With Deal Or No Deal still providing the television master a conduit for some of his greater presentational grandiosities, Are You Smarter Than a Ten-Year-Old? doing likewise on Sky One – and countless bits of Noel column inches about cosmic ordering and the BBC licence fee keeping our man in the public eye – one of television’s most self-confident exponents is currently firing on all cylinders.

But yet, as much as he might protest to the contrary, you sense his own personal journey back from the wilderness will not conclude until he is once more at the helm of a fuck-off massive light entertainment behemoth (preferably on the BBC). Back in 2006, we had Everyone’s a Winner! a one-off Lottery good causes Saturday night show, and now we have this – Noel’s HQ: Edmonds’ next attempt to re-establish himself as the grandmaster of live entertainment television.

But of course, this Sky One extravaganza was more than just 90-minutes of good, clean light entertainment. The title itself was a coded message to “Noel fans”, specifying how today’s Noel Edmonds is both the same and different to the one that hosted Noel’s House Party as recently as nine years ago. The message is that Noel’s HQ takes our man into new territory. His increasingly queasy Christmas specials are perhaps his most obvious precedent, but even they, with their mawkish sentimentality, are distinct from this latest project, merely by virtue of the fact their entire premise didn’t hinge around one basic assumption.

Noel’s HQ was destined to divide opinion, right from the outset because it presumes the viewers share the programme’s central thesis – that red tape (and by extension political correctness), is suffocating this great country. Clearly, whether you agree with this assertion or not probably largely determined what you made of this show. Noel’s HQ is a kind of hybrid of Noel’s Christmas Presents, Challenge Anneka, That’s Life! and Hughie Green’s infamous “Stand up and be counted” rant. It’s a live show in which members of the audience are singled out by Noel, who then goes on to tell us their story – usually a tale of honest citizens trying to make a difference. All of this is fair game of course, if rather uninspiring television.

What is less palatable however are the sequences in which Noel, from behind a news desk, brings us stories of local councils enforcing ridiculous laws, such as removing fly posters advertising a children’s charity. Each news item is followed up by a quick comment by – of all people – Carole Malone, stood atop a soap box, decrying Britain’s obsession with “red tape”. The section ends with Noel proclaiming we are living in “Bonkers Britain”, and then – get this – loads of people run on stage dressed in silly outfits, dancing around to a supposedly wacky jingle proclaiming the state of the nation as being “bonkers”. Even Keith Chegwin (who Noel refers to rather pleasingly as “Cheggers”) makes an appearance.

Throughout the show, Noel’s “common sense” assertions grow increasingly tiresome and irritating – television is never more annoying than when it assumes it’s reflecting your opinion, and item after item of Noel’s HQ provides Britain’s legion of white van drivers with further (metaphorical) fuel. Watch out Britain’s radio phone-in shows. For the viewer tuning in looking for a bit of balanced social commentary, or even just a fix of heart-warm, Noel’s HQ’s fist-shaking posturing is not what’s required.

All of this is irritating enough, but for me – someone who genuinely thinks Noel is a great television professional – what particularly galls is that this is 90 minutes of live television where Noel completely fails to innovate or pull any televisual tricks out of the bag. This, remember, is the man who gave us NTV and a whole litany of fantastic light entertainment concepts during the 1980s and 90s. You would have thought at last being given his own live format to play with once again, Noel would have made some attempt to show the younger generation there is still life in the old Edmonds.

Yet, aside from one unscripted riff in which Noel uses a technical problem with the Sky One website as a way to make a comment about viewers’ general distrust of television, this is simply a telly anchoring job, and something you would have thought quite beneath his manifest talents.

He's huffing, he's puffing...

Having staggered into the arena for Sunday’s Gladiators: The Legends Return, the formerly hirsuite howler, Wolf, has signed on to play an “Alex Ferguson-type role as team manager and mentor to the Gladiators”.

