Live From Studio Five

TV has abused me in the past. Not in a concerning way, there's no need to recommend any mental support for me. I mean that it's abused me with the quantity of unfiltered crap it churns out on a frustratingly regular basis. Let's face it, over three quarters of what you see filling TV listings is uninteresting toss. It comes in many forms, all eerily identical; it could be specialist programmes; inane chat-shows; spine-defecating, over-the-top criminology shows for the lonely, housebound psychopathic; voyeuristic spooling live-streams of reality show footage for benefit junkies; or 24 hour rolling coverage of the bereaved families of news-worthy murder victims; or Channel Five.

Channel Five (or Five, as it will be known to them and no one else) is awful. Actually plain terrible. The last time I recall watching Channel Five for the entertainment was to see a fairly average two-parter of American crime insanity, CSI, that was directed by Quentin Tarrantino. When it was originally meant to air, it was pulled at the last minute because of that bloody 7/7 disaster (because of a scene in which the psycho blows himself to pieces alot like an Islamic fundamentalist). Anyway, that was the last time (three years ago) that I actually bothered to watch Channel Five, and that wasn't even a show produced by them. Because, to be frank, they couldn't produce anything decent. I have proof too.

You know The One Show? That show where Adrian Chiles and Christine Blakely attempt to mix light-hearted chit-chat and humourous stories with depressing tales of grief? Yeah, well Channel Five have had a go as well. It's naff, as expected. I've never raved about The One Show myself. But this makes The One Show looks like an exquisitely weaved Stanley Kubrick masterpiece. They call it Live From Studio Five and I hate it, hate it, hate it. HATE. IT.

This show also adds to my theory that people with the surname Wright on Channel Five are doomed to be diabolical. It started with Matthew Wright's The Wright Stuff, a daily rabble of ill-informed debate over mostly shit-smeared tabloid newspapers. Now we have Ian Wright on Live From Studio Five. Poor Ian Wright. He should be the average TV presenter who I'm programmed to despise, but there's something so woeful underneath his diabolical demeanour I pity him instead. There's a look behind his eyes that pleas for freedom from being a moron. There's a locked intellectual in there desperate to be set free. If you have a soul, Channel Five, let him out.

Presenting this show with Ian is Melinda Messenger. Unfortunately this is where my cock and brain start fighting. My brain wants to hate her because she's generally shite, but my cock wants to like her because she's a pretty lady. My brain would like some proper conversation with some tolerable people; my cock would be content with Messenger in a low-cut top, jumping up and down for an hour. Men are disgusting.

I judge very quickly. This is easy to judge though. I only needed to sit through one episode (I say sit, I mean pace and twitch and attack the arm of the chair). I managed to witness some of guest Dawn Porter having a dribbling chat with the three presenters (THREE? Sorry, I forgot one; Kate Walsh. She's hardly important though or, evidently, memorable). For those of you unfamiliar with Dawn Porter, she is the "Queen" of BBC Three mission documentaries (a.k.a. doing something entertaining to achieve a fuzzy conclusion). Dawn spoke for some time, probably, I was just gazing into space and imagining what would happen if Ian Wright starting idly punching Kate Walsh's face off.

By the time that hour (interrupted by ad breaks and Five News, which is essentially Newsround for fetuses) was over, I was left shaking uncontrollably like I'd just come out of a violent bout of vomiting.

In fact, I'd recommend forcing yourself to vomit rather than watch this show, or anything on Channel Five for that matter. It would be far less depressing.