TV Week: The Colour Of Money vs. Let's Dance For Comic Relief

But, here goes: there are 20 cash-machines resembling neon tombstones, each contained different sums of money ranging from £1,000 to £20,000. A contestant chooses one of three cash-cards to play with, each containing a target sum of money to win. In the first game, this was a cool £64,000. The contestant then has to choose an ATM, insert their card, and withdraw whatever it has (displayed incrementally) and shout "STOP!" to end the transaction and collect the cash. The trick is they're never sure if a machine will "lock-out" prematurely after dispensing its full load of, say, £2,000 -- or if they should have hung on longer because the ATM had a massive £20,000 to cough up. The contestant can only play with ten ATM's and must reach their cash target by the final machine, or lose all the cash they've accumulated. Ooh, harsh.

It's essentially Deal Or No Deal with a few tweaks; another game-show that requires little intelligence, and is more a test of nerve and greed. It's also much colder than DOND, although Tarrant clearly relishes being able to interact and support the contestant without the need for Millionaire's cold detachment – for better, or worse. Like DOND, this was also guilty of trying to make its simple formula mean something more – by giving each cash-machine a fancy colour-based name (Lime, Magenta) and players often choose a colour based on tenuous personal reasons (husband in the army... oh, choose the kaki machine!) The player's family are also sat in the middle of the Strike It Lucky-esque set, to offer pointless advice and support, while there's a sexy "human calculator" called Millie Clode to rattles off statistic in-betwen ATM's... but whose input is rather superfluous, and felt like a throwback to an outdated age of glamorous bimbos.

I really wanted to enjoy TCOM, but I just found myself zoning out very quickly. It's no fun watching someone else play one-armed bandits, is it. Do you see crowds gather around the fruit machines in pubs? No. They're all trying to help whoever's risked £1 on the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire machine. There's a lesson there for Tarrant.

I never felt particularly connected to the players, either (despite a manipulative X Factor-style sob story before the game begins, trading on a woman's other half being sent to Afghanistan), and it all lacked spark and vitality. DOND gets around its own inanity with quirky charm and by emphasizing personalities... but TCOM left me decidedly straight-faced, unmoved and rather bored. SAT, ITV1, 6.35PM.

Over on BBC1, Comic Relief Does Fame Academy has been retired, so celebrities must now impress/horrify audiences through the medium of dance for charitable purposes. Half-mad Claudia Winkleman receives her primetime payment for hosting Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two last year, while hunky Steve Jones makes a leap from the teen audiences of T4 to co-present LET'S DANCE FOR COMIC RELIEF.

Basically, a panel of judges (Strictly Come Dancing's Anton DuBeke, Spice Girl Emma Bunton and comedian Michael McIntyre) pass comment on celebrity attempts to ape famous dances from the world of pop and film. Some EastEnders became High School Musical "Wildcats", Christopher Biggins and Nikki Chapman chanelled Danny and Sandy from Grease, Peep Show's Robert Webb strutted around doing Flashdance in a leotard, some TV chefs becomes zombies for Thriller, Les Dennis donned a white suit for some Saturday Night Fever disco-dancing, and Dick & Dom put on a rather good Blues Brothers spectacle.

All good fun, particularly comedian Webb (who, unlike most of the others, understood the need to actually be overtly funny), and it's obviously all for a good cause. But, really, there was one key thing that undermined the show for me: it's all very well looking a bit silly gesticulating on stage, but it's nowhere near as hilariously awful as bad singing. A few of the performances begged for the dancers to be singing along (Grease, HSM, Blues Brothers), but the celebs were mute and just went through the motions. It's a dance contest, not a singing contest, I know -– but the standard was fairly level across the board, and not actually that comically terrible. Although seeing Nancy Lam as a zombie gave me nightmares. SAT, BBC1, 6.35PM.

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