Sure, many hundreds have embodied everything that, by whatever measure of success is in fashion at the time, could be said to represent new, exciting and entertaining TV. Most of them did it by simply not trying to be children’s presenters, or drifting into children’s television by accident, or labouring long to give the appearance of not resenting drifting into children’s television by accident.

Most of them used to be a good few dozen years older than the people they were supposed to be entertaining to boot. Age, experience and a rumpled jacket were once the touchstones of the crystal bucket as well as the blackboard.

But all along, up to and including the present day, only a handful have really ever succeeded, not by doing, but by simply being. Who have impressed not by seeking to be impressionable, or even by being impressive, but by appearing not to try. Who somehow match up perfectly with those unspoken assumptions somewhere in the back of your mind that dictate what you should want to see from a children’s presenter. And who don’t always come sporting rumpled jackets.

Johnny Ball was one. So was Fred Harris. And it’s fair to say that, during his time on Blue Peter, Matt Baker has been another of those people who seemed to possess the secret of contemporary children’s telly. What’s more, he’s just shown himself to know precisely the right moment to take his leave and pack up his magic for another time and place.

Today’s edition, a shameless clip show subtitled “Matt Baker: Mover and Shaker”, offered by way of a parting salute a montage of every trick in the conjuror’s book. We saw the man twirling and hollering his way through enough flannel to fill several wardrobes – the same ones, presumably, which Matt had spent seven years emptying in order to arm himself with a canon of costume changes, a plethora of powdered wigs and a fair legion of false moustaches.

We saw him toe-tapping his way around the world and back again. We saw him turn his tonsils to Presley, old-time music hall, Hollywood song and dance, and Billy Joel. A downright spectacular version of Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) was followed by a frankly disturbing performance of I Enjoy Being a Girl, which in turn gave way to a wonderful rendition of New York New York (So Good They Named it Twice) with Matt shimmying and shrugging his way around the strangely oblivious titular city streets.

Heaven knows on what premise most of these glossy production numbers were originally staged. Most times there probably wasn’t one. But that in itself stands as testament to the rude health of Blue Peter‘s recent history, where no longer have things needed to be universally weighed down by the urgency of requiring a purpose or proving a point. The worthy has mixed with the whimsical, neither grating against the other thanks to ability of its ranks of presenters to switch and judge contrasting moods perfectly.

Matt was always the undisputed master of such a technique, and while this particular selection of highlights was only one slice of the man’s endeavours aboard the good ship, here was proof enough of his instinctive feel for all the tenets of textbook children’s TV: the lightness of touch, the self-deprecation, the elder brother-style banter, the passion for silliness, the respect for the sublime.

There hasn’t really been a Blue Peter presenter like him – ever. Those who went before who encapsulated some of the same spirit, the same breathless enthusiasm, the same idea of living life for its own sake, were all too old to ever appear anything more than zany uncles with a tendency to never know when to shut up. Or that’s how it felt at the time. For like policemen, Blue Peter presenters never used to seem as young as they do now. But unlike policeman, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

If there’s one thing above all else worth garlanding as a tribute to Matt’s time on the show, it is the way he helped it to lose its fusty, mildly patronising air, of the kind produced every time your unwelcome snobby cousin turned up in your bedroom when the relatives stopped by for Sunday tea. And this, in turn, has seeped out through the rest of the schedules, arguably helping to make Children’s BBC, since the turn of the century, better than it has ever been.

The fact that practitioners of today’s children’s telly hail mostly from the generation who were watching the stuff as kids 10 years or so ago is no longer something that can be mustered by way of abuse. Nowadays it’s a mark of success. It will be impossible for anyone to follow Matt Baker onto Blue Peter and match his dazzling tenure, but at least his legacy survives him within the fabric of the show itself and the ever-colourful, ever-cheerful world through which he moved. Or rather, hoofed.

With so many shows dying thanks to decidedly offhand machinations – be it premature cancellation, disappearance mid-run or banishment to a post-midnight killing ground – we’re getting less chances than ever to see something through to a proper full stop.

So disregarding for a moment the reasons how and why Family Affairs got axed, let’s first acknowledge how great it was to actually be allowed to appreciate an organised, pre-conceived and orderly bout of self-combustion.

And a textbook one at that. It was all here. A character returned from many moons ago to announce she’d won the lottery. Two others got married. Another threw a punch at someone else. A vicar was reconciled to his blousy girlfriend. A woman was caught stealing and got her face slapped. Another was tied up and held hostage. A third decided to take her glasses off for the first time and was instantly changed from a plain Jane into a tousled beauty (rightfully murmuring “there’s something I’ve got to do” as she went).

As midnight approached on New Year’s Eve, an orchestra struck up the Blue Danube waltz, and like the band on the Titanic continued to play proudly as the end drew near. Characters vowed to start a new life “in Chigwell – the promised land!” Fireworks soared high in the sky as somewhere a woman was strangled with a string of black pearls. “I’m going to miss this place,” a voice blubbed. “Won’t we all?” replied Arthur Daley’s nephew, before turning to camera and leading everyone in a faltering chorus of Auld Lang Syne. Meantime the Charnham strangler menaced a young girl with an old school tie, while she clutched a satisfyingly lethal lead trophy behind her back. The credits rolled …

You couldn’t fault the final episode of Family Affairs. It did all it had to do, no more, no less. In this, however, it was just like every other episode of the soap, and hence as good an advert as any for its abiding insignificance. All the right buttons were pushed, all the necessary archetypes looked in, and all the requisite one-liners were rattled out. But that was it. It was possible to pick up the gist of months’ worth of storylines in a matter of minutes, which was just as well as a matter of minutes were all that was left. It was similarly easy to identify, size-up and pigeonhole everyone you were supposed to like and everyone you were supposed to hate. In fact there was very little you needed to invest in the show at all, beyond which there was nothing left to do but, well, watch. Or more likely, watch while investing yourself in something else.

