prime Minister, had lost any sense of subtlety. The sight of Head having to bend over in a studded leather thong perfectly symbolised where Little Britain is headed. Sebastian used to be a tragic figure, full of unrequited love for his boss. Now he has become an unlikeable, manipulative monster. Where can the character go from here?

Things weren’t all bad, however. Anne’s impersonation of Celine Dion on Stars in their Eyes was superb, especially given that sketch retained its predecessors’ sense of there being a definite limit to how long the character can stay sane. This was more the Walliams I remembered from all those years ago, playing it totally straight up to a point, and then going instantly to the opposite extreme.

The new characters were a mixed bag. A stuffy looking politician giving convoluted excuses for his scandalous behaviour has been done countless times before, but Walliams’ straight faced delivery made the sketch shine. Mrs Emery, Walliams’ highly incontinent pensioner, was funny, but seems likely to join the long list of Little Britain characters whose one joke will be milked beyond exhaustion, so to speak. Dudley and Ting Tong, the lonely single man and his mail order Thai bride, shows little cause for optimism, given that Lucas lacks Walliams’ ability to successfully carry off such over-the-top characters.

When Little Britain began, the most obvious way to describe it was as a “cartoon” version of The League of Gentlemen. The difference between the two, however, is that the League seized the opportunity to let the concept develop. By series three, the sketch format of old had evolved into a more story-led structure and the characters were interacting with each other. They were willing to risk alienating their existing fans by presenting familiar characters in entirely new contexts. Lucas and Walliams, by contrast, seem content to sit in a comfort zone, churning out near-identical jokes over and over and over again. Whereas the League’s characters became deeper and more complex over time, Little Britain turned into The Fast Show. Characters would come on, do the same old routine, say their catchphrases and go.

On the plus side, it looks like the duo were being truthful when they said the new series relies less on shock value to win a reaction, with no sign of the dismal “bitty” sketches, nor of some of the less iconic characters who have run their course, like Kenny Craig or Dennis Waterman. It would be nice to see some of the series one creations brought back (particularly the former Olympian Denver Mills, who had real potential to become a great three-dimensional character). Walliams has always been perfectly capable of turning on the magic when you least expect it, so Little Britain will always be worth watching in the hope he’ll shine again. After all, I still maintain that an on-form David Walliams is one of the most spectacular comic sights you’ll ever see, and most episodes of the programme offer at least one chance to see how great he is when let off the leash.

Alas, I have become that pub bore. While everyone else is roaring with laughter every time someone says, “Yeah but no, but yeah”, I’ll be the one staring into my packet of crisps and mumbling an impression of Sir Bernard Chumley. Oh what the hell, just for the dozen or so people who saw it: “Ooh, I do love crisps, you know!” You just try and tell me that wouldn’t make a great catchphrase.

For anyone who has missed it thus far, the “twist” of The X Factor is that the competitors are split into three categories: 16 – 24 year-old soloists; 23+ year-old soloists; and vocal groups. Each of the three judges is responsible for mentoring the contenders from a particular section, with Sharon Osbourne championing the youngsters, Simon Cowell the older soloists, and Louis Walsh the groups. As such, great play is made of the idea that these three are desperate to beat each other by having one of their acts crowned the winner. Other than that, it’s the same old routine: they all sing, you vote for your favourite, one gets the boot, the rest come back next week and do the same again.

One question that always comes to mind in these shows is why anyone who is good enough to make it as a genuine recording artist would audition in the first place. This is particularly true of The X Factor‘s 16 – 24 section, given that this is the group targeted by all the previous programmes, where it has become screamingly obvious that the superstardom they all promise rarely materialises. Of all the contestants on the various incarnations of the format, only Will Young, Girls Aloud and arguably Darius Danesh have managed to sustain any sort of high-profile career. There’s no guarantee of superstardom even for the winners, as Hear’Say, Michelle McManus, One True Voice, and David Sneddon have all proven. Worse still, the fact that the immensely talented Alex Parks could make so little impact after winning Fame Academy should serve as a warning to anyone with serious musical ambitions to resist the temptation to try the shortcut to success.

