Steve Jones (I)

Responding to the nationwide clamour for a return of Telly Addicts, the BBC have a new panel show about TV. It is positioned as a sort of Mock The Week for people who find current affairs a bit taxing. Handsome idiot Steve Jones from T4 is your host, while the deeply personable Fern Britton and Jason Manford are the team captains for a trivia quiz, while tonight's guests give you a fairly accurate read on the sort of 'hilarity' that will ensue: Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, Lauren Laverne, Pauline Quirke and Tina Hobley.

TV Bite, 17th July 2009

Now I like TV as much as the next geek daftie (look, I really do have a Bonekickers DVD boxset, honestly), but even my blood turned to ice when I read about the BBC's new Friday night panel quiz show...

Presenter Steve Jones, spreading his wings beyond T4, will host As Seen on TV (you see what they did there?), a panel game in a Buzzcocks stylee on the subject of, well, TV. The team captains will be outgoing This Morning host Fern Britton and comedian Jason Manford (drafted in from C4's 8 Out of 10 Cats).

Honestly, is that the best they can come up with for a Friday night these days? Really? Wow, Jay Hunt is making some dynamic commissioning decisions in her early days as BBC1 controller. Did nobody, at any point, sit her down and show her an episode of It's Only TV... But I Like It, the Jonathan Ross hosted TV themed panel game show? One can only assume not...

Panel shows, like Buzzcocks, HIGNFY and QI can be good, enjoyable, even subversive television. But the alchemy of getting the right make-up of on-screen talent and format to make it work is a tricky thing to pull off. One bum note and it all goes out of the window.

But whatever the success or otherwise of the finished product, on the surface, As Seen on TV just sounds like lazy, middle of the road television. Surely we deserve better? Or am I expecting too much these days?

Mark Wright, The Stage, 8th April 2009

If you're a fan of Duncan from Blue, you'll absolutely love this episode. And if you can't stand the ice-skating b*****d (as this show likes to call him) then you'll probably enjoy it even more. Talk about a win-win situation.

It's the end of the sitcom based on the unlikely premise of a bloke trying to find an impressive enough date to take to the wedding of his ex-girlfriend who's dumped him for Duncan James. It's taken him five disaster-prone weeks, but, against all the odds, tonight it looks like Rob (Daniel Mays) has finally managed to pull it off when he meets Astrid, an honest to goodness blonde goddess.

An absolutely unforgettable wedding also features a great cameo from T4 hunk Steve Jones and an all-too-brief glimpse of the very lovely and very funny Nigel Harman. Even if you've not seen the rest of the series, make a date with this one.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 6th February 2009