Eurovision Dance Contest: "Her legs are like a motorway!"

Having had a surprise hit with Strictly Come Dancing, and unable to produce it on a rolling 52-weeks-per-year basis, the BBC are desperate to fill its Saturday night slot with approximations and bastard-cousins. The best, by far, was the two series of Strictly Dance Fever - a series destined to be remembered only because it immediately preceded the first series of the all-new Doctor Who, leading to the infamous Nortongate affair. That show was fun, with genuinely talented dancers experimenting with lively and imaginative routines (I'm not talking about Doctor Who now). Because it didn't feature anyone famous from reading the news, or have the easily graspable prize of a number one single or West End show at the end of it, it died a quiet, unlamented death.

Following the saccharine horror of How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and the car-crash of camp that was Any Dream Will Do, the latest attempt at the Strictly slot was Dance X - labelled by Popjustice as "one of the most derivative, complicated and ill-conceived primetime 'reality' shows of all time", which sums it up nicely, and with which we need not concern ourselves further.

Last night, though, brought us the Eurovision Dance Contest, the format of which shouldn't really need unpacking from the title. This was rather more entertaining than it first promised, returning to the Strictly Dance Fever model of showcasing simply the dancers and the choreography. It was hampered only by the brevity of the routines, through the constraint of having to show two routines from sixteen couples, and then the self-fulfilling shambles of the international vote. Graham Norton, having turned up on these programmes as a result of the BBC's uncertainty as to what to do with him having poached him from Channel 4, does actually fit them well, showing the right level of engagement and amused detachment. Last night, though, showed a lapse of judgement as he decided to send up the representatives of each of the voting countries as they appeared onscreen. Not only was this cheap and gratuitous (What? English isn't their first language, you say? How hilarious! And there's a time delay, which I can exploit to make them sound even more stupid? Terrific!), but actually caused the kind of communication breakdown that he had predicted at the start. Ultimately, he ended up looking bitter and sounding rude, which isn't quite the kitsch fun that had been predicted when this programme was mooted, I'm sure.

The saving grace was the running commentary provided, out of sight, by judges Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli. Like a peculiar, European version of Statler and Waldorf, their disembodied voices burst in, and were faded out, almost at random. It was easy to imagine the whole of the BBC Saturday night schedule being livened up by leaving them to comment on it ("Ooh, look 'ow they pushed 'im through those Casualty doors, like a tempestuous boat on a sea of vomit!" "Yeah, but where's his hips, Bruno? No hips!"). Near the end, Len, in his elder statesman tones, said "Well, I'd just like to say - " and was cut off, which was as good a summation of the proceedings as anything I've written.