And so, like lambs to the slaughter, the nine X Factor finalists lined up for the first live show. One thing that is immediately obvious is the whole thing lacks atmosphere. The studio seems a lot smaller and less glamorous than that of Pop Idol, whereas the presence of a petrified-looking Kate Thornton as host simply makes the whole thing feel like an edition of the aforementioned show’s ITV2 “fanzine” spin-off. Somehow, despite the hyped-up crowd, who willingly cheer anything and everything all night long, it feels like you’re watching a final rehearsal, rather than the real event. One thing that does arouse interest, however, is the promise that the voting system has a secret twist that will, we are told, make sure that every single vote matters.

As for the acts themselves, it soon becomes obvious that we have at least got a bit of variety. As well as the usual bawling balladeers, we have young Tabby rocking away, Voices With Soul offering exactly what their name promises, and G4 performing a stunning operatic rendition of REM’s Everybody Hurts. As with every other reality-pop show at this stage, the biggest problem seems to be that, with nine contestants to squeeze in, each act barely gets time to get going before they’re booted off-stage. As a result, by the end of it all, nobody can remember much about what happened at the start. In fact, several songs were edited so severely the lyrics simply didn’t make sense, not that anyone was really listening for that sort of thing.

With three categories and three judges all obviously biased toward their own protégés, the verdict sequence seems strangely stifled. By their own admission, Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh have formed an alliance against Simon Cowell, and so we have a fairly basic routine passing itself off as rivalry. Walsh, for example, comments on one of Cowell’s older female acts that “there just aren’t many housewives in the charts”, thus wilfully misunderstanding the whole point of the show – that anyone can supposedly make it if they have the talent. Cowell then criticises Sharon Osbourne’s acts, at which point Osbourne goes bright red and slags him off, and Walsh delivers some variation on the theme of “what planet is this man on?”, before extolling the singer’s virtues. Hopefully, when the series develops some sort of organic storyline and the acts make a genuine connection with the audience, we can be spared this rather feeble charade of mock-rivalry.

When the nine performers have come and gone, some of them making a great impression, others bland in the extreme, it’s time to fill some space with an utterly trivial vote. The audience is asked to vote for their favourite judge. Soon, Thornton says that “Sharon Osbourne is in the lead so far, but it could change”. A few seconds later, the result is revealed. It hasn’t changed after all. Sharon Osbourne has won, but the vote has no significance to anything whatsoever. There’s just time for a quick reminder of the acts, and the customary explanation of the billion-and-one ways of registering your vote, along with the minutiae of the costs of doing so, before ITV1 goes over to Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, followed by the choice of either ‘Millionaire on ITV1, or The Xtra Factor on ITV2, for anyone who can stomach 10 minutes of material packed into an hour of meandering TV.

One thing that no reality-pop show has yet discovered is the means to make the results show work, at least in the early stages before the revelation itself becomes significant enough to mask the cracks in the presentation. As Kate Thornton reappears, still looking utterly terrified, it is time to discover what the promised twist in the voting system is. It turns out to be little more than a variation on the Fame Academy routine, in which the bottom two from the public vote would be put forward, and the eventual loser decided in the studio. The only difference between The X Factor and Fame Academy‘s system is that, while the BBC show handed the final decision to the other contestants, X Factor passes it onto the judges. At this point, two problems become apparent. Thornton had promised that the system would ensure that every vote mattered more than ever, whereas in fact it makes the public vote less significant than before. Secondly, none of the judges are going to vote to dismiss their own acts if they have any choice in the matter, so there’s not a lot of drama in them giving their judgement.

Before we find out who will be put before the judge’s final vote, we have to go through Thornton, now looking even more afraid than ever, reciting the same line over and over, “The first person who is safe is … Tabby”, at which point, hysterical cheering erupts from the audience, and Thornton’s eyes dart about off-camera, as she tries trying to quieten the crowd.

As the fate of the last three contestants hung in the balance, things developed in a manner very familiar to anyone who followed ITV2′s coverage of American Idol. For those who didn’t see it, that show’s results edition would be dragged out as much as humanly possible, with contestants singing group numbers, showing “hilarious” clips of them all together, then dragging on celebrity guests to duet with them, and all manner of feeble garbage designed to postpone the actual reckoning for as long as possible. Fortunately The X Factor doesn’t yet go as far as that, but still pads out the process by revealing the identity of the bottom two, then making them both sing again. Given the amount of pressure deliberately heaped upon them, I take my hat off to the contestants for being able to stand up, let alone sing.

