The Saturday Show is over-prepared and its spontaneity appears scripted

William Gallagher

They and the show as a whole have a good sense of comic timing, too, such that no part of the programme outstays its welcome nor seems so short that it is bitty.

The Saturday Show, on the other hand, is over-prepared and its spontaneity appears scripted.

Risk

Oddly, the different segments are thrown at you very fast, with the feeling that behind the scenes fingers are crossed in the hope one of them will be popular, and yet most of them also feel over long.

There are fun ones in the mix such as Risk, in which a child tries for a prize but does so with the danger of not only failing but also losing a prized possession. It was hard not to feel for this edition's young girl as her favourite teddy bear was shredded.

There's also a new US sitcom called So Little Time which has its young teenage girl stars talking to the camera, replaying events and fantasising about their lives.

And it was amusing to see the jolt on another girl's face when she was surprised by a camera in her TV set.

Only, does all that sound familiar to you?

The Saturday Show is not only aimed at young viewers, it depends on them being so young that they do not remember Noel's House Party's identical idea or the very good US children's sitcom Clarissa Explains It All - and even Risk has been done before.

Yet at the same time there is an unthinking assumption that the viewers will recognise references to The A-Team and the Smash robots.

It's a delicate line as the brand new idea of a house band depends on you not being aware of all the David Letterman-style shows that have such a group.

Band

The band, though, is possibly the show's best element as they are assured, confident and - amazingly in today's pop music - they play instruments.

The only bad thing about the group is its name which at the moment is (deep breath) The Saturday Show House Band.

You would want The Saturday Show House Band to have been given a better name but all the imagination went on the name of the show itself

William Gallagher

You would want them to have been given a better name but you can understand why they have not as all the imagination went on the name of the show itself.

Fortunately the band's name will not last as the show's best competition is one for you, the audience, to give them a better one.

And this is where The Saturday Show is really pinning its hopes: it is using its audience, most especially the one in the studio, more than any previous such series.

Only, since it involves the studio audience in everything, which is good, it's peculiar that they are in large rollercoaster-style cars separated from the action by a sea of empty studio floor.

It is as if the show is fighting itself, as if it is produced by a committee that is made up of some new people but mostly old BBC types brought up on the Multi-Coloured Swap Shop who are only changing things because they will lose their jobs if they do not.

Consequently the most amusing moment in the entire three hours was how this purportedly fresh, risky, exciting and maybe even naughty show handled the new Kylie Minogue video.

Gulp

In the full version of that, Kylie swaps into an outfit that is little more than a piece of A4 paper but with an almost audible gulp The Saturday Show smash-cut away from the video at that point.

Somehow this one moment was a microcosm of the show's whole ethos: its idea of risky is having Dani Behr saying "Ooooh, bring it on", which, to be fair, she did say an awful lot.

SM:TV Live has no reason to be concerned just yet - but it is the earliest of all possible early days and hopefully The Saturday Show will improve.