Back to BBC1 and part of the problem is what traditionally has been early evening filler is now the centre of the Saturday night schedule with Pointless Celebrities now firmly fixed in around a 7pm show. This is where they suffer though for packing everything into the autumn - Doctor Who would have given them a centrepiece of the Saturday night schedules had it been held back.
Doctor Who from 2005-2010 (excluding the 2009 hiatus) was always a Spring series and filled that void. Sadly the BBC started to meddle with the series, splitting the show into two blocks from 2011, and not having a proper codified run. April to June = main series, and then the Christmas special. That has now gone out into the dustbin and does not look set to return.
Remember the Graham Norton Saturday night shows with Andrew Lloyd Webber. It seems Graham is now happy to just do the talk show and the Eurovision for BBC One
Just looking back at the Spring time Saturday BBC One schedules from just over a decade gives a look at how BBC One served Saturday nights in the Spring 11 years a go.
Saturday 5th April 2008:
5.20pm - The Weakest Link (Food and Drink Special)
6.20pm - Doctor Who (opening episode of Series 4 - "Partners in Crime)
7.10pm - I'd Do Anything. Graham Norton hosted show searching for the next "Oliver"
8.20pm - National Lottery Draws
8.30pm - Casualty
9.20pm - Love Soup (comedy-drama by David Renwick)
Man O Man was trashy but always good for a laugh. Never thought Tarrant was the right host, it needed a female host with a bit of attitude instead.
Bring it back I say.
To be fair Take Me Out is basically the same concept, only sadly the guys come in one by one and don't get shoved into a pool if the ladies don't like them!. I remember really liking the first series and being disappointed when the second season stripped back the theming to a duller studio.
I also think there's no way Generation Game is coming back at the moment, I watched one episode of the Mel and Sue version, and goodness you could see why they cancelled at 2 episodes and aired what they had at Easter. It was horribly unfunny, painful, and someone had messed with the concept to add celeb judges.
TBH if I was ITV I would give Keith and Paddy a bigger budget to do more movie parodies. Also whatever happened to Stephen Mulhern's Saturday show that he supposedly got at the end of last years SNT?
Maybe they realised it couldn't sustain a full show, though it is the sort of 30 minute filler that used to be thrown out early evening.
Always felt Ant vs Dec could be spun off into it's own show too allowing them to do bigger challenges. Trouble is though it would be ideal as a half hour format it's very rare now for TV channels to let a half hour format have a half hour show and instead milk them out to an hour.
Impossible Celebrities is coming back to BBC1, so reruns of the first series would be a good option for early evening on Saturdays. I see Would You Lie to Me makes it into the Saturday schedule next week around 9.30pm instead of the usual Mrs Brown filler (that's on Friday instead!).
Whatever happened to Stephen Mulhern's Saturday show that he supposedly got at the end of last years SNT?
It has been filmed, or bits of it have at least, last Autumn there were a few reports on social media they had seen Stephen and a crew with contestants in the streets. Seems more of a "lead in" programme than something to anchor the schedule around. I suspect if it doesn't launch around the same time as BGT, it may be a candidate for quietly being shoved out in the Summer
