There have been many occasions when it has looked the reality TV bubble has been pushed too far, most notably Love Island but somehow it manages to survive.

So maybe we shouldn’t worry too much about how much damage Cirque de Celebrité is doing to the genre, but damage it is certainly doing.

The biggest problem is the choice of host. This is a demanding live presenting role and needs someone who can think quickly on their feet and react quickly. Ruby Wax looked completely flustered and out of her depth doing this. Perhaps they should have kept her for comedy value and provided her with an experienced co-host who could cope with the mechanics of a live show.

While we can make allowances for our Ruby who’ll no doubt improve during the run, it’s difficult to accept the term 'celebrity' for this motley crew of contestants from other reality shows, along with has-beens and never-weres.

In the first show, despite her supposed unpopularity in Big Brother, Grace managed to be the most popular, which gives some indication of in what esteem the rest of them are held. Do we really want to see Zammo out of Grange Hill (ask your Gran, kids) performing daft circus tricks?

Go on, admit it, just how many of you tuned in hoping you’d see Scary Sophie plummet from the trapeze?

Simon Cowell was prominent in the audience supporting Sinitta – famous around the same time Zammo was – and this show was certainly in need of his magic touch but he seemed embarrassed just to be there, rubbing shoulders with Carol Smillie and Mikey Dalton, he really stuck out like a sore thumb down amongst the D-list.

All the teething problems and low rent casting aside, the major problem was that it was just so boring and dragged on for an absolute age. On the face of it, this seemed an intriguing idea but it really hasn’t worked at all and there’s months of it to go yet. It could get to feel like years.

Soccer pundit Mark Bright was the casualty in the first show and was apparently quite miffed but frankly he’s better off out of it.

Painful, but oddly not the worst celebrity reality show on the box at present…

180? Not likely!

I wonder what aspirations Michael Le Vell had when he first appeared on Corrie. Surely they weren’t to spend twenty years acting from beneath a car bonnet before moving on to play darts with James Hewitt.

The problem with Showbiz Darts is that all the celebs involved can barely throw to save their lives, despite top coaching from Celebrity Fat Club luminaries Bobby George and Andy Fordham.

I’ve not checked the ratings, so for all I know this could be a cult hit but honestly watching Johnny Vegas sweat over a double is not my idea of riveting entertainment - although Johnny does at least fit the image of a darts player that became so popular in the beer soaked tournaments of the seventies.

The game of darts has moved on since then but this mockery of a tournament is doing nothing to help foster the new clean cut image of the sport, especially with all the alcohol references dispatched by Vegas and Rowland Rivron.

Have they roped in a Sid Waddell or a Dougie Donnelly to do the presenting duties? Of course not, not when plucky Sarah Cawood is available. It remains to be seen whether Sarah knows one end of a dart from the other but at least she’s finally proved that The Girlie Show wasn’t the low point of her career.

If the regular show wasn’t enough, there’s also a follow up programme just in case you didn’t get enough of people you’ve vaguely heard of taking more than a dozen darts to hit a double. I’d like to say it was a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes but Extra Arrows is actually worse than sounds, if that’s possible.

Bullseye looks positively classy next to this.

Now I understand what you tried to say to me

Many people who are trying to integrate into our lovely nation use television shows to help them pick up the lingo. They’d be well advised to stay clear of Vincent if that’s the case.

Surely many who’ve spoken our great language all of their lives were perplexed as Ray Winstone growled “I’ve got a geezer on me daily” into his phone. Yes you can’t beat a bit of nonsensical cockney rhyming slang to make your down-at-heel gumshoe look, erm, down at heel. What he meant was that he was being followed. Daily Mail: Tail. Get it?

It was a grizzly return for a character who isn’t quite the daddy of TV detectives – it was hardly fair to show this on the night after Prime Suspect, it really suffers in comparison. The occasional upbeat note wouldn’t go amiss in a show where the hard man shows his sensitive side by wearing his heart on his sleeve but it all seems so tortured and overly violent come to that.

There was an old adage that you tell when a detective show was running out of steam when the main character was framed for murder. Oh dear. He’s not exactly cerebral our Vincent and it’s hard to empathise with a “hero” who turns to violence so easily and uses the 'F' word like punctuation. You really wouldn’t want to be heading down a dark alley with him coming in the other direction.

Tear along the dotted line

One Life took a look at some of the oldest drivers on Britain’s roads and while some of the eccentrics seemed fairly lovable and daft, you really wouldn’t want to be heading down a country lane with one of them coming in the other direction.