The bottom two were reasonably predictable. Voices With Soul were there, probably for no other reason than they were the first act on, and nobody could remember them by the time the lines opened; and young Roberta, a girl whose voice and looks scored highly with the judges, but who was so bland it’s hard to imagine anyone feeling strongly enough to pick up the phone and vote for her. Sure enough, Louis didn’t feel inclined to axe his group, and Sharon likewise didn’t fancy getting rid of her girl, and so the entire decision rested with Simon Cowell. Somehow, this seemed inevitable, as Cowell always seems to get what he wants in the end. The only question mark was whether he might be mischievous enough to axe Voices With Soul on the basis that they could pose a threat to his own acts later on in the series. In the end, however, he did the honourable thing, and Roberta was the subject of the usual montage of “your best moments with us”, and the shot of the tear running down her face.

As she disappeared into the eternal shadowland inhabited by the dozens of other former talent show contestants whose potential pop careers have been massacred by their appearances on the nation’s screens, it was time to wrap up.

Much like Popstars: The Rivals, it seems that The X Factor‘s real purpose is to prove how vital Ant and Dec were to making Pop Idol such great TV. Whatever “the X factor” itself might be, Kate Thornton, like Davina McCall before her, just don’t seem to have it. Seemingly nervous, and unable to bring out the contestants’ personalities or control the crowd’s enthusiasm, the whole show never loses the sense that the Geordie duo have called in sick and Thornton’s filling in at five minutes’ notice. Without their self-effacing bonhomie, the programme badly lacks humour, and everything feels far more formal that it ought to be. The rivalry between the judges comes across as hideously contrived, and you can’t help feeling that, if this were Pop Idol, any such faults would be neutralised with a bout of mickey-taking, or a wry raising of the eyebrow to camera.

One thing that is inescapable, however, is that whole thing is undermined by a sense that the contestants are all either bland balladeers or one-hit-wonder novelty acts, none of whom are likely to have lasting careers beyond the end of the series. Not that the judges are likely to care too much if they are, of course, as the whole show is geared up to allow BMG (Cowell’s record label) a shot at the Christmas number one, and what does it matter if you can’t remember any of the current contestants in 12 months’ time, given there will be yet another reality-pop show by then?

Then again, who is the real sucker here? If I look in my CD collection, I find an alarming number of albums by former reality-pop contestants, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, this time next year, I have something from an X Factor act sat there too. No matter how much I want to give up watching these shows, there’s always something that keeps me hooked. The format may be repetitive, but it always seems to have that intangible draw, that special indefinable something which keeps me watching even when I don’t really want to.

I suppose I’d have to call it the “X factor”.

The programme followed the usual nostalgia TV format of a presenter, Jonathan Ross, linking a slow countdown through all the usual array of clips (Frank Spencer roller-skating, Hancock’s precious armful of blood, David Brent dancing), separated by interviews with nonentities declaring: “That Ronnie Barker, eh? Genius, I reckon”, or actors and writers sharing their memories, most notably Carla Lane shocking the world by saying “I’ve never admitted it before but Ria [from Butterflies] was based, to an extent, on myself”. All in all, it was a vaguely interesting way to pass a Saturday night.

Unfortunately, when we got to the top 10, Ross enthusiastically told us that, much like Great Britons before it, the final selection was to be decided by us – the great unwashed. What an honour. What a privilege. Oh, hang on, doesn’t that completely ignore the fact that the entire top 100 had already been voted for by us, through the BBC website? Also, isn’t it strangely convenient that the top 10 consists purely of BBC shows, with the highest non-BBC entry, Father Ted, at 11? Maybe, although admittedly it was a dead-cert that Auntie Beeb would dominate the chart, and dominate they certainly did, with the next best Channel 4 offering, Drop the Dead Donkey, at 26, and the highest ITV show, Rising Damp, at 27 (assuming you don’t count Men Behaving Badly, which finished 16th).

And so, for 10 long weeks we had to put up with a series of celebrities hosting hour-long appeals as to why a particular show should get our vote. More revelations followed as the appeals became increasingly desperate. Did you know, for example, that Arkwright from Open All Hours was (brace yourself) tight-fisted? Or that the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard wasn’t the greatest bunch of soldiers in the world?

