The Ministry of Mayhem

He will be at the end of the week...

Leaving x-change? Who's replacing him? Anne Gilchrist has replaced him in pretty much everything else. (inc. now exec. prod of the sat/sun morn tv).

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Does this mean he will be at the Ministry weekly?
I think that the new show is sounding better...

Anne Gilchrist will not be replacing him, she already has enough things to worry about!

Xchange actually comes under CBBC Factual output anyway. It should be Roy Milani...

Also, not sure how much Chris will be involved or indeed whether it'll be hands-on or not. However, he's certainly used the hands-on approach on Xchange

38 days and counting until Ministry of Mayhem hits our screens!

Does anyone know anything more about what's going to be in it? There must have been some articles and stuff...although I haven't found any!

Sob, I'm going to miss SM:TV.

I agree, but it's never gonna be as good as it once was.

It's time for something different I reckon. Let's just hope it isn't rubbish cause I'm not sure if I can handle Da Bungalow too much longer!

I think the mian problem with SM:TV towards the end is not only the fact that Des, Shavaugh & Stephen didn't have as much comic talent as Tess & Brian but also that the material being written for them wasn't really that good. Compare on e of the Ant & Dec sketches like "The Secret of my Sucess" to one of the more recent sketches like "The Vicar of Dribbley", It's easy to see which is better written. When you think that towards the end the big sketch was "Ghost Busted", I think we could all see that the writers had run out of ideas, for Des & Stephen anyway. I think it's a shame they couldn't have given the show one last chance by finding new writing & presenting talent. I hope Ministry Of Mayhem is as good as SM:TV was, but somehow, I don't think it will be. There's also the fact that when Ant, Dec & Cat were on there was a lot of small sketches, features and games as well as the few big sketches like Chums, by the end there weren't even many of those in the show. I think they should have given a final chance with a complete relaunch of the show, but it is too late for that now.

Whatever happens though, I'm still very sad to see SM:TV go. I've been watching right since epsiode one (though obviously I haven't watched every epsiode) and it's defiantly the best Saturday morning show out of the ones I've ever seen. It will be sad to see such a groundbreaking show disappear, no matter how bad it had gotten by the end. Then agian,t here's nothing to say that SM:TV won't return in the future, especially if Ministry of Mayhem fails.

I agree with you James!

The Saturday Show did become a lot more like Live & Kicking and got better because of it. I still cannot wait to see what The Ministry of Mayhem will be like but if it doesn't work out I'm sure they'll look back at SMTV and try to recreate it!

Of course, It is a bit early to be talking down a show that we haven't even seen yet.

"Ministry of Mayhem
Saturday 10 January - 9:25am to 11:30am
Subtitled

Holly Willoughby, Stephen Mulhern and Michael Underwood present the fun-packed show to start the weekend off with a bang. In this week's show they are visited by S Club 8."

Here we go!! It's started...

P.S. Ben Ward and Richard Webb wrote the CBBC panto "Sleeping Beauty Uncovered"

They're visited? Its ounds like they are going to use the ministry as a massive bungalow, a bit like noel's house party!

I noticed that they had written it together as richard didn't go and work for SM:tv with Ben and Gez.

The demise of the SM:tv really was because of the presenters moving on "to bigger and better things", however the ironic thing is that NONE of them have... except for Ant & Dec.

Cat Deeley doesn't do much, Brian Dowling has now been demoted to voice over for the salon (something he doesn't do very well either... argh... that horrible, frog-in-his-throat cum husky-esq Irish accent is awful) and Tess did that awfully tacky Christmas Show with Eamonn Holmes... (now that's REALLY going up in the world)...

I like Cat, I think ITV1 are just finding the right stuff for her. She does CD:UK, she did that music show at night and Stars in their Eyes Kids. Let's not forgest Fame Academy either.

The Christmas Show - oh deary me, as soon as the intro started coming, I was half laughing and half worrying. They go into soem strangers house by force, start doing a "Sabrina" with magic and then eamen kisses tess. They walk into this horrible grubby studio and it's downhill from there.

Ministry of Mayhem needs money spent on it. When SMTV Live was re-done, those credits were un-believably crap and the studio was so incredibly cheap. I remember watching one show and thinking - "Why the hell is the show being built around someone winning a new Harry Potter book for the whole show?". On one hand, you know it can't be possibly as good as SMTV Live first was (well actually 6 months into SMTV, lets not forget how much of an embarrasement it first was), but on the other - you've got to think that CiTV will not want to let this show fail - they can't.