By Christopher Stevens
PUBLISHED: 20:04 EST, 25 July 2013 | UPDATED: 20:04 EST, 25 July 2013
Dara O Briain's Science Club ***
Dara O Briain: not the easiest name to spell. It appears to have one 'i' too many and one apostrophe too few, while the first name looks as if it should be Darren. Or Clara.
But the brainy, balding comic is taking over TV, so we'd better get used to it.
After his success as the human face of The Apprentice, presenting the You're Fired round-ups after each episode, Dara returned last night with his Science Club (BBC2).
Later, the same channel repeated Mock The Week, the current affairs panel game he hosts. With his easy wit and Irish brogue, he's surely a natural for quiz shows, travelogues and wry takes on art history.
From there, it'll be a short step to his own chat show, probably called Blarney With Dara. If he learns to cook, he'll be unstoppable, with shows such as Dara's Irish Stew and O Briain On Soda Bread. BBC2 will be Dara from dawn till Newsnight.
It could be worse. He's an amiable presenter, able to poke fun without getting too pleased with himself. Whether he's interviewing an ego on stilts from The Apprentice or an over-stimulated geek on Stargazing Live, Dara can cut in and move on while keeping the tone friendly.
IMPECCABLE LOGIC OF THE DAY
In a segment on robotics last night, he was chatting to a professor with an animatronic seal cub on his lap called Paro.
The cub was monopolising everyone's attention, mewling and squeaking like a lost kitten - real or not, it was pitifully cute. Quietly, competently, O Briain rescued the interview with: 'We may need you to let Paro sleep for a while.'
Sometimes, that gentle touch is over-done. Science Club's audience was invited to take a 'psychopath test' to reveal how many were potential serial killers. Two people returned dangerously high scores.
Imagine the glee of Graham Norton or Jonathan Ross on discovering there were a couple of possible mass murderers in their midst.
Dara played it down. It was all a terrible mix-up, he assured the audience, like a waiter apologising for an outbreak of food poisoning.
Science Club is an old-fashioned magazine show, like Blue Peter or Tomorrow's World. The mix was uneven - some of the items were pitched at post-grad students, others at children. It was Horrible Histories meets Open University.
The MRI scanner that could pick out individual thoughts was intriguingly sci-fi: a professor promised that one day we'd have apps that could read our minds.
This, he seemed to think, was a Good Thing - if it means every mobile phone on the planet will have to be destroyed, perhaps he's right. The most entertaining experiment involved a 'miracle berry' that left the tongue unable to taste anything but sweet flavours. To test this, the presenters, including a journalist from the Guardian, downed shots of vinegar.
The berry, it turned out, wasn't so miraculous. The man from the Guardian looked as if his eyes were trying to bail out of his head in a panic. That made me laugh, I have to admit. Perhaps I'm a psychopath. Perhaps, though, the presenters were just gluttons for punishment, like Alex Polizzi in The Hotel Inspector Returns (C5).
She went back to 'the worst hotel in Britain' where one horrified guest had got into bed and discovered a used condom between the sheets.
Two years ago, Polizzi had tried to help the First In Last Out hotel in Winchester, Hampshire.
She gave the owner, John Sweeney, basic tips on service: don't leave food-encrusted plates in the dining room; don't let laundry fester in stinking heaps; and do something about the hairy mould in the shower.
But when she returned, things were as bad as ever. The hotel sign appeared to have a bullet-hole in it - clearly, some guests were seriously unimpressed.
This rehash format makes cheap telly, with 40 minutes of condensed repeat and a 20-minute refresher course.
When the update is as depressing as this, it hardly seems worth the bother.
Though at least we know where not to stay in Winchester.
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