No matter, for as Saturday 27 March dawned, the good people of Britain could look forward to the results being announced live in what was promised as a celebration of the greatest comedies of all time, plus The Vicar of Dibley. First, the ever-cheerful Ross welcomed us with a repeat of the countdown from 50 to 11, and then – God help us – a recap of all the arguments from the last 10 weeks. So, once again we heard Johnny Vaughan tell us that: “Porridge is the only one of the 10 to have a proper situation,” Rowland Rivron reveal that: “Victor Meldrew was frustrated by the modern world,”, and Carol Vorderman disclose that: “The Vicar of Dibley was written at a time when there was a lot of controversy about women vicars.”

Finally, the main event arrived. A studio audience had materialised, and Ross welcomed onto the stage the 10 advocates who had bored us silly every Saturday for the last two and a half months. This actually provided the comic highpoint of the evening, as Ross seemed desperate to avoid shaking hands with any of them. OK, surely things can get going now? First question: What’s so great about your respective sitcoms? Cue yet more quotes like “Porridge is the only one of the 10 to have a proper situation,” and “The Vicar of Dibley was written at a time when there was a lot of controversy about women vicars.” One sitcom catchphrase ominously missing was: “Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once”.

Any chance of a decent debate was utterly destroyed by the fact that those who looked capable of making the whole thing watchable (John Sergeant, Armando Ianucci) were comprehensively drowned out by the likes of Johnny Vaughan. Hence, the few witty remarks, such as Ianucci’s claim that “The Vicar of Dibley isn’t as funny as Father Ted or The Passion of the Christ,” were few and far between, whereas remarks like: “That Ronnie Barker, eh? Genius, I reckon” were plentiful.

Ross interspersed the monotony every few minutes or so, sometimes by consigning the advocate of the least popular remaining sitcom to a losers’ area, but more often by showing all the clips you’d expected to see, such as Del Boy falling through the bar, “Don’t tell him, Pike” and Victor Meldrew picking up a dog, thinking it’s the telephone. This painfully ignored the fact that these clips have been shown so often they have long since ceased to be amusing. Worse still, we were shown endless sequences telling us how to vote, how many votes the rejected sitcoms had received, and the order in which they’d been given the boot. It seems to be the curse of 21st century Saturday night television that each show must be punctuated by the need for viewers to vote for something, which then requires unbearably lengthy explanations of how to do so.

To give Ross his credit, he did valiantly try to vary the conversation by introducing topics like the roles of the support cast, or the writers, but these inevitably made little difference to the quality of debate. Carol Vorderman’s view on the writing of The Vicar of Dibley was: “You have to remember that it was written at a time when there was a lot of controversy about women vicars,” while Vaughan reminded us that: “Porridge is the only one that was written about a proper situation”. Predictably, as the debate became more monotonous, the number of inserts increased, and lame devices were introduced, such as revealing which shows were in the bottom three, and getting their advocates to make a last appeal before the bottom two were cast aside (ignoring the implication that the previous 10 weeks’ voting had therefore been meaningless). It was a sign that the programme had run its course when even the advocates started to acknowledge that the only real interest was in seeing what finished second to Only Fools and Horses.

Duly, the Trotters did indeed win, just as we knew they would from the second the BBC announced the competition. The only vaguely interesting thing about the victory was that the show’s legendary status obviously hadn’t been irreparably damaged by the dreadful trio of Christmas specials that left so many of us open-mouthed with embarrassment. Indeed, the issue of Only Fools and Horses becoming a weak soap opera rather than a sitcom was one of the few worthy contributions made by Johnny Vaughan, but this swiftly forgotten. Second was Blackadder, and third was The Vicar of Dibley. The fact that this fairly bland sitcom can be ranked above the likes of Dad’s Army (number 4), Steptoe and Son (15), Hancock (30), The Young Ones (31), and Phoenix Nights (36), paints a miserable picture of the nation’s sense of humour, or at least would do, if you were to ascribe the whole thing as being remotely important.

In theory, Britain’s Best Sitcom should have been interesting viewing. What prevented it from being so was the insistence on dragging out a two-hour countdown to become a 12-week bore; the shameless attempts to persuade the public to keep heightening their phone bills; and the very simple fact that it is extremely difficult to keep talking about why you love a particular sitcom without endlessly repeating yourself. Whereas with Great Britons, it is more than feasible to fill an hour talking about your hero’s various achievements, it is nigh-on impossible to talk about sitcoms without quickly being reduced to the likes of: “That Ronnie Barker, eh? Genius, I reckon”.

