Sky’s the limit

Last night saw Sky One’s launch party for their autumn season. A lavish affair, boasting circus performers, Scalectrix, a big top … and Christopher Biggins (sporting the most outrageous green clogs). The crux of the event, of course, was the screening, which revealed Sky are going celebrity-encrusted-reality-TV crazy, with the return of The Match (if Graham Taylor doesn’t win this time, he’s sacked), The Race (celebs, er, racing) and Cirque du Celebritee (celebs in the circus).

Of more interest to OTT is the news that Dominic Wood (now, officially, “Dom” Wood) is joining forces with Jon Tickle for a scientific spin-off show, Brainiac’s Test Tube Baby. Dom Joly’s also slunk onto the network with Dom Joly’s Happy Hour, surely his last stop-off on his return journey to the Paramount channel?

En masse, the shows always look quite exciting, and for a couple of seconds you can really believe Sky One is like ITV1 on amphetamine. But the reality is, once all of these programmes slot into the schedule, they dull quickly. Having to seek out “first runs” within the traffic-jam of repeats is simply too much of a pain in the arse. The result is, Ruth “The” Badger’s new (get this!) business reality show, The Big Idea will probably remain unwatched in my house, no matter how much of a sucker I am for this sort of thing.

STOP PRESS: As if to highlight how clueless I really am about Sky’s schedules, Iain Griffiths has just been on the OTT phone to inform me Wood and Tickle’s science fair is already screening!