Advent Calendar 2023 Day 9: The Saturday Starship, 1984

The whatnow? Well, Saturday Starship was Central's second attempt to latch on to ATV's Tiswas legacy, the first being Big Daddy's Saturday Show, in which stuff just happened in a studio with little in the way of hooks or stickability. Instead of a third series the operation was moved into a faux spaceship, retaining Tommy Boyd but replacing Isla St Clair with the less immediately welcoming Bonnie Langford. Someone had the decision to base the show around a noisy party, which with endless streamers presumably was meant to invoke 'Was but instead means he, Langford and "lively" third wheel Nigel Roberts, who looks miscast, have to shout throughout. Those braving the elements include Linda Nolan, the world disco dancing champion and a man not given to a world of silly string and Button Moon puppets, Ian McCulloch of Echo & the Bunnymen, who immediately gets covered in the former and is then shown "something that's fun to do with a banana". Sadly the live performance by Chas & Dave has been cut, though not Chas asking for his monitor to be turned down; bafflingly, that's followed by The Singing Hotpots, again from Button Moon but a gag that lasts much too long. This is not the environment in which resident ecologist Chris Baines should host a discussion on acid rain, but they try regardless. Central let this last out one winter season, tried TX for three months the following year and then just let other franchises have a go. Meanwhile, over on BBC1 at the Superstore...