It wasn’t that the thing was badly produced or badly acted – far from it. But it just wasn’t that particularly well produced or commendably acted either. It was simply, unassumingly, unobtrusively … enough. A good effort, as your teacher would always write at the end of a piece of work you knew had done what was asked of it, but assuredly no more.

And though as far as soaps are concerned a good effort is better than no effort (and especially a bad effort – something which loads of people have worked on to create a finished product that is still staggeringly awful), for a channel like five that’s evidently no longer enough. Other networks can seemingly get away with throwing out mediocre long-running shows as long as they’re surrounded by enough high-profile programmes to pick up the slack, and don’t have advertisers or executives who ask too many questions. Not five. It doesn’t have enough high-profile programmes, save Home and Away, but it does have advertisers and executives who ask lots of questions – chiefly why, almost 10 years into its life, the channel still doesn’t have an obvious identity and an obvious audience.

As such Family Affairs was given the chop. Not for doing badly in the ratings (quite the opposite – it has always performed in its 6.30pm slot), rather not for doing well enough. Quite what “well enough” means is a question for which there as many answers as there have been five commissioning editors and TV executives. The current director of programmes Dan Chambers stated the show had reached the end of its “natural life span” – but since when did soaps have life spans, and when was there anything natural about them?

In truth there was really no reason why Family Affairs had to come to an end right now. But then there’s also never really been a reason why Family Affairs should not have come to an end at any point in any year. Its airy inconsequentiality was both the motive for its birth (by dint of being cheap, unassuming and disposable television) and the manner of its death (by dint of being cheap, unassuming and disposable television).

It could have gone at any time; it could have run for years. Either way most of us wouldn’t have noticed. By trying too hard not to appear to be trying too hard, it prepared the stage for its own curtain call, and for another soap to fall out of our schedules.

Nonetheless Family Affairs deserves our respect for making a dignified exit, with no traces of malice placed in any characters’ mouths. It also deserves a note in TV history for embarking on a revamp that didn’t just restock most of its cast but relocated an entire district a distance of several hundred miles. But wherever the fictional borough of Charnham purported to be one week to the next, it somehow never did enough to claim either a residual place in the right kind of minds or an affectionate one in the right number of hearts.

In TV soap folklore it now seems inertia can kill just as much as incompetence. As well as a swift throttle from a pearl necklace, of course, but then we knew that.

Didn’t we?

Sex Actually is not the first “comeback” that the Comic Strip team have made, but – crucially – it’s the first to come after enough time has elapsed for the original run of films to be adjudged and evaluated as a whole. Despite the occasional clunker in their back catalogue, this fact alone gives any new venture an enormous amount to live up to, and when most of the pre-publicity appears to concentrate on little other than remarking how few of the “classic” line-up are in the cast list (when in fact it was always unusual for more than a few of them to be in any one film at a time), it is clear that even for a veteran like Comic Strip mastermind Peter Richardson, this is set to be an uphill struggle.

The first official Comic Strip presentation since Four Men in a Plane in 2000, Sex Actually is essentially a skewed parody of the post-Richard Curtis trend towards formulaic romantic comedy, relocating into the world of suburban wife-swapping for a grubbier mirror image of the idealised utopia depicted by the likes of its namesake Love Actually.

On the one hand this is a phenomenon that has most definitely outstayed its welcome and more than deserving of a bit of well-aimed lampooning, and something the Comic Strip’s unique blend of affectionate pastiche and stinging parody is well positioned to tackle. On the other hand, though, it’s hardly a recent phenomenon nor indeed one that has escaped comic mockery in the past. In fact, if Chris Morris’ waspish remarks on his Radio 1 show count, it has a legacy of satirical reaction that stretches back virtually to the week that Four Weddings and a Funeral went on general release. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing in itself – after all, some of the best efforts in the series were informed by decades-old films and works of fiction – but the associated lack of urgency and vitality does provide some pointers to the underwhelming feel of its parody.

In terms of a one-off 50-minute comic oddity, Sex Actually wasn’t too bad. It contained a fair smattering – albeit an uneven one – of decent gags, some typically sublime dialogue, and a terrific final five minutes that both exactly replicated and highlighted the absurdity of the corny, shoehorned-in moral-laden happy endings that such films are wont to conclude with.

As the long-awaited return of The Comic Strip Presents …, though, it was something of a letdown. More than just a below-par offering, it seemed to suffer from having too small and limited a cast of characters, and by filling these roles entirely with “proper” acting (even Rik Mayall seemed subdued and underused) instead of the more familiar intrusions by inexplicable oddballs and eccentrics, and was crying out for Keith Allen or Alexei Sayle to wander into proceedings in the guise of some random gibberish-spouting headcase. Nigel Planer’s weird voyeur was the sole concession to this technique, but even he was too distanced from the main storyline and simply too infrequently glimpsed to make any real difference.

