It is surely no coincidence that 'Splash!' is both the noise a massive turd makes when it hits the water and the name of ITV's craptacular new celebrity reality TV show.
'Splash!' the programme is as monstrous a product of televisual bowel squeezing as you're ever likely to see and it hit the water and our television screens on Saturday night.
It is based on people you don't know jumping into a swimming pool and... well, that's about it.
Nominally fronted by diver Tom Daley, whose role is limited to having a name which makes teenage girls scream whenever mentioned, this is ITV's contribution to our Olympic legacy and as such the worst possible advert for continued lottery funding, lest we win more medals in 2016 and have to endure further shows like this.
Pat Sharpe
Of course we've seen celebrity diving competitions on TV before. Remember Pat Sharpe versus MC Romeo in The Games on Channel 4? You probably don't, because it wasn't a very good idea then and it isn't today.
But at least in The Games the diving was relatively brief.
ITV has taken the diving section of The Games, reduced the number of dives, fitted it into the standard template for every other reality TV competition and somehow managed to make it last what felt like a week-and-a-half in the process.
Presenter Gabby Logan played her part setting a new world record for the 'dramatic pause' when announcing the results.
I actually left the room, got a beer from the kitchen and returned to the lounge with enough time still in hand to take down the Christmas tree and put the decorations back in the loft before Logan delivered the verdict.
Jo Brand
There is nothing original about Splash! It's sole differentiator hinges entirely on it just being worse than anything else out there. Strictly has a dance-off, X Factor has a sing off. Dancing On Ice has a skate-off. So obviously Splash! has a dive-off - or a Splash-off to be precise. There's also the obligatory phone vote and a celebrity judging panel which in Splash's case includes Jo Brand.
No, really.
The celebrities included actor and comedian Omid Djalili from the MoneySupermarket adverts, Jennie Falconer from the lottery programme, Helen Lederer from the early-nineties, Jade Ewen from one of the less well-known line-ups of the Sugababes and somebody called Jake Canuso (no, me either).
Camera fodder
Even the presenters couldn't really be bothered to get the contestants' names right so inconsequential were the camera fodder teetering on the edge of a diving board and staring into the hopeless abyss of a programme so awful it could sink even the healthiest of careers.
Most bizarre of all perhaps was the fact a couple of the celebrity dives were actually pretty impressive, though they didn't win.
Omid Djalili won this week's competition with a dive that looked like a body being thrown into the sea from a pier. But he did it from the 10 metre board so he got the biggest cheer of the night.
Any glimpse of genuine achievement was all too brief in a show which appears to have been designed with the single-minded purpose of ascertaining just what level of utter dross the viewing public will endure.
ITV presumably knows the country is a bit hard-up and thinks people will stay in and watch TV whatever half-baked rubbish fills the screen - hence shows such as Take Me Out and recent ITV canine talent show That Dog Can Dance. And now Splash!. To be fair to ITV, around 6 million tuned in for some of Splash! but having satisfied their curiousity it's easy to imagine many will not return.
There is an oft-quoted and very apt point of reference for these increasingly ridiculous shows, courtesy of I'm Alan Partridge.
When writer Armando Iannucci dreamed up a list of bizarre television formats for Partridge to desperately pitch to the BBC, he came up with Monkey Tennis, among other ideas.
At the time it was mean to be a hilarious extreme. But now, it's easy to believe the only reason ITV hasn't made Monkey Tennis is because monkeys have better agents than the cast of TOWIE and are probably more expensive to hire and insure.
Partridge also pitched Youth Hosteling With Chris Eubank which is no less ludicrous than Joanna Lumley: The Search for Noah's Ark which ITV screened over Christmas.
Meanwhile Partridge's Cooking In Prison has already been done as a Gordon Ramsay vehicle by Channel 4. And I suspect as we speak, ITV is booking contestants for Arm Wrestling With Chas and Dave.
At least it will be better than Splash!
I usually LOATHE shows like this, but I actually found Splash! pretty damn amusing. It seemed evident to me that everyone there knew it was a huge turd and I found it very tongue in cheek. It didn't take itself seriously, unlike X Factor, Strictly etc etc.
Posted by: NikkiGuest | Jan 08, 2013 at 12:55