One-minute what?

I recently met some of the people involved in producing a new children's series for CBBC, One Minute Wonders. They were nice people, the idea sounded intriguing, and as a member of Save Kids' TV I'm very much aware of how few commissions there now are for new children's TV in the UK. So earlier this week I settled down to watch the first episode with husband Terry (aged 69), son Ben (aged 34) and grandson Morgan (aged 7). I sadly have to report that it was hugely disappointing. Terry left the room after 15 minutes, Morgan had fallen asleep a few minutes later, but Ben and I sat on, transfixed, unable to believe that it could go on being this bad.

I even re-watched it just now on i-player to check whether I had the same reactions second time around. I did.

The programme is framed in a grungy animated "laboratory" setting and presented by a one-eyed alien called Blink. David Schneider as the voice of Blink is shrill to the point of desperation, betraying the unmistakeable tones of an adult who hopes that a torrent of hyperbole will be enough to mask a condescending attitude to children. Allegedly Blink offers a chance to go on "a whirlwind trip to see all the amazing things that happen every 60 seconds on the Earth": in fact, what you get is a rag bag of mediocre archive clips, hopefully pumped up by expressions like "incredible" and "mindboggling" or, on the slightest pretext, a "funny" accent (this episode had Mummerset, American, Japanese, Spanish - twice - and German).

But the feebleness of the presentation pales into insignificance beside the fundamental incoherence of the whole programme. Nothing is actually shown as taking place in one minute: instead you simply get a series of lame factoids like Japanese people fall asleep in public a lot, tortoises stretch their necks out when annoyed, the world record for eating sprouts is 43. Nothing is motivated, much is illogical, and nothing is funny: an item about how fast your sister [sic] can skip on earth transmogrifies for some reason into how high she could skip on the moon; we're told that The Pen [sic] was invented in 1938 by a man called Biro; robots supposedly "cloning" themselves is illustrated by film of robots assembling themselves (not the same thing!). Even more inconsequential is the humming bird that we never hear humming, and the sudden appearance of a question about who's the highest-paid actress in the world. Full-frontal shots of all kinds of people picking their noses and eating their findings contrast oddly with a coy avoidance of the word "fart" when the effects of sprout-eating are mentioned. Am I missing something here? Is it all really rather witty and ironic? Judge for yourself at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/cbbc/episode/b00gwqf7/One_Minute_Wonders_Episode_1/ and let me know.