reruns of old Pugwash cartoons

TV I'm back. Hadley Freeman reviews this morning's debut episode of Daybreak, ITV1's new morning showdown featuring new signings Adrian and Christine so I don't have to:

"What a strange thing Daybreak is looking set to be. An odd mashup of GMTV, The One Show, That's Life and, suddenly, Newsnight. No one is claiming that GMTV was a hothouse of intellectual thought, but, really, what on earth can one make of Daybreak – a news programme that shows clips of racing mobility scooters, a funnily shaped carrot and a bulldog on a skateboard and asks viewers to vote for the one they'd like to hear about in more detail. This segment is called Daybreakers, which I'm guessing is a pun of some sort, but one not easily grasped. Better to have called it "Like watching YouTube with an immature 10-year-old."

The main problem at this early stage is an over-abundance of format, the desperate need to give things like phone polls and news headlines ear-catching names and the big signings, with the exception of the interview slot, largely reduced to cueing in the next bit of the schedule be it the news, the adverts, the phone in quiz, the adverts, the sport news, the adverts, the funny animal stories, the rotating banana bowl and John Stapleton standing in a football stadium to illustrate a lot of people.

There's also an over-abundance of staff. Apart from the fact that the likes of the sport could just as well be read out by Chiles as the separate sports presenter and the news by Bleakley, the correspondents idea is an obvious attempt to replicate the guests who'd appear on The One Show talking about scrabble or duck billed platipusses or whatever.  But here there's too little interaction, not enough time for the more freewheeling conversational style which suited this pair so well on the other side.

Essentially, if anything, it seems an attempt to resurrect the formula of TV-AM in the Anne 'n' Nick era which presumably means before too long, converting for modern currency,  we'll be seeing Christian O'Connell roaming the beaches making fun of pensioners, the CG animated Sammy Stoat for the kids, and the show being replaced with reruns of old Pugwash cartoons and the Ashley Twins filmography when the production staff walk out on strike with Garroway being labelled a scab for crossing the picket line.