There is no faulting the performances – Rebecca Front and Glenna Sacchi Morrison in particular were superb – or the direction, but in the absence of excursions into comic grotesques and weirdness for weirdness’ sake, there was little for either the actors or the direction to react against. Such diversions into self-contained and largely logic-free gag routines can be a powerful tool and were something that the very best Comic Strip offerings had routinely displayed a mastery of. Often, as with Mayall and Richardson’s bizarre banditos in A Fistful of Travellers’ Cheques, they were capable of outshining the main “sensible” storyline and characters.

As Comic Strip films go, Sex Actually is not as good as The Strike, Didn’t You Kill My Brother? or Gregory: Diary of a Nutcase. But it’s not as bad as Queen of the Wild Frontier or The Funseekers. It’s simply a muted and underachieving step back into the arena when most viewers were doubtless expecting a lot more, especially as the recent DVD box set release of their previous works throws its shortcomings into sharp relief.

Nonetheless, it’s impossible to write this revival off and suggest it’s high time Richardson and company should throw in the towel. Every film that appeared in The Comic Strip Presents … was entirely different in mood, tone and comic approach to the one that preceded it and the one that followed it. This may have been a relatively genteel – and indeed relatively ineffectual romantic comedy parody, but who’s to say that whatever comes next won’t be an altogether different prospect?

More recently, however, the trend has been towards giving old shows “context” in the sense of hamfistedly remolding them into something that modern audiences will be more used to. Dubious references and lines of dialogue are excised, ugly new animated titles and equally ugly new dance music stings are pasted on at the slightest hint of an opportunity, celebrity talking heads are shoehorned in wherever possible, key events are “recreated” using slightly-out-of-focus lookalikes, and – worst of all – old videotaped material is often now put through a modern day “film look” visual filter, giving it a distractingly unnatural sheen. The irony of all this is that it is highly unlikely many more viewers would watch any such shows in their “improved” modified state than before. No matter what has been done to it, in the eyes of the average viewer it remains an archive repeat, and they’re either going to be interested in it or they aren’t.

Although their material is surprisingly rarely seen for such major figures in small screen comedy, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s old shows have been subjected to both extremes of the experience. The BBC’s 1990 compilation series The Best of What’s Left of Not Only … But Also … did an impressive job with a patchy archive of varied remnants from what were often sprawling original sketch shows, bringing in the duo themselves to assist with the selection of material and also record a couple of new context-setting comic dialogues. ITV’s more recent South Bank Show special on their short lived ITV series Goodbye Again (billed as a “lost” and “recently rediscovered” show, despite the fact they had always been present and correct in the archives and in fact had often been plundered for clips), on the other hand, presented a scattered handful of extracts in a frustratingly segmented fashion, interspersed with hefty chunks of interviews with the likes of Rob Brydon and Billy Connolly. The conversations, which seemed perfectly reasonable and watchable in their own right, simply came across as an unwelcome irritation in this format, whereas the actual footage from the shows was too sparse and disjointed to give any real flavour of what they were like.

Even less frequently glimpsed than their work for ITV and the BBC are a series of specials Cook and Moore made for Australian television in 1971. Two of these, essentially continuations of Not Only … But Also … in all but name, were aired by the BBC in the early 1970s. The third – a two-part television presentation of their experimental and darkly-themed stage show “Behind the Fridge” shot in November – was never picked up for broadcast in Britain, presumably partly because it was made in black and white, although the BBC would go on to mount their own presentation of the show in 1974. All but forgotten by most of the duo’s fans, and warranting little more than a footnote even in Mark Lewisohn’s exhaustive Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy, the resultant tapes had languished in some rarely-consulted corner of an Australian television archive until now.

The fact that Pete and Dud – The Lost Tapes was not only a cut-down collection of highlights from the original television presentation (which effectively ran to twice the length of this new special) but also produced by More4, whose parent channel is arguably the worst offender in terms of the pointless butchery of archive material, is enough to set alarm bells ringing in most minds. For once, though, such suspicion proved to be utterly groundless; the footage itself appeared in its original monochrome videotaped form, and the contextualising was limited to a simple explanatory caption card at the start and a couple of equally effective extracts from an Australian television news report covering their contemporaneous tour of the country. Most viewers could probably have happily gone without the gimmicky computer-animated title sequence, which inevitably came with its own characterless techno backdrop (musically about as far removed from The Dudley Moore Trio as it’s possible to get), but as this only lasted for a couple of seconds it was hardly much of an intrusion, and in all fairness probably represents the acceptable face of reconfiguration for modern audiences.

Despite having been edited down from a much longer recording, Pete and Dud – The Lost Tapes was no “greatest hits” package and managed to live up to the implications of its title in impressive style. Most fans have never really known the majority of the featured sketches in anything other than précis form on the printed page. There are of course the expected Pete and Dud dialogues and closing performance of “Goodbyee”, but the other sketches are often infused with a sense of downright strangeness. An item on “speech impediments” sees Dudley indulge in rambling free-form mispronunciations that far exceed any of Ronnie Barker’s language-twisting, and the familiar “it’s not a baby, it’s a balloon” quickie is performed entirely in cod French and period costume. Even the more traditional sketches flirt with some very downbeat themes, especially in an extended encounter between a pompous barrister and a gay male cleaner sent in place of regular home help Mrs Higgins (“Would you mind not sitting on my briefs?”), but these are invariably played in a strongly comic manner and it is interesting to compare this with more contemporary equivalents who revel in underplayed naturalism and all too often wear their “darkness” like some sort of comic badge of honour in its own right. Sadly, the notoriously sinister “Taxi Driver” sketch was not included (although this was featured in the BBC version of Behind the Fridge), but there is more than enough in these little-known sketches to give some flavour of what a heady mix of broad comedy and unsettling subject matter the original stage show must have been.

