No Splash!, no gash

Let us begin with a fact: I never watch ITV.

I'll illustrate why by suggesting that you notice that Ant and Dec went from presenting ITV television shows for children, to presenting ITV television shows for adults, without any noticable change in style or intellectual output.**

That pretty much sums it up.

Today, however, I did something I never do and I watched ITV. I watched the brand new series Splash, in which Olympic heartthrob diver Tom Daley teaches a crew most motley of celebrities (most of whom have some sort of hatred, lifelong fear or allergy to water) how to dive. They then perform these dives in front of a live studio audience and three judges, with the public at some point getting to vote to display their satisfaction or otherwise with their dives.

The celebrities amounted to the following:

• A woman called Jade, who I'd never heard of, who appeared to have been chosen to go on the show purely on the basis of her young, toned body and her willingness to place it in a highly revealing swimming costume.
• A man called Jake, who I'd never heard of, who appeared to have been chosen to go on the show purely on the basis of his young, toned body and his willingness to place it in a highly revealing swimming costume. Also, he'd nearly died in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand, and so upon seeing a swimming pool, it apparently 'brought back memories' allowing him to shed a humble tear. Presumably in the 8 years since the horrifying natural disaster he had managed to avoid seeing water entirely allowing him to become emotional at this ITV-induced reunion.
• A slightly chubby middle-aged lady named Helen (who I later found out was Helen Lederer...) who was enjoying the sympathy vote on the fact that she was afraid of heights (!), but also fulfill the empathy of other chubby middle-aged ladies all undoutbedly chorusing "Well, she done much betta than what I could do" (yes, ITV viewers, that's exactly, what you sound like) after her attrocious bellyflop. 
• Jenni Falconer, who I had heard of, but only on the basis that she is a half-talent famous-for-being-famous irrelevance. I mean, she started her showbiz 'career' on Blind Date for fuck sake. Interestingly in this show she again played the role, of the not-bad, not-good boring woman.
• Omid Djalili, showing his genuine entertaining skill by similtaneously playing comic relief role and the minority-person role.

The concept was fairly dull; something the crowd appeared to realise in unison during Jade's unimpressive first attempt. After their pre-war-Germany-Hitler-speech level of applause for Tom Daley's dive in his pants, the reality that they faced a number of boring dives by people who can't actually dive appeared to dawn on them.

The three judges were two dull diving experts... and Jo Brand. Now Jo Brand, is a talented and funny laconic comedian. She is NOT a talented diving expert. It turned out that fact didn't actually matter because the judges, instead of judging, were more a three-headed parade of:

"Well, it wasn't great, but diving takes loads of training, so given that, you did really well"

And this is what people like? This is how ITV viewers spend their evening?

Take Me Out was coming on after. A show that appeared to be even worse.

** Please note this joke was plagiarised badly from a Stewart Lee routine.