The man himself (real name Michael Van Wijk) says: “I was blown away by the buzz I felt competing in the Gladiators arena again. It was like I’d never been away. The audience was explosive and phenomenal and clearly wanted more of the Wolfman. Hearing them chant my name brought back some incredible memories and it all made me realise how much I just had to come back. John Anderson better be on top of his game – the Wolf will be watching his every move!”

As for who’s presenting, it looks like Kirsty Gallacher is out, as “Sky One will also be announcing a new female co-host shortly.”

Friday afternoon, and it was off to Shepperton to gesticulate with the oversized foam hand for Gladiators. And, good grief, it all felt pleasingly familiar. This is indeed the same wonderfully stupid, stupidly wonderful show we enjoyed in the 1990s. The line-up of Glads are suitably taut, and blessed with personality. I should think, though, poor old Atlas will rue the day a contestant dubbed him “Fat Lass”. That’s going to stick.

Thanks to Sky’s hospitality, we small group of journos were able to regularly retire to a green room to watch proceedings on a monitor (the way the studio is set up, no one member of the audience can see all the games all the time). Rather fantastically, this was situated next door to the Glads . As well as passing them in the corridor, there was mucho banging on walls to be heard and bad-mouthing of contestants. Better yet, John Anderson popped in between bouts, and proved terribly friendly. When a press officer brought Spartan through to meet his admirers (our female contingent, obviously) he stood sheepishly in his dressing gown. “I think they want you to take your clothes off”. Good lad that he is, he did.

As it happens, the episode we witnessed turned out to be a particularly twisty-turny affair. Watch out the for one with contestant “Super” Dan and the woman who bangs on about her sore finger. I’ll be there, near Hang Tough, not quite mastering the point up-up-down-down to Another One Bites the Dust.

Then, Saturday, and an appointment at LWT Towers for the recording of An Audience Without Jeremy Beadle courtesy of ITV1. A fantastic selection of people filed in for this, from Debbie Rix to Greg Dyke, Sir Alan Sugar to David Hamilton, Janet Ellis to Wilf Lunn. Shuffling into the studio, I found myself behind Mike Savage and son, and surprised the man by engaging in conversation about Eureka. For the recording, I was seated beside a walking stick-wielding Sylvester McCoy and his two boys. In the row ahead, the Diddy one himself and Tony Blackburn.

Chris Tarrant hosted, bringing us a melange of Beadle action which did well to acknowledge both The Deceivers andEureka, gave loads of screen time to Beadle’s Box of Tricks, recreated that Game For a Laugh game and just generally summed up all that was ace about the bearded one – with the right balance of affection and piss-taking. Highlight: Tarrant snipping off Henry Kelly’s neckwear, only for Sir Alan to growl: “You cut my tie, I’ll cut your fucking bollocks off”. “Ingrid’s already done that,” came the reply. Lowlight: Danny Baker’s over-running, sadly off-beam and just not all that funny quiz, “About Beadle”. The Bake was clearly gutted at having to junk a round based on Jeremy’s various racial disguises. Still he did get off a zinger at the start. Having established Paul Ross was in the audience, he cruelly quipped, “That means I couldn’t make it!”

Beadle couldn’t make it either, of course. He would have gone for Sir Alan’s tie, I bet. A great night, though, and two programmes I reckon are well worth tuning in for: Gladiators on Sky One and An Audience Without Jeremy Beadle, ITV1 – both in May.

STOP PRESS ITV1 have just confirmed Baker’s quiz is to be dropped from the final show. Paul Ross looks set to make the final cut, though …

This being a big Sky press launch, it was – of course – the business. Original Gladiator ref John Anderson (in his original ’90s white trousers) was there to gee-up the assembled journos (“Photographers – READY? Press – READY?”). Then the new Glads strode out onto a suitably themed catwalk, pyrotechnics a go-go. All struck mean poses (Atlas stealing the show with his “ring me” gesture as he left the stage). 

Of course, you want the full list. Our female warrors are: Battleaxe! Enigma! Ice! Inferno! Panther! Tempest! The men: Atlas! Destroyer! Oblivion! Predator! Spartan! Tornado! There’s no new Wolf, alas … unless you count Richard Woolfe. No, don’t do that.