Pete and Dud – The Lost Tapes, aside from being a hugely enjoyable collection of what was to all intents and purposes “new” material from a couple of comedy legends, was a perfect example of how this sort of broadcasting venture should be approached: vintage television given a slight presentational tweak for the benefit of modern audiences, as opposed to vintage television dressed up to superficially resemble modern television. It’s also significant to see black and white material broadcast at a peak hour, even on a minority channel like More4. There are of course countless more “lost tapes” out there in various television archives, not just comedy shows but news, drama, documentary, children’s programming and everything else besides, and much of it is doubtless equally worth dusting down and sprucing up with the odd introductory caption or accompanying interview footage. There’s so much more behind the fridge than just Behind the Fridge.

Yet no episode of Doctor Who is ever just for Christmas. Even if you set aside the loyal fan base for one moment, these days television dramas have to be able to live on in the short to medium term memory of the viewer in order to entice them back for more. Besides, with the likes of BBC3 and UKTV Gold around, the average television viewer will probably happen across “The Christmas Invasion” again in a few weeks time, and if on second viewing the episode appears to unravel in front of their eyes into a string of inconsequential scenes and a threadbare plot (with a frankly ropey dénouement) then the chances of them tuning into series two (which, by the way, from the trailers looks brilliant) becomes ever more remote.

In terms of where we are with this new run of Doctor Who, “The Christmas Invasion” was always going to be a difficult slot to fill. Although there is a new Doctor to play with (and we’ll get to him in a bit), none of the elements that the production team introduced in series one are new anymore. So whereas the introduction of Rose’s estate was an innovative move that offered a distinctly original perspective on the character of the Doctor, with “The Christmas Invasion” it has become simply part of the (now) established Doctor Who formula. Whether or not the production team will be able to come up with further ways to make us view the concept “as new” remains to be seen, but undoubtedly this fundamental element behind the success of Doctor Who in 2005 is getting exhausted quickly, and one must pause to wonder what will be left once time travel and aliens become passé once more.

For those looking for further indications of the immediate future of Doctor Who, “The Christmas Invasion” offers portents of both doom and cheer. The bad news is that Russell T Davies still seems to believe authentic and entertaining dialogue is enough to paper-over weak plotting. Indeed in this respect, “The Christmas Invasion” employs the art of the baked bean ending on a scale far grander than seen in series one. This is dispiriting news for those who hoped the series’ lead writer would have taken time to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of his contributions to date. However, on the evidence of this episode we can expect further adventures with inconsistent pacing (those scenes in UNIT HQ seemed to take an absolute age), unconvincing back stories (the whole UNIT set up somehow feels wafer thing) and plot resolutions reliant on pressing conveniently placed buttons at the right time. On the other hand, David Tennant is absolutely superb, demonstrating a remarkable ability to deliver dialogue in a constantly engaging and surprising manner. Indeed, perhaps the best testament to Doctor number 10 is that within minutes he made Eccleston’s performance seem actorly, mannered and very un-Whoish. Certainly the most rewatchable scenes in “The Christmas Invasion” are those featuring Tennant at their centre. His multi-layered and clever delivery is able to withstand constant reviewing, and he is surely the series’ most powerful weapon as it embarks on its second run.

However for all the gripes about Davies’ rather weak script, the concluding motif (that of the decaying space ship bringing about an artificial Christmas scene) was poetically realised and provided at least a satisfying thematic conclusion. As too did Harriet Jones unexpectedly adhering to the grand old Doctor Who cliché of the military/political appetite for destruction. Tennant’s rebuke conjured up the very spirit of Jon Pertwee berating the Brigadier and was all the better for it. Whilst it all might not have been quite as Christmassy as we had been lead to believe (with killer Santas and buzzsaw Christmas trees merely an appetizer to the main, non Yuletide focused action), it did at least look and feel totally different to every other programme broadcast that day. With the “me too” copycats in the shape of Torchwood and Eleventh Hour on their way in 2006, distinguishing Doctor Who from the pack is going to become increasingly important, and so for that reason at least “The Christmas Invasion” has to be cautiously commended.

“On next week’s show – well, we don’t know, so if you’re famous give us a call,” gurgled Chris Evans towards the end of an exhausting hike through the collapse of the second ever OFI Sunday. Rewind 10 days or so. “We’ve rewritten the show 30 times,” beamed Chris Evans towards the end of an exhaustive account of the creation of the first ever OFI Sunday. “We’ve brought in some items that we think are big-banker, high-energy ideas … I’m pretty sure we’re close to what we wanted … we have a great team.”

TV can forgive failure with remarkable grace, TV executives with an even greater speed. But the chasm that has so quickly opened up between the expectation of Evans’s return to mainstream telly and the reality of what is currently being put out under his command is one of such magnitude it deserves to hang around in the memory for a hell of a long time. How could he, us, everyone, have got it so wrong? How can the man put his name to such an ostensibly sincere, self-aware journal of his struggle to get back into high-profile television, then just over a week later helm one of the most unpalatable slices of TV imaginable?

Watching OFI Sunday is akin to observing 100 years of popular light entertainment sink sobbing to its knees. Everything you believed, trusted and enjoyed about television dissolves into thin air over the course of its arthritic, archaic 45 minutes. The omens, for what they were worth (a somewhat over-generous sum in retrospect), suggested otherwise: a decent turn at the Brit Awards, an even better one on Comic Relief Night, and a reasonably received return to BBC radio. Then came that big article in Radio Times – articulate, well-measured, even sympathetic. After hitting his peak as a broadcaster par excellence 10 years ago, everything implied now was just the right time for Evans’ second wind.

