I was really looking forward to this - actually I'm writing this review while sat in front of an episode. The trailers for the show promised guests drawn from the pantheon of Dave comedy panel-show regulars with a few wild-cards thrown in. The hook is that each guest would confess to some knuckle-biting event in their past that would be judged by the show's host to be the most 'unforgivable'.
The guests or their stories are not the problem (although a few of them make you think that the police should have been/should be currently involved). Most of the confessions are truly entertaining.
Unfortunately the let down comes in three parts, the combination of which make this the last time I'll watch the show hoping in vain that it will get better.
Firstly the format: there isn't one - at least not a cohesive idea of a format. Instead someone loaded all of the unsuccessful pitches that have ever been made for a Dave programme into a blunderbuss and fired it at the stage. From the long stick to the drone to the gong to the booth to the ridiculous points system (as per another review) to the mind-numbing segues - literally nothing has been thought through as being remotely linked or linkable.
Then there is the host. I have nothing against Mel - in the past I have found her to be funny, educated and articulate. However, here she is insufferable. I don't know if she has been given free reign with the script and has gone slightly mad, or if someone is forcing her to say stuff against her will, but neither it nor the constant mugging at camera is at all funny. Please, please stop - especially the coming into an unheard conversation when returning from the adverts.
Lastly, Lou Sanders suffers hugely from having been included as a pointless format add-on in the guise of Mel's side-kick. This device works for Taskmaster because the two hosts play equal (if dissimilar) roles. Here however, she is reduced to a bit-part, forced to be as abusive and rude as possible simply to appear noticed.
I want this to be a good show, I really do. Dial the formatting down, let the guests do the heavy lifting and it would be sooo much better.