And the events? Well same as the US show: Duel (correctly named – not Joust as they have it in America), Earthquake, Gauntlet, Hang Tough, Hit & Run, Powerball, Pyramid, The Wall and The Eliminator. 

Best of all, they issued us journos with big old foam hands. I’m officially excited.

 Ashes to Ashes has consistently mystified, with episodes regularly grinding to a halt halfway through for some oddly unrevealing moments of characterisation (the end of last Thursday’s ep where Gene Hunt offers an apology seemed particularly pointless). Meanwhile, Torchwood infuriatingly continues to miss the mark. The whole thing seems compromised by a kids’ show premise sitting in an adult drama. You get the sense the production team is so confused by the series, they’ve lost any sense of what a good episode of Torchwood should look like. Series two hasn’t been completely crap, but it’s continued to underperform.

It’s Lost then, that I am turning to for my telefantasy kicks at the moment. This fourth series has been taut and adrenalized. The key moment for me occurred some weeks back when Jack asked Faraday to explain why he was running strange experiments on the island. The traditional prevarication then ensued, and I was left assuming that the answers Jack was looking for would be withheld for weeks on end. But just five minutes later, Faraday was outlining the whole theory regarding the island being caught up in some kind of time vortex thingy. What a relief to get some answers.

I’m not sure if the 60-odd hour investment in watching the first three series to start getting these kind of pay offs is entirely worth it, but the episode in which Desmond started jumping through time, was quite simply the best slice of telefantasy I’ve seen since ‘Blink’, and remarkably complex and high-concept for a mainstream TV series.

Completely unrelated, but a quick nod of appreciation too for Virgin 1′s American Inventor.

And so it was, with the channel opting for a school-themed affair to hype up Noel Edmonds and Are You Smarter Than a 10-Year-Old?. Smiling Sky head honcho Richard Woolfe did the honours with much gusto, allowing himself to be pranked by hired school kids. It was a good gambit – spontaneous applause! Simon Shaps would do well to learn from this. Better yet, Noel himself came on stage, wearing the same shirt he’s sporting in the promo pictures. As you’d expect, he was particularly keen to cue in a spontaneous “television moment”, whereby Woolfe had apparently nipped in part-way through the recording of an episode, and him that the contestant on the show – who was holding out for money to take her cerebral palsy-suffering daughter swimming with dolphins – could indeed go on that trip, courtesy of the upcoming Noel’s Christmas Presents exhumation (on Sky One, natch). 

Indeed, it was a “moment” – best bit being the overcome mum having to skip off stage accompanied by school kids, as is the show’s wont.

Anyway, exciting stuff and – should you not be a Virgin Media Johnny like me – worth a look.

Afterwards, the immaculate bearded one mingled, and reacted politely to being glad-handed by yours truly. Also working the room: Dick and Dom! And then later, there was an “after show” party at the Embassy Club, where Ross Kemp was heard outside bragging to the bodyguards about his recent – ahem – tour of duty in Afghanistan for Ross Kemp on Afghanistan. On?

“Hi there!

We thought that you may be interested to know that we are currently booking tickets for Dick & Dom’s’ new quiz show.

ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 10 YEAR OLD?

Hosted by Dick and Dom this brand new quiz show for all of the family gives grown ups the chance to win big cash if they can answer questions relating to subjects taught in school.

To make it easier, they get three cheats and 5 ten year-olds to help them as they work they way up to the big money prize!

Believe us, when you see what kids learn at school these days, they’ll need it!

It’s a perfect day out for the family during the school holidays, but Mums and Dads beware – this could show the kids whether you really are smarter than a 10 year old! The minimum age for attendance is 8 years and children under 16 should be accompanied by an adult.

If you would like to join us for this exciting and fun new quiz show at Elstree Studios for a morning, then apply now!

Given the Ask The Family remake debacle, let’s hope that this format is a better fit for the duo. The ticket ordering page is here, which also mentions the involvement of Noel Edmonds. Funny how his name wasn’t in the email.