Oh, and for the record – ot he top 10, my vote went to Yes Minister, while my true favourite sitcom, Ever Decreasing Circles, languished at number 52. Why Ever Decreasing Circles? Well … um … that Richard Briers, eh? Genius, I reckon.

Still Game received a much more low-key launch, which is a great shame as it is a corker of a sitcom, with Jack and Victor emerging as wonderful characters. Neither seems to have any particular aspirations, other than to keep surviving and to maintain their dignity in the face of old age. They aren’t particularly angry about their situation, and generally seem to accept their lot with a good natured optimism. They look forward to their little treats, like the occasional pint, a trip to the park to feed the ducks, or a trip to the shops. While this doesn’t sound too promising, the life-long bond between the two provides plenty to occupy our time.

In the second episode of the series, “Courting”, we join our doddery duo with Victor looking forward to visiting the charity shop, so that the pair can chat up Barbara, the old lady who works there: “Just like the old days; the old patter”. Jack is not at all keen and wants nothing to do with it. Later Victor realises that Jack simply can’t bring himself to be unfaithful to his wife, who died almost exactly 10 years ago. This unfolds into a surprisingly touching scene where Victor has to console him and persuade him not to hold onto the past. Kiernan and Hemphill show a deft touch in making us care about the characters, and considering that we’re only on the second episode, it’s amazing how much we are able to share a sense of how long the two have been friends, and how much history they have between them.

A neat sub-plot is played out with Winston (Paul Riley), one of the regulars at Jack and Victor’s local. A very mild mannered man, Winston goes totally over the top whenever he is angered, and finds himself barred. Unable to comprehend life without the pub, he takes to sitting on the doorstep, persuading other regulars to bring him out drinks, before going off to discover alternative ways to spend his days. We see him drinking alco-pops with local children, and making small talk with old biddies at the Bingo Hall. His desperation to fill his time leads to his proud boast that he has taught himself chess, is taking clarinet lessons, and all sorts of weird and wonderful pastimes.

When Jack gets his girl, it is a classic story of the friend feeling rejected. Victor shuffles through life feeling lonely. The situation is not helped by the fact that he is offered a date with Barbara’s sister, who turns out to be what Winston describes as “a munchkin”. Again, Victor’s plight is expertly played out, allowing us to see his dilemma, as he feels dejected, but somehow pleased for Jack. A visit to the local shop makes him feel no better – “Just one Chunky Kit-Kat, Victor? Fancy not buying one for your old friend Jack”. While there, he meets another superb support character, local gossip Isa. In a brilliantly meandering tale, motormouth Isa roars through the story of how she came to discover Barbara has a husband. Eventually, Jack finds out, and after some more soul-searching with Victor, everything’s back to normal, ready for next week’s episode.

The real strength of Still Game is the sheer warmth of the characters. Jack and Victor are good people, and their life-long friendship creates a very believable bond between the two. Kiernan and Hemphill portray their characters beautifully, while their scripts strike a good balance between the slow paced humour of Jack and Victor’s conversation, and the more immediate comedy of the supporting characters. Winston and Isa may seem like they could have come straight out of Father Ted, but they are kept just on the right side of believability. Among them all, however, there is a sense of community, a sense that they’re all in the same boat, but are just taking different approaches to solving the problems presented by the need to fill their days. There is very little actual conflict in Still Game, just plenty of good-natured banter and bickering, which in turn makes for fun viewing.

But there is one potential problem. The whole thing is conducted in very strong Scottish accents, which, as with Rab C Nesbitt, may lead to people south of the border scratching their heads. Thank goodness for Ceefax subtitles, which give you the gist of what’s going on in less colourful vernacular. This problem is sometimes turned to the show’s advantage however, particularly in Isa’s rambles which degenerate into near-incomprehensible high-speed lectures about all manner of unseen characters and their various weaknesses and then veer off wildly into all manner of unrelated gossip. For the most part, though, it is all too easy to find yourself concentrating on deciphering what is going on, rather than actually appreciating the subtleties of what you’re being shown.

Of all of the BBC’s new comedy output so far this year (and OK, we’re only three weeks in), Still Game is easily the finest and has the greatest chance of becoming a long-term success. It may not provide many laugh-out-loud moments, but those there are hit the spot every time, while the interplay between the characters is up there with the very best sitcoms around. The decision to base the programme on elderly characters certainly makes a refreshing change from youth-orientated forgettable shows like Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, and allows us to believe that the characters have had a real life outside the confines of the programme – making us feel involved in their relationship in a way that most sitcoms only manage to do over time.

