You know a TV show is bad when you spend most of the programme feeling sorry for the live studio audience who have to suffer through every awful second of it.
That was what was going through my mind watching the miserable-looking spectators shivering in the stands of Crystal Palace observing ITV’s new celebrity sports show The Games.
I know it’s a cliché to bemoan a celebrity show for having no celebrities, but even by previous poor standards The Games was stretching the meaning of the word to breaking point.
Mel B’s daughter and Paddy McGuinness’s wife took part, so now simply being related to a celebrity gives you celebrity status.
What struck me was how little sports action was included in each show – which ITV cockily predicted viewers would particularly love if it was spread across five nights.
I didn’t have the willpower to break out the stopwatch, but I think there was more time spent on adverts than there was on the actual athletics. And it wasn’t like the sports were taking priority, even when we got past the never-ending ads.
The overstuffed studio team – including presenters Holly Willoughby, Freddie Flintoff and Alex Scott, guests Denise Lewis and Yung Filly, special daily guests and commentators – spent more time yacking about the sports than letting us actually watch them.
That tedious build-up meant when the starting gun did finally fire, the action was beyond underwhelming.
ITV could have saved a lot of money just by televising school sports days from around the country, because that’s what this resembled.
At least the audience at home could participate in their own event: Fastest to pick up the remote and switch it off wins a medal!