The Worst Programme Of 2005

See, we hadn't forgot about this. You've seen our choices of the tenth to second worst TV shows of the year, and now we're about to reveal the worst. Well, what is it? The nominations are:

The Girl in the Café (BBC One)

A good cast and the all-too-rare prospect of seeing a BBC Wales/HBO co-production made this sound like it's be worth an hour of anyone's Sunday night. How wrong we all were, eh? Just displaying a page from Ceefax with a large flashing MODE 7 double-sized "Global poverty is bad" to a soundtrack of Coldplay's Mopiest Hits for ninety minutes would have been a much more cost effective way of meeting the same ends. Can't we arrange for a Life On Mars-style time-travel car accident to send Richard Curtis back to 1987, in the hope it kickstarts his brain into being any bloody good again?

"Dear the BBC, I thought global poverty was good
until I saw your programme The Girl In The Cafe.
Now I know it is bad. Well done, Richard Curtis!"

18 Stone of Idiot (Channel Four)

We sat through all of Celebrity Big Brother the other night, just in case the rumours of Johnny Vegas taking part were true. This is because Johnny Vegas is ace. Not that you'd have noticed by watching this sprawling mess of sub-sub-sub-TFI pish. A classic case of having too much money to throw at a project, we'd say. We'd much rather they transmitted the hour or so Johnny Vegas spent on Price-Drop TV in full.

Spoons (Channel Four)

Cunts, more like (See what I did there? I swore. I am, like, so cutting-edge).

Nighty Night (BBC Three)

The first series was uncomfortable but oddly watchable. This second series was just tedious. Still here's hoping it turns out to be one of the final nails in the coffin marked "Comedy That's A Bit 'Dark'". ("How about having someone still alive trapped in this coffin you mention?" - A Passing BBC Three Commissioning Editor.)

So bad it literally makes Angus Deayton look like Justin Lee Collins.

Blessed (BBC One)

If everyone reading this rushes out and buys a second copy of every Father Ted DVD up for grabs in HMV right now, there's a chance Ardal O'Hanlan won't need the money from a second series of Blessed. Hang on a minute, 'second series of Blessed'? That's crazy talk!

According to Bex (BBC One)

Gah. We like Jessica Stevenson (even if we did have to imdb her to check the spelling on her surname), so this turning out to be rubbish was a real let-down. We even gave it until the fourth episode to start getting good, which we used to do with every new sitcom regardless of quality, before the good/shite ratio became too heavily weighed toward the latter and made us reconsider our policy. Post-Bread Carla Lane-penned shows not included in that, obviously.

Broken News (BBC Two)

I think we've already done a comment about the writers accidentally losing all their well-crafted scipts for this due to a hard-drive mishap, and ended up printing out the first British stab at The Onion they could Google before the cast turned up for recording (rehearsals? Aye, as if). Still, we could just pretend to cut to another blog, and have it written out again, in a different font with slightly different wording, perhaps pretending to be written by an American. That would be clever and dangerously satirical, wouldn't it? Oh.

World Shut Your Mouth (BBC One. Yes, really. I'm as surprised as you are.)

The BBC finally realising that Dom Joly is a one-joke pony, there. Ha ha! A joke about Germans, beaches and towels! In 2005!

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But ignore all the above, here's our choice of Worst Television Show Of The Year. Scrub that, Worst Thing In The History Of Television Ever. (Sound of imaginary envelope opening.) It's:

Balls of Steel (Channel Four)

This is what Channel Four think comedy is. This, and Spoons.

A man in a devil costume smearing fake dogshit on the button of a pelican crossing. A woman interviewing minor celebrities at events, with a bit of her microphone's logo-box displaying a rude message, and an arrow pointing at their stupid unknowing celebrity faces. Alex Zane hosting pretend gameshows where contestants end up looking a bit undignified (except they don't, even). A woman trying to ruin relationships, and that's it - that's all she does, actually trying to fuck up people's lives. A man in a cowboy hat (called 'Neg', because he's a complete cuntwipe) literally jumping on Members Ov Da Public, because Da Public are all faceless scum who work in factories and have never even bought a copy of Sleaze Nation or paid upwards of £50 for a haircut, and therefore deserve everything they get.

Cut back to Mark Dolan in the studio, looking pleased with himself. Even the joys of Randy Campbell - the sole section of the show to display more than a single weak idea dragged out over several weeks and where, crucially, the only person to get hurt or look foolish is Randy Campbell - can't stop this taking the award for Genuinely The Worst Thing On Television Ever.

Well done, Channel Four!