OK, maybe it won’t figure in the top 10 if Britain’s Greatest Sitcom were to be re-staged a couple of decades in the future, and to be honest it seems destined to be one of a long line of underrated comedies, but it is an excellent show all the same. In fact, change the accents, and you could almost submit Still Game‘s scripts as a current day series of Whatever Happened to The Likely Lads. And that’s some tribute.

By any standards, BBC2′s treatment of Robot Wars has been odd. If the show had been axed after the first one or two series, nobody would have cared. Looking back at early editions on UK Horizons is faintly embarrassing, as a pair of feeble robots, invariably looking like biscuit tins nailed to roller skates, “attack” each other with ineffective toothpick-like axes, until one of the drivers accidentally sends his creation hurtling into the “Pit of Oblivion”. Indeed, the only entertainment provided in series one was the sight of host Jeremy Clarkson wandering around in a full-length black overcoat, trying to make the whole thing sound exciting. To axe the show just when all those years of development were starting to pay off seems downright crazy. For five, this must have been a dream come true. A programme with an established fan base suddenly available for anyone else to snap up. The BBC spends six or seven years developing the show, then five walks in and reaps the reward.

The most obvious thing to have changed in the transition to five is that it now goes out at 7pm on Sunday nights, which seems far from ideal. Sunday simply doesn’t feel like the right time for this kind of programme, and for five to schedule any major new series so that the second half clashes with Coronation Street seems almost suicidal. Not only that, Robot Wars starts just half an hour after Channel 4′s Scrapheap Challenge, leaving it open to the possibility that watching a Red Dwarf cast member hosting a game show about amateur engineering will have lost its novelty before curtain up.

There is some good news, however, and that’s that the move to five has not changed the format of Robot Wars very much at all. Same arena, same basic rules, same style of presentation, same judges, and mostly the same robots. The main changes are an alteration of the first round format to allow four robots to fight at once (the format of this round seemed to change constantly in the BBC years anyway) and the replacement of Philipa Forrester with Jayne Middlemiss. Middlemiss doesn’t seem well suited to the role of pit-reporter, but then neither did Forrester at the start, or her temporary replacement Julia Reed, who both eventually grew into the role admirably.

One major change is the prize for winning the series. Whereas the winners of the BBC’s Robot Wars got a trophy, five offers “a cashpot of £20,000″. Admittedly, Craig Charles’ announcement of this innovation makes it unclear whether this goes to the winner, or is the total prize money to be shared among the teams. Whichever it is, it does slightly detract from the spirit of the “glorious amateur” that prevailed before.

As it ever was, Jonathan Pearce’s commentary remains the highlight of the show. Like all great commentators, Pearce has a curious ability to make even the dullest moments seem thrilling, and to infuriate the viewers with Murray Walker style gaffes. “I think it might have been immobilised!” he’ll yell, while up and down the country people mutter “of course it has, we’ve just seen its battery fly across the arena”. His emotive style really suits the programme, which wisely concentrates on spectacle, rather than Scrapheap Challenge-style technical detail. Arguably Pearce’s only real flaw is to assume that the audience already knew the show’s jargon, failing to explain terms like “srimech” (self-righting mechanism, used to get a robot back on its wheels after being flipped). Nevertheless, Robot Wars without Jonathan Pearce would be unthinkable.

Obviously, one major change dictated by the switch to five are the commercial breaks. Not a problem in themselves, but they do give rise to the show’s most infuriating habit. On the BBC, every edition would start with a few clips of what was coming up. This meant that, if you’ve already seen a clip of, for example, Razer fighting Chaos 2, it wouldn’t take much brainpower to realise that these two won their respective first round fights. As such, you found yourself in a situation where you knew the results of most battles before you’d seen them. On five, these clips are also shown before the ad-breaks, meaning that you go through the episode almost as if you were watching a repeat.

What remains to be seen is whether five will be able to make the most of their big new signing. Previous “major” signings on the channel have always tended to get a lot of attention for the first episode and then fall into total obscurity. I have my fingers crossed that Robot Wars will work in its new home, as I believe it deserves to. If it can just be given a decent slot (and more importantly, one where it is shown with some semblance of regularity) the programme’s established audience will help it to survive. If not, then it may be one battle that not even the House Robots can survive.