Sport on TV: The 45 minutes squandered would have been better spent drilling a hole in my skull

AN open letter to my neighbours: it was me last Monday night, barking those murderous obscenities while I trashed my living room and threw the telly out of the window. I apologise, and promise it won't happen again. You can be sure of that, because I won't be watching On Side any more.

You'd think the people responsible (producer Paul Davies, editor Philip Bernie - why shouldn't they be called to account?) might have learnt one or two lessons from the first series a few months ago. But nothing has changed: still too many guests, and still with John Inverdale, the thinking person's Terry Christian, on hand to ensure that questions of any consequence are avoided at all costs.

When you think who the BBC could have press-ganged into lending an air of gravitas, however bogus, it makes you want to sue them for causing emotional distress and mishandling our licence money. Des Lynam, Barry Davies... John Inverdale. It reminds me of a poster I saw a couple of years ago for the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park:

SHAKESPEARE'S

COMEDY OF ERRORS

THE TEMPEST

PAINT YOUR WAGON

The opening set-piece established the benchmark for fatuousness. They had each of the studio guests, Ilie Nastase, Ashia Hansen and Paul Merson, standing at a swanky bar staring glumly into his or her drink. What was the intention here? Set-ups like this usually have some relevance to the people involved. The only possible connection I could think of is that one of them is a recovering alcoholic - which was surely not what the makers had in mind. What was also strange was the fact that Nastase and Hansen were drinking orange juice, while Merson, the reformed boozer, had water. Why? Was some kind of significance intended? And why were they told to remain motionless as if paralysed by existential dread? Somebody's idea of adding a spurious resonance to an otherwise catastro- phically flimsy show?

First up was Nastase, who was asked virtually nothing of any interest whatsoever. There were a couple of sentences about his aspiring political career in Romania - "if I'd known before what was going on I wouldn't have got into it" - while when asked about sport in post-cold war eastern Europe, he replied, "It's going to die."

They were joined on satellite link by Joe Frazier in Philadelphia, on the anniversary of his victory over Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden. Inverdale kicked off with one of those classic quantification questions so beloved of sports interviewers: "How proud are you to have taken part in that fight?" How do you answer that? "Oh, about 4.3 International Pride Units"?

To be fair to Inverdale (if I must), that sort of nonsense is hardly his preserve, but he does have his own special brand of gaucheness. "Can you tell us about your left arm, which is all crooked?" is the kind of question arch piss-taker Chris Morris might have asked on Brass Eye, that fabulous news magazine parody from a couple of years ago. It wasn't all bad. There was some nice banter - when Frazier asked Nastase if he could give him some tennis lessons, he replied, "I will if you come to Romania and beat up all the politicians." But the human brain can only take so much fluffiness and cosiness before it explodes. That's my theory, anyway.

There was more of it in Gary Richardson's interview with Marvin Hagler in Rome. Though it was interesting to see what Marvelous Marvin is up to, establishing a career as a bad guy in Italian action flicks, the mateyness was splattered all over the screen. The Americans talk about "the hairball factor" (think Friends), and it's perfectly suited to a programme that seems determined to honour the spirit of the sillier bits of Sports Review of the Year.

Hansen and Merson fared no better, Inverdale spending 3min 39sec and 5min 56sec respectively on them. There was more Chris Morris to savour: "There is still something comic about the hop, step and jump", for example. No. No there isn't. His opening gambit with Merson was also a gem, as he inquired what the Middlesbrough player would do should the First Division Championship trophy be passed round the dressing-room full of champagne. I was embarrassed for Merson, whose honest, serious approach was horribly offset by the bantering tone. Inverdale wrapped up the interview by telling him, "In the words of the song, you were knocked down and got back up again," a crass and clumsy reference to Chumbawumba's No 1 drinking song. Nice touch, that, when you're interviewing an alcoholic.

He just meant it as a bit of fun, I guess. Maybe it's just me, maybe I've turned into a sour old git, but I want more. I want to be made to think, I want to be surprised. I don't want to feel that the 45 minutes squandered on watching On Side would have been better spent drilling a hole in my skull and sucking my brains out. Anybody who required even a minimal sense of having their horizons expanded would have ended up last Monday like me, screaming at the screen.