Well, 10 years is certainly an apt sum to conjure with, as that’s precisely how far back in time the man still seems to believe he and his audience should be. OFI Sunday‘s first, but not its greatest, misdemeanour is to presume nothing has changed in television over the past decade. The mood, the pace, the volume, the structure – everything about the show reeks of the mid-1990s, a time when such conceits as spontaneous banter with random members of the public, celebrity guests being surprised with requests to participate in undignified stunts, tons and tons of brightly-coloured props and wacky sound effects, and a torrent of badly-delivered single entendre were at the very least exciting, at times utterly revolutionary.

But that was then, and TV has moved on – something that has happened not through any grand conspiracy to rob people like Evans of their empire, but because quite simply audiences wanted it to. Nobody sees through lazy, derivative programmes sharper, and nobody picks up on diminishing returns quicker, than the ordinary TV viewer. And while Evans is about as far removed from an ordinary TV viewer as you can get, he continues to behave and act as if he is one.

Hence so many times during this show Evans purports to engage in affable, everyday chat and reportage, only for it to sound patronising, or offensive, or just plain daft. Quite simply, he appears to have forgotten how to hold a proper conversation with anyone. His banter with the ubiquitous stooges (a premise that was wearing pretty thin even back in 1995) is peppered with the equally ubiquitous in-jokes, his conversation with the guests full of non-sequiturs and cliquey gossip, and his badinage with the studio audience bizarrely fractured and faltering.

Were the format of the show not so desperately based around Evans and his foibles then perhaps this wouldn’t matter quite so much. But of course OFI Sunday is precisely about Evans and his foibles; they’re the foundation of the entire proceedings, from the unprepossessing title sequence (with a song written by the man himself: “He’s been through the shit/Now he’s back out of it”) to the bit where we find out what Chris has been up to this week, to the bit where he challenges the studio audience to guess whether a particularly gaudy artefact is “Mine … or not mine!”, to the bit where he cuts to some footage of himself doing some outrageous piece of business in a public place. Then there’s the lowest point of all, the bit where he reveals he’s taken a Polaroid photo during the break, but is only going to let his guest see it, which he duly does, only for the guest to burst into huge gales of laughter and the photo to be duly destroyed.

Rarely has there been a presenter on British television less bothered about entertaining a nation and more preoccupied with perpetuating pranks and ruses for a private audience of less than two. On comes the guest, who has to bang a gong for the show to officially begin (cue the obligatory jingle declaring “Who’s gonna bang that gong tonight, who’s gonna bang that gong?”) On come the stooges, staring lifelessly into the camera or into Chris’s face, altogether creepy in their inability to ever strike a lifelike pose. On come more of Chris’s possessions for us to marvel at. His first guest was his ex-wife, his second one of his best mates … and he’s already reached the point of using airtime to appeal for somebody else to turn up next week.

For such a much-trailed comeback and hugely-fanfared return, all this would be bad enough. But then there’s the way those things that could so easily have been sorted – the running order, the script, the video inserts, even the camera positions – are themselves all to pot. As already noted, tonight’s show didn’t even have an ending, Evans stumbling over the right way to wish viewers goodbye, before helplessly throwing to his guest, the actor James Nesbitt, to do a bit of impromptu karaoke. This being Chris Evans, though, the karaoke band weren’t just any old group, but one that Evans and Nesbitt had come across in some posh hotel, whose presence sent them into stitches but meant absolutely bugger all to everybody else in the studio and at home.

This is the programme’s most fatal flaw: the way it reveals Evans to be the master of, for want of a phrase, the compound insult. It’s not enough for us to feel pissed off at what’s merely in the show; we’re made to feel pissed off at having switched on in the first place after being led to expect greatness and fun and “big-banker, high-energy ideas”. It’s not enough to feel that Evans doesn’t appear to know what he’s doing; given the technical faults and lousy production, it’s made to appear that nobody knows what they’re doing. It’s not enough to see Evans repeating himself, dredging up gimmicks from nearly a generation ago; we have to see him make everyone repeat themselves, from the stooges to the audience to the guests.

“All new OFI Sunday,” was how the continuity announcer introduced this show. Pressed with the choice of being damned with faint praise or worshipped with false idols, it’s sure bet how Chris Evans would react. He’d bring on a pair of giant inflatable breasts and scream repeatedly “You will love this!”

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.

The climax of Hell’s Kitchen USA proved every bit the event that the preceding nine episodes demanded, and, unlike The Apprentice USA‘s finale, it didn’t even need a live audience, Regis Philbin and a house band blaring out the theme tune.

Not that you could ever imagine Ramsay putting up with all that. From start to finish, Hell’s Kitchen USA had a ruthless minimalism that made it the peer of the shameless but compelling Trumpfest. Like The Apprentice, it had a creditable inclination to concentrate on the game itself, at the expense of backstage showboating, unless it had a direct bearing on the action.

The production team weren’t above manipulating the tension, mind, and neither was Ramsay, from his endless cries of “shut it down!” at the end of another shambolic night in the kitchen, to the resolution of the final, which placed the two rivals in front of two doors, but only the champ’s would open. It might have been melodrama, but sometimes that can be the most satisfying kind of drama.

