Friday's best TV: Put them on the telly, it’s just too easy to turn sensible adults into complete idiots

When it was commissioned, The Button was hailed as “a funny, frantic, competitive romp and a great snapshot of family life across the UK.”

Perhaps it’s too early to judge, but on the evidence of the first show it doesn’t seem to be any of those things, though it does aspire to a kind of willed freneticism, in which contestants acting against the clock and obeying the orders of a TV dictator rouse themselves into facsimiles of people who actually give a fig.

The Button is a format in search of a purpose. It is derived from Taskmaster, a game in which Greg Davies and Alex Horne encourage comedians to do stupid things, but in adapting it for a family audience the creators have arrived at a hybrid which has misplaced the wit of the comedians and the urgency of the hosts. Instead, it has Members of the Public, in their own homes, on their leatherette sofas, being urged to perform mindless tasks by a plastic television with a glowing knob on top of it. The ironies are obvious to the point of being unremarkable.

In short, The Button is what was regurgitated after Gogglebox ate Big Brother (though it lacks the humanity of the former, and the voyeuristic cruelty of the latter). In a show about being ordinary on the telly, it’s an almost obscene relief when someone utters a familiar phrase, beyond the realms of “Oh my God!”, or “oh me drawers!” A prize for the gentleman who announced he was “plum-tuckered”. That’s what it feels like, watching them, watching each other wilting into oblivion.

It’s not the fault of the MOTPs in this game of skill, determination and hairball intellect. They do their best with the material they are given. When they are asked to bounce a ping-pong ball into a cup, one of them asks, not unreasonably, “What counts as a cup? A mug?” When the command is to build a self-supporting tower taller than the tallest person in the house, “using only books, cans and pillows,” another can be heard complaining: “I don’t have any books.” When the plastic Redcoat in the corner of the room (“the voice of the machine” is Alex Horne) challenges them to collect forks on a plate, another contestant tries to will the programme to life, saying: “You’ve got to think outside the box.” Someone should, and soon.

Also convulsing on its own knowingness is Episodes, the award-winning transatlantic television comedy about transatlantic television comedy. The central mystery of Episodes concerns the comic timing of Matt LeBlanc, who (as Joey in Cheers) was a very good idiot. Essentially, he is still playing the same imbecile here, and it’s the job of English writers Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly (Tamsin Greig) to find another role for this rich sitcom twit. It’s pretty much “you say tomato”, with the absence of hilarity hovering like a bad smell between the competing styles of comic acting: the hysterical barminess of the Americans vs the uptight bafflement of the Brits. He says vest, they say waistcoat, and cue: mirthless laughter. Here they are, in LeBlanc’s automobile, with the two men discussing breasts. “I’m trapped in a car with two boobs, talking about tits,” says Greig. Top gear, that.

@AHMcKay

Pick of the day

The Simpsons - Sky One, 8pm

In this clown terror episode, Principal Skinner informs Groundskeeper Willie of his plans to retire.

Bart decides to mark the occasion by supergluing Krusty the Clown masks onto the faces of the school staff, prompting an outbreak of clown terror across Springfield.

Such is the atmosphere of panic, loathing and coulrophobia, that Krusty abandons his own mask and is persuaded by Lisa to become a serious actor.

Looking a lot like Homer, he gets a part in The Salesman’s Bad Day, a regional theatre production written (with no apologies to Arthur Miller) by the cantankerous Llewellyn Sinclair (who previously acted as musical director on Oh, Streetcar!). Sadly for Krusty, his attempts at serious acting are disrupted by the persistent clown voice inside his head.

Bart, meanwhile, is sent to rehab to cure him of his constant need to carry out pranks.

Comedian Andy Daly guests as Judge Dowd, who is told by Bart: “I’ve done it all. Juvie, state juvie, groovy juvie, the Montessori prison, outward and inward bound, so you’re down to fry me or free me.”

Screen time

Kodachrome - Netflix

The premise of Mark Raso’s film — streaming from today — is based in fact. In 2010, when Kodak stopped making the chemicals for the processing of Kodachrome film, photographers trekked to Kansas, to visit the last lab in the world which could handle the format.

The film adds a troubled relationship between an ill father (Ed Harris) — a famous photographer — and an estranged son (Jason Sudeikis).

It’s a creaky set-up, but the acting brings it to life, particularly from Harris who brings a weary dignity to the role. It’s no surprise when they decide to take the scenic route, but this analogue road movie has its charms. Elizabeth Olsen is along for the ride as the sick dad’s caretaker.

What to Watch/Capital Conversation - Sunday, London Live, from 5pm

London is the divorce capital of the world and soon to be contributing to those numbers are Nicola Walker, Stephen Mangan and the cast of The Split — who discuss their divisive on-screen family affairs. Then, in Capital Conversation, host Michael Hayman meets Dr Pippa Malmgren, founder of British manufacturing firm H Robotics.

Death to Smoochy - Saturday, London Live, 10pm

Nothing at work rankles as much as losing your job to a rhinoceros. That very indignity befalls Randolph Smiley, used to indignity as a children’s entertainer, but whose ego is savaged by the loss of his TV show and the hiring of Smoochy the Rhino to replace him. Smiley might not be a big game hunter, but this is a rhino he wants to hunt to extinction. Truly, never work in children’s TV or with fake animals.

Robin Williams lends his mania to Smiley in this black comedy which lays into celebrity culture, entertainment, and organized crime, with Edward Norton as the guileless sap inside Smoochy quite unware he has no business in showbusiness.

Catherine Keener and Danny DeVito also make an appearance.

Catch up

Stephen: The Murder That Changed a Nation - BBC iPlayer

Shown over three nights this week, this exhaustive documentary captured both the resilience of the parents of Stephen Lawrence, below, Doreen and Neville, and the background of institutional racism which hampered the investigation into his murder in 1993. It’s not easy viewing. “These idiots who had murdered my son had more rights than we did,” Baroness Lawrence says, with lingering sadness.

Now playing

Mercury 13 - Netflix

In the early Sixties Nasa researcher Dr William Randolph Lovelace picked 