LOOK beyond Britain’s Got Talent and Saturday night telly is currently in a desperate state.

Bless ITV, though. At least they’re trying to invoke the spirit of tragically axed Total Wipeout — which for four years single-handedly (Strictly aside) cut through BBC1’s all-pervading gloom and pumped fun into primetime — with Ninja Warrior UK.

“Television’s toughest obstacle course”, which it isn’t, inside a Gladiators arena, complete with pointy foam hands in the audience.

As the title suggests, it began in Japan.

And nothing says “ninja” quite like Ben Shephard and Chris Kamara guffawing in the commentary box while Rochelle “give it up for” Humes, from The Saturdays, yells: “Are you ready, Manchester?” at the Central Convention Complex.

It’s like standing on the foothills of Mount Fuji, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Touch the water below obstacles like “swing circle” (hula hoops on hangers) and you’re out.

But for the winners, a shot at the “ultimate challenge of Mount Midoriyama”. Which to my eyes, looks suspiciously like “some scaffolding”.

I’ll admit the course is indeed tough. Last Saturday it defeated two Commonwealth Games multi-event athletes, an international netball player, ex-GB canoeist and a pole vaulter.

And it delivers show-saving SPLATS to a parade of fitness bores.

Contestant Kev: When I arrive at work I do some press-ups and sit-ups. In my lunch break I go up and down the stairs in a high-altitude oxygen mask so it’s harder to breathe. I jog five miles home with two rucksacks on my back.”

Kammy: “Here he goes, one step, one step…”

SPLAT!

But you must also contend with the hosts’ dreadful puns.

Shephard: “Craig’s a sheep farmer.”

Kamara: “Let’s hope it’s not a baaaaaaaad performance.”

The key difference with Wipeout, though, is they’re laughing at the competitors, not with them.

At least when Amanda Byram did that as they came a cropper off the big red balls, it was sneakily behind their backs.

In fact the best Saturday night game show around has actually been on Sunday nights, on Sky1 — Wild Things, hosted by Kate Humble and Jason Byrne who are as irrelevant to the series as Mel and Sue are to Bake Off.

One team member wears a giant woodland animal costume they can’t see out of and their partners direct them via headpiece haplessly through challenges, such as blind piñata where they whack each other accidentally.

It sounds puerile and, yes, I watched to slate it.

What I wasn’t expecting was for it to be hilarious, the natural successor to Wipeout with similar brilliant choices of soundtrack — Bright Eyes for Team Rabbit’s elimination and Wrecking Ball when the “Wild Things” blindly knock their teammates off the podium from behind.

Most inspired is casting bickering couples, the long-forgotten secret to game show success.

In between rounds, it creates real-life Creature Comforts: “I’m sorry, love, I can’t be anyone else but me…” pleaded a 6ft furry owl during a row.

And during the games, full-on domestics.

Wife: “You were hopeless.”

Geordie male rabbit: “I’m sweating me ears off, man! I was on a revolving dance floor and you were saying ‘just move’. Where?!”

“I wasn’t saying ‘just move’, you just weren’t listening.”

“Divorce!”

Unbelievable, Jeff.

Spudulikes…

More4’s Father Ted repeats.

Ant and Dec driving Britain’s Got Talent.

Good Morning Britain’s Susanna Reid, after a week suffering Piers Morgan, to Ben Shephard: “It’s very, very, VERY nice to have you back.”

The (men’s) Island With Bear Grylls’ gripping crocodile capture and slaughter, albeit unwittingly further endangering an endangered species.

And Richard Madeley hosting The Wright Show: “I know a couple very well who gave a false address to a school they wanted their daughter to go to. They didn’t live anywhere near the area but the girl was accepted. They just lied about it. It wasn’t us, by the way. It was someone I know pretty well. It’s my friend.” Why, Mr Madeley, it appears you doth protest too much.

Spuduhates…

Alesha Dixon failing to get Britain’s Got Talent.

Newsnight’s ability to spell Sicilian fisherman “Comandante Lombardo Salvatore” but not “Citzens Advice”.

Ballot Monkeys’ painfully crowbarred same-day topical scenes. (The Thin of It.) EastEnders surpassing even its own misery threshold with two week-long funerals.

The Island’s women butchering pet piglets Sage and Onion. Tearful Chavala: “It makes everything real, everything raw.” (Not if you shove a stick up their bums, slather them in BBQ sauce and ensure they’re cooked through, it doesn’t.) And, on that happy culinary note, MasterChef narrator India Fisher on a Swedish restaurant that cooks only with fire: “This is primal, back-to-basics cookery. Tony’s dish is seared scallops with smoked apple, bleak roe caviar, dehydrated bacon and a roe and mussel sauce.” If that doesn’t scream “primal, back-to-basics cookery”, I don’t know what does.