None of this could really fly without Ramsay, though, as the second run of the British original underlined. Manic, obnoxious and charismatic by turn, he remains one of the most watchable people on the box. Declining to tone down his engagingly spiky persona for have-a-nice-day LA, he refused to even defer to America’s culinary lingua franca. Hell’s Kitchen would freeze over, you imagine, before Ramsay ever referred to a “riz-oh-toe”.

And for a British audience, the series had the extra attraction of letting you feel one step ahead of the competitors. In the first instalment, when one aspiring chef didn’t understand what it meant to be branded “a plank” by Ramsay, it was fun. But when he styled himself an “executive chef”, you instantly remembered the hapless participant in Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares who incurred the culinary master’s wrath for adopting the same title. Immediately, you knew he was doomed.

The final pitted Michael (“The 27-year-old kitchen phenom from Los Angeles”) against Ralph (“The 36-year-old veteran chef from New York”). Each handed half of the Hell’s Kitchen dining room, their last challenge was to transform it into the restaurant of their dreams and become head chef for one night.

Ralph, a garrulous character much given to declaring “I have a slight advantage” to the diary room camera at every given opportunity, elected to create a 1920s style Italian diner, Frank and Lulu’s, named after a pair of dogs owned by him and a friend.

The evolution of Ralph’s restaurant produced another memorable cameo from Ramsay’s loyal maitre d’, Jean Phillipe, who’d spent the entire series facing the ire of dissatisfied and hungry customers, including one repellent Californian who ordered in pizza instead and repeatedly bellowed, “Do you have a doctorate?” at him.

Now he found himself obliged to clothe the waiting staff of Frank and Lulu’s. “Do you want the women to wear some black panties?” he asked a bemused Ralph, in reality attempting to select the waitresses’ hosiery. For his part, Ralph rarely had the courtesy to even get Jean Phillipe’s name correct, but for a man who ended a morning conversation with Ramsay with “bon soir” (“Stupid idiot!”) it was barely unexpected.

Michael, meanwhile, was busy solemnly declaring, “I will win this, Chef Ramsay. I’ve put everything on the line for this,” to the giant likeness of Ramsay that topped their living and working quarters. The quiet, likeable tattooed chef came up with Lola Pop, a stark, modern Californian restaurant named after his wife.

Minor kerfuffles over the non-arrival of Ralph’s wallpaper ensued (“This isn’t going to work for me”) before the two chefs took turns at managing the kitchen as a trial run ahead of the big night. Michael sabotaged Ralph by “forgetting” to put the crab into his rival’s crab risotto, something Ralph failed to notice before he served it, but the crew building his restaurant (“So we’ve got a construction worker, with a hard hat on, sending his risotto back, because it had no crab in”) didn’t miss it.

The two chefs finally subjected their restaurants and their waiting staff to Ramsay’s scrutiny. Frank and Lulu’s (“Casablanca meets the Speakeasy meets Ralph”) looked warm and inviting, according to Chef, even if he felt the traditional uniform made the waitresses look like grannies (“Okay grannies, go round the corner and scratch your fannies”), while Lola Pop represented pure California glamour, according to Ramsay, though here, the outfits made the waiters look like ballerinas (“Okay ballerinas, go off and get your tutus”).

Bringing back the discarded candidates to assist the two finalists has become one of the staples of the reality show finale. Hell’s Kitchen USA didn’t disappoint, resurrecting the magnificent Dewberry (“Blueberry?”), a camp oddball who almost walked out in week two, only to be kicked out moments later, and affable klutz Jimmy (“Jimmeeeeeee!”), though sadly there was no sign of Jeff, who’d spent most of episode three rolling around in the corridor suffering from a kidney stone. It’s almost always a masterstroke, as it obliges the finalists to motivate people who have every reason to resent their success and, as week three reject Wendy Liu noted here, there’s nothing in it for them anyway.

Having beaten Ralph in a street-tasting session earlier, Michael got first pick of his team, selecting Elsie, Jimmy and Ralph’s best friend Jessica – the three most experienced competitors available, while his rival had to make do with Dewberry, Wendy and Andrew. The balance fell firmly in Michael’s favour at this point, and it tipped even further towards him when Andrew had to dash to hospital after cutting his thumb, before Dewberry almost fainted with exhaustion (“I think I’m fixin’ to pass out! Don’t let me!”). Recuperating on a pile of crumpled cardboard boxes in the corridor, he eventually came back to the kitchen, where Ralph called him a rock (“I’d rather you be saying that I was Brad Pitt’s wife”) for returning to his post.

In the end, however, the final decision, and the deeds to the new restaurant awaiting the winner, all came down to customer satisfaction. 90% of the diners said they’d be prepared to come back to one restaurant … but then 94% admitted they’d return to the other. Blindfolded, the two finalists were led to those doors, only for Ralph to remain locked behind his, as Michael walked through to the celebrations.

Ramsay announced a rather unsatisfying twist at this moment, however, offering Michael the chance to forego the restaurant that had been dangled before the competitors at every turn, and travel instead to London to learn from the chef himself for 12 months. It was never adequately explained whether this decision meant giving up the new business completely, or even if Ramsay had always intended this apprenticeship to be the real prize, perhaps correctly predicting that it was an opportunity that no winner could turn down.

Moreover, despite Ramsay’s boasts that he had transformed the champ into a masterchef, given that Michael was, unlike some of his rivals, already a professional chef, it felt a bit like the game hadn’t quite taken place on a level playing field. Nor did we ever get a real sense of how long the contestants had been in there. Two weeks? Three months?

