TV review: 101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow

Readers, are you aggrieved that the BBC chooses to broadcast just one paltry hour of knockabout tomfoolery on Saturday evenings, courtesy of shin-padded game show Total Wipeout? Then aggrieve no more, for I give you 101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow, yet another entertainment series featuring more members of the public falling into giant pools of water than you could ever imagine.

It's an undeniable fact of life that people like to see other people falling over. I know that, you know that. Brash entertainment shows such as Total Wipeout and Hole in the Wall are neither big nor clever, but anyone who criticises them on those grounds is missing the point. They are merely dumb baubles of escapist fun, completely harmless.

But this misconceived disaster makes the insane error of interrupting the bits we want to see - distressed licence payers performing crazy stunts for cash prizes - with long stretches of quiz show mediocrity.

The premise: eight contestants answer general knowledge questions in a bid to win 10,000. Get a question wrong and they're ejected via perilous methods contained within a sort of 100ft Meccano scaffold. The problem is that the execution is so laboured, and the ejector stunts so repetitive, unimaginative and visually unexciting, the whole thing drags on interminably. They should have called it "Just Get on With It!" instead.

The drawn-out studio quiz segments are utterly lacking in tension, as are the supposedly hilarious stunts which essentially involve bungee-roped contestants plummeting unspectacularly into water. The nadir had to be a bloke being slowly lowered down a chute as bored stagehands doused him with buckets of gunk. Truly dismal television.

Smug hosts Steve Jones and Nemone clearly hope that by repeatedly telling us how funny and scary it all is, we'll eventually believe them. But once you've considered the legal ramifications of pitting members of the public against the BBC's stringent health and safety guidelines, there is literally nothing to sustain your interest.

It would have been preferable if the post-Total Wipeout slot had been filled by another family drama in the Doctor Who vein, but this being summer - a time when TV traditionally assumes its viewers are either too hot or on holiday to care - I suppose we'll just have to grouch and bear it.

Written by Peep Show creators Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, with assistance from Simon Blackwell, The Old Guys is a reasonably successful attempt at fitting their "edgy" comic sensibilities - they also contribute to The Thick of It - within a more traditional mainstream framework.

Amusing, lively and nicely performed, this comedy about mismatched OAPs, played by sitcom stalwarts Roger Lloyd-Pack and Clive Swift, has improved since its first series.

Lloyd-Pack in particular looks far more comfortable, and hogs all the best lines as a feckless old hippie.

While the similarities to Peep Show , in terms of dialogue and characterisation, are still distracting, The Old Guys has an agreeable charm of its own. Ignore the woeful My Family which goes out before it: the mainstream sitcom is far from dead.

TV review: 101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow | The Old Guys