Showing at the same time on God’s Nudists, controversy reigned in Florida as a Christian group tried to take over a nudist colony to the chagrin of local Christians and nudists alike. There was a lot of flesh on display, though at least it reminded me to take my chicken out of the freezer. You really wouldn’t want to be heading down a country lane with them coming in the other direction.

There is nothing like a Dame

The continuity announcer heralded the return of Prime Suspect as “a final farewell to an old friend”. Old soak would have been more accurate.

Fair play, Helen Mirren’s always good, we all know that but she has surpassed herself this time around as a crumpled and sozzled Superintendent Tennison stumbles through her final case, a shadow of the determined and sharp detective she once was. This just oozes quality with the central character’s fall from grace so utterly compelling that at times it deservedly takes precedence over the actual murder investigation. Meanwhile, the subplot of Tennison’s father’s illness gives Frank Finlay a chance to shine, which of course he does, while Tom Bell’s moving portrayal of a much changed Bill Otley does much to connect us with the original show.

Any other actress hoping to win the BAFTA is going to have to pull out something pretty special because Mirren on this sort of cracking form will prove nigh on impossible to beat.

I’m so dizzy, my head is spinning

They like their plot twists over at Spooks. It’s getting so you get scared to nip out and put the kettle on in case you miss another vital if not always likely development.

Peter Firth remains marvellously po-faced as M-type figure Harry but a great addition has been the cold steely hard-as-nails performance of Hermione Norris, whose Ros Myers is arguably cooler than James Bond himself. Keep an eye on your drink if you bump into her down the pub.

It doesn’t do to get too attached to any of the characters though, given this show’s reputation for dispatching them violently when you least expect it and I’m not sure that some of the boys' own hokum that goes on sits easily with the political undertones but it does make for cracking viewing.

That’s Life

Does anyone else fear for Paul Heiney as he takes on the sometimes shady characters he investigates on Watchdog?

I had to smile this week as he attempted to confront a dodgy used car dealer whose defensive tactic seemed to be agree with many of Heiney’s allegations, seemingly content to admit that his after sales service wasn’t all it might be.

Heiney is of course a veteran of consumer shows such as this, as are Lynn Faulds Wood and Esther Rantzen. Surely the BBC could send someone younger and nimbler on their pins into what could be dangerous situations.

After all these years, why is that tales of dodgy builders and unscrupulous salesmen still fascinate and why aren’t regular viewers of these shows wise to the scams by now?

The most chilling bit of the crusading show was the piece showing that many banks aren’t disposing of our details correctly, though as well as scaring us to bits with their tale of identity fraud, I wonder just how many ne’er do wells they inadvertently persuaded who then leaped up off their sofas in the hope of ill gotten gains from their local bank’s bin bags.

More Questions to Answer?

That ad for Children In Need featuring a muscle bound Terry Wogan looks really expensive. Would it have been cheaper to bin the CGI and send the veteran DJ to the gym for a month or two? I think we should be told.

Why aren’t more people raving about Jack Dee’s excellent Lead Balloon? If you’ve not caught it yet give yourselves a treat and catch the re-runs on BBC Two.

If Torchwood got its title from an anagram of Doctor Who, why not do the same for the forthcoming Sarah Jane spin off? I’d definitely tune in for a show called “Cow Hotrod”. “Rot Cod How?” may have less appeal.

All Good Things

There were a few dodgy moments but in the main the second series of Extras has been a resounding success. It really should end here. It will hard to top a final episode that combined the usual excruciatingly embarrassing scenes with some genuinely funny moments and a star turn from Robert Lindsay that was so hard to top that they had to get DeNiro in to do it.

This show has been a joy and is one of those rare comedy shows that remain watchable again and again. It was a brave decision to abandon the format established in the first series to allow the characters to develop and if this is the end then it’s a really high note to go out on.

Not a dry eye in the house

It should have been such a romantic moment, the tearful parting on a Paris railway platform of Coronation Street’s Craig and Rosie. It wasn’t exactly Brief Encounter was it, though the highly charged mood did suffer from frequent punctuation from squawky Sally.

While the Websters managed to turn a jolly trip to Paris into an ordeal, the grubby little Baldwin storyline continued to slowly unravel with vapid Violet finding herself out in the cold.

Cold is how Johnny Allen ended up in EastEnders in a shockingly weak ending for a character that had promised so much in the early days. The major problem is that Sean is at the centre of things and is one of most unbelievable characters ever to pollute the soap.