For all that, Hell’s Kitchen USA proved that it’s too easy to label something this good as a guilty pleasure. Like the boardroom, the kitchen makes for the perfect television arena.

Who’s the best when it comes to handling a telephone on television? There aren’t many contenders. Hardly anybody uses one to chat with the viewing public anymore. Our voices boom from an unseen speaker or earpiece direct to the presenter, conveniently leaving them to stare groggily down the lens while their hands crease a piece of paper or fiddle with a tissue for want of anything better to do.

The practice of manipulating a handset in front of a pitiless camera and an equally unforgiving audience who didn’t tune in just to see someone yakking on a phone has tested the mettle of countless small screen professionals down the years. But only one man in the whole of television history has ever been able to craft an entire career out of such an otherwise mundane activity. And only one man could turn that activity into the lynchpin for not just a brand-new, consummately enjoyable daytime game show, but the foundation for nothing less than an all-out TV comeback.

Why does Deal or No Deal?, a quiz that by its own admission doesn’t have any real questions, nor one that requires any general knowledge whatsoever, and concerns itself with little more than a solitary contestant sitting in a high wooden chair calling out random numbers between 1 and 22, work so amazingly well? In part precisely because of that ultra-simple, instantly understandable format, already a hit around the world. But a lot is to do with its host, the one man who has been able, throughout his career, to take the simplest and most instantly understandable of things – including talking on a telephone – and from them fashion gripping TV: Noel Edmonds.

As with the man’s very act of returning to television after a too-long absence, a great deal of Deal or No Deal? involves a demonstration of immaculate timing. Presumably it comes instinctively to Noel after all these years, but it’s still rare to see such a skill trotted out with such casual aplomb in such a febrile environment. Looking back there’d always been an element of mastering the moment with Noel, of knowing when to essay that crucial phrase or word or when to shut up. But it was usually within a context loaded with so much paraphernalia jockeying for our attention that what was actually reticence more often than not ended up coming over as selfishness. Here, with only himself centre stage, finally we’re seeing the connoisseur of the barbed remark and the pregnant pause in his element.

And it is, quite simply, a joy to watch. It’s been a fair wait, but Noel and a format have finally come together in a way that allows both room to breathe. One isn’t constantly threatening to overwhelm or upset the other, and where Noel’s concerned that’s of vital importance. How many times down the decades have decent formats buckled under the weight of Noel’s demands to involve himself with that oh-so-fussy extra little bit of business? How many instances has Noel quite clearly struggled to be free of detritus washed up from too many re-treads of too many rehashed gimmicks and gunge tanks?

None of that applies here. It’s a proper dynamic between presenter and programme, with neither presuming to come close to permanently getting the upper hand. If proceedings look like simmering down, Noel lobs in a patented amiable ad-lib (“What’s that? You think you’re ’1% lucky’? Oh, I’d love to come into your world Dilys!”) or strikes another anguished pose, head to one side, fingers on chin, pensively staring. Conversely if Noel threatens to drift off into a reverie of babble, the phone goes and “the banker”, the show’s one gesture to the archly theatrical, cuts him dead.

Either way this programme has more periods of silence than any other quiz show currently on TV. Given such a wafer-thin premise, you could argue this is inevitable and a churlish decision on the part of the programme-makers: we haven’t switched on to watch a load of people staring at each other in mute amazement. On the other hand, and from a far more convincing point of view, it’s the silence that keeps you tuned in. It creates a vacuum that gut impulse orders you to fill, be it with chatter or gasps or murmurs or debate – anything by way of a response, to become part of the game, and to indulge in some unashamed “what would you do?” chicanery.

This reaches a tingling crescendo whenever the banker rings up and Noel listens, usually in complete silence, to the words the unnamed financier wishes to relay. Noel’s in heaven during these sequences. He knows he’s back doing what he can do best: reactive TV, conjuring up heart-stopping moments from thin air via a expertly-judged gesture, an impeccably-executed grimace or a self-indulgent burst of the giggles. The contestant looks on, agog. So do we. Is Noel making it all up? Is there a real person on the other end of the line? If not, just who is the mystery mercantile, so prone to derisory opening bids, cool calculation and provocative budgeting? “The banker would like to offer you a sum of money …” Noel resumes after replacing the handset and unleashing another agonizing pause “… after the break!” The swine!

Of course the show isn’t flawless. The set looks shoddy (too much wood panelling – did Noel specifically state he wanted nothing hi-tech or shiny?), the title music is awful, the studio audience too small and there’s the ubiquitous and woeful “interactive” element clumsily shoehorned into proceedings. Each edition is also predicated upon the contestant not cutting a deal with the banker to take the money and run, and instead choosing to play on, gambling on the likelihood of their own particular treasure chest containing a high sum rather than a penny. It’s pretty obvious, therefore, that the banker’s first and second offer will always be rejected. Nobody will “deal” straight away and the chance of landing a big prize will always be sustained beyond at least the first commercial break.

But even so, all of this cannot detract from the majesty of the show’s conception nor the wit and wisdom of its front man. It may trade in the motifs of other programmes similarly heavy on ponderous agitation and individual vexation (The Weakest Link, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?), but easily outclasses all contenders by virtue of a cutting back on histrionics and a majoring on fluidity. And it’s not just the contestants with whom Noel sparks and reacts – it’s his very environment. As he paces the floor, circling the players and orchestrating the entire circus, we’re a whole blessed world away from Anne Robinson perched behind her lectern of Chris Tarrant lolling in his upholstered leather console.

