Robert Hampton

Was this year an exciting way to say goodbye to the decade? Here’s a reminder of what happened on planet Hampo this year (part 2, hopefully, follows tomorrow):-

January started out with one of my favourite shows being revived. Despite being up against EastEnders and being hosted by Ben Shepherd, the Krypton Factor did well enough to be recommissioned for a second series. We found out Who would replace David Tennant, and a year later we still haven’t actually seen him in the role. ITV’s latest attempt to ape the success of Doctor Who was Demons which failed spectacularly; the only creative thing about it being the number of different excuses the writers found for Christian Cooke to remove clothing.

In the wider world, various eras were drawing to a close, as Woolworths closed its doors, Tony Hart kicked the bucket and Dubya left office. Meanwhile, yours truly had an enjoyable night in London Theatreland.

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When I heard that ITV were trying a new version of The Krypton Factor, I was simultaneously excited and worried. Excited, because this was one of my favourite shows when I was a kid. Concerned, because modern-day ITV is not exactly renowned for its cerebral shows.

The first episode went out on New Year’s Day and is now available to view on ITV’s catchup site.

The good:-

• The new logo looks good, and they’ve kept the idea of the K animating into the current round’s symbol.
• The set looks lovely.
• The Mental Agility round was suitably tough; harder, in fact, than I remember the original version.
• The intelligence test (assemble a jigsaw with only touch and a mirror-image on a screen) was classic Krypton Factor.
• The General Knowledge round kept the nice touch from the classic series of each question being linked somehow to the previous answer.

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