With Heroes finally debuting in the UK last week (albeit on the Sci-Fi) channel, it was apposite that Sunday’s episode ofLost managed to significantly freshen up that series’ rather, by now bedraggled story arc. Being one of the seemingly few stragglers in the UK who still maintain a relationship with the series since it moved to Sky, it felt a little like payback time.

In a nutshell Desmond, the mad Scottish bloke who’s been running around the island for the last three series, was seen in flashback in 1996 going through the usual torturous Lost “relationship”-type back story. However, what transpired was that it wasn’t actually a flashback at all, but rather Desmond (and by extension the whole cast) have been travelling back in time to re-experience key events in their lives – only now Desmond has developed an awareness of this (in fact his time on the island, ie. the fictional present for us, is being experienced “back in time” by his perception). As such it would appear that all those flashback moments are actually taking place in the characters’ present personal time lines. Or maybe. As is the way with Lost none of this was made too explicit.

But there was a really great “What the??” moment in this episode when Desmond (back in 1996 and in a terribly realised London complete with American spelling of words on bill posters) wandered into a jewellers to buy his fiance an engagement ring. Having struggled with some semblance of a notion that he’d lived these moments before, Des was confronted by a jeweller who after first offering him a ring, then proclaimed “No, you’re not supposed to take it”, and went on to reveal that Desmond’s destiny was to end up on the island. Apparently it doesn’t matter how much he tries to fight against it, time has a way of “course correcting”.

Then just to keep things ticking along nicely, the episode ended with Desmond telling Charlie (he’s the Lord Of The Rings chappy, remember?) that he has foreseen that Charlie will die. What’s more apparently Desmond’s random behaviour over the last few eps (such as erecting a seemingly meaningless pole to catch a lightning bolt) have all been attempts to try and save Charlie’s life.

Apparently, all of this stuff is an appetizer for a major plot revelation that is come later in this third series, and will (supposedly) totally change our perception of what the series is actually about. Oh and the programme makers intend to reveal some time soon just how many eps Lost will run for.

There’s no reason for this really – and you can see each series trying desperately trying to fill the time, coming up with decent drama to fill in the gaps between the really exciting stuff. This is the time when most shows fail, because there’s a feeling of going through the motions.

The new Battlestar Galactica doesn’t do that and unless you’ve seen up to the end of season two I’d skip the rest of this post. Every now and then a month will drift by between episodes and I’ve just watched the season two finale on DVD and in a really, exciting audacious move they’ve skipped a whole year in the middle of a scene. 

Cylon collaborator Baltar is sworn in as president, the remaining dregs of humanity have been ordered to settle on a planet that can barely support life, he drops his head to the table, there’s a crossfade and a caption reads “One year later”. I don’t like captions. They tend to be quite distracting and too much of a short hand for lazy programme makers trying all too quickly to set the scene when a bit of dialogue, or I don’t know, everything else on screen should suffice.

But this caption was special. This caption made me shout “What?” indignantly. Yet it made absolute sense. Although watching a year’s worth of people settling, dealing with a nuclear holocaust, the fleet being mothballed and the breaking up of civil order might have been pretty interesting, skipping it all is even more dramatic. For one thing it means that these characters and this story which we’ve all become quite comfortable with becomes a mystery again – the character dynamics have moved on and relationships that were settled are now in the air – I mean why, for example, aren’t Apollo and Starbuck on speaking terms? So the chief and Callie are together now? Adama has moustache?

And the truly great thing about all this is that unlike Star Trek: Voyager which did much the same thing over two episodes in “The Year of Hell”, there isn’t going to be a reset switch. There are no helpful temporal anomalies in the Galactica universe, no benevolent nebula, things will never be completely the same again. 

Creator Ron Moore and his staff have decided it’s time to move the story on, treat the narrative as a much longer construct, and make it fascinatingly novelistic. People have been saying this is one of the best sci-fi shows ever and watching this past season I’ve begun to understand. This audacious move seals it. I only hope that it isn’t all revealed to be a dream or some alternative reality. That would be disappointing. Roll on the DVD of season three.