“I’ve waited a long time to get into this chair,” today’s contender insisted as she rejected another offer from the never-seen, never-heard banker, relayed with all-conquering poise by her host and confidante. We’ve all endured a similarly lengthy wait to see Noel back where he belongs. We can only hope that Deal or No Deal? ensures he hangs around to rustle many more such accomplished rounds of quizzing, besides just as many supreme reminders of the right way to deploy a telephone for light entertainment.

It had long become the case that you could tell exactly what type of Countdown was on the cards by the precise kind of fanciful countenance struck by Richard Whiteley in the show’s opening seconds. Gently twitching eyebrows meant capricious wordplay was in store. A few lazy waves of the arm in a gesture of mock hubris guaranteed he was about to read out another letter “from” the Queen. Impatient adjusting of his lapel signalled that this was to be a no-nonsense, efficient affair wherein Richard would mix up the contestants’ names and forget to properly press his buzzer on at least two non-consecutive occasions.

Such cosy telegraphing of intention ended up just as much motif as mode of operations – a kind of semaphore of suburbia, radiating outwards across the nation to reassure regulars and harmlessly perplex newcomers as to the exact nature of the ensuing contest. Indeed, as the years went by what used to be a cursory welcome (both Richard and Carol were still being introduced via on-screen captions well into the 1990s) unfurled into a cavalcade of whimsy. The ground so carefully laid during the ever-expanding prologue became material to be tended and tilled ceaselessly during every subsequent pause between rounds.

Ultimately it got to the stage where the quizzing was reduced to playing second fiddle to the unrestrained, gargantuan artifice that was Whiteley versus Vorderman. Neatly packed into half an hour, this was reasonably palatable. Strung out over 45 minutes, however, and your patience would be sorely tested. The last four years of Countdown under Richard’s tenure were really tough going: an ordeal by numbers (literally) and a sometimes-joyless war of weasel words. Yet, as OTT dutifully noted 12 months ago, the show had been recommissioned to run until 2009. A stay of execution had materialised. “To be honest,” we confessed, “you can’t get angry with Countdown for very long.”

Well, circumstances have since conspired to turn the series into a completely different proposition, albeit one that was sensibly rested before being relaunched. But the simple appeal and inoffensive pedantry of the new model Countdown caught at least one viewer by surprise. It wasn’t so much that there was a different person sitting in Richard’s chair that continually made this watershed edition so compelling; more the way the actual game was able to emerge into the spotlight once again, unfettered by all the froth and trimmings of old.

As proceedings elapsed, jocular banter played support to astute calculation, rather than the other way round. Real bibliographic jousting took place. Genuine acclaim was ventured at the discovery of a nine-letter word. Above all, no ground had been laid during the first few minutes that went on to make the whole endeavour feel artlessly, if amiably, predictable. Our host was reacting to everything he heard and saw around him, rather than expecting everything to react to him. The mood of the show was being set by the sum of its parts, not the sum of its opening seconds.

In one sense this was just as well, as the opening seconds had been given over to Carol alone for an uneasily jubilant welcome and equally raucous salute to the new chairman, Des Lynam. Seasoned Countdown watchers will have noted Carol’s growing tendency over the last few years to adopt a distinctly Gaby Roslin-esque approach to TV presentation: namely, sporadic fey giggling interspersed with a barrage of shrieking. When parried by Richard’s bombastic dithering, the results often ended up a near cacophony of nonsense. When married to Des’s calm, muted mutterings, however, the improvement was immediate. With less of a bellicose foil to play against, Carol instinctively piped down. Not, it has to be said, a particularly great deal; when Des essayed the restrained promise that “we’ll pay respect to Richard from time to time,” Carol instantly interrupted with a blustering cry of “many times!” But there was a noticeable difference, and you could see her attitude being tempered by more than just deference to absent friends.

A less pragmatic figure would have fallen prey to cliché and attempted to retread old, tired paths. Not Des. He was in his element, even if he did his best to convince otherwise (“You can’t be more nervous than I am … I hope I’m not too much of a shock for you”). The occasionally aloof and distant way he went about his business shouldn’t be mistaken for disdainful under-performance. It only feels that way because he’s following on the heels of the calculated over-performance and comic exaggeration of his predecessor. The definitive TV version of Richard Whiteley took years to crystallize. It could, indeed should, take Des a fair few months at the very least before he finds his preferred balance of louche charm and dry reason.

But he’s got the time, and bags of it, because in the world of Countdown such a thing as time isn’t organized in the same way it is in the real world. If you find yourself in a position to watch the show regularly for a number of months, it won’t feel like a number of months come the point you switch off. Seasons will have passed in the blinking of a rheumatic eye. Pretty soon it’ll feel like Des will have been hosting Countdown forever. It might only be after two weeks. It might be six months. It doesn’t matter, though, because normal rules don’t apply to the most atypically conventional quiz show on television. Any other instance of a replacement host taking over an established format and they’d be on probation, in the minds of the viewer just as much as the programme-makers. Not this time. This is an appointment for, well, life. As long as Des wants a life as a television face, of course, which will hopefully be for some years to come.

After the wretchedly messy defection to ITV and a hapless innings helming The Premiership, Des seems to have tumbled back onto his perch. “It’s really all about the two contestants,” he stated simply at the top of today’s show. Therein lies the future of Countdown: as a modestly becoming and unintentionally retuned parlour game. It may still feel like an age between the first round and the conundrum, but at least there’s now something of substance beyond the opening seconds again – which, for a format as old as Channel 4 itself, is the greatest and most welcome surprise of all.