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.

Doctor Who: The horror! The horror!

It's been talked about for a few weeks, the BBC's new credits policy, but no one actually thought they'd do it...

When Doctor Who returned, two years ago, there was a tacit assumption that the end credits wouldn't be squeezed to the side, as those of many programmes were, and that proved to be the case. It was felt that the BBC understood that Doctor Who was... different. People are less bothered by the squeezing of the Holby City or Hustle credits. But not Doctor Who. Yes, the announcer talked over the theme, but, then, you can't have everything.

But mark today, Saturday 9th June, down as a day of television history. More shocking than anything in Steven Moffat's very scary episode was the moment when the closing time tunnel suddenly receded to the bottom right corner of the screen and Graham Norton, for the second time in the programme's recent history, made an unexpected appearance in the episode. Have the BBC prepared themselves for the avalanche of criticism that will follow this? Because it will; I'm as sure of that as I am of John Barrowman appearing onscreen every time I switch on. I wouldn't like to be staffing the switchboard tonight.

And the 'not-we' reading this and thinking that it confirms their view of Doctor Who fans as social illiterates have a point in the wider scheme of things. Of course they do. In many ways, (deep breath) it doesn't matter much; not compared to the suffering that the news will tell us of later on in the evening. But that's a specious argument. In its own, small way, something's been lost tonight: the unspoken contract between broadcaster and viewer that spoke of respect and consideration, that accorded the viewer autonomy to choose their own viewing, and evinced the broadcaster's pride in the programmes they were transmitting. This breathless panic to reel the viewer into the next programme, even while they are watching the preceding one, smacks of desperation and bad faith. Yes, we've known it was coming; yes, we've been subject to it for a while now, like a form of coastal erosion - but tonight, on the most televisual of all its television output, the BBC lost something, and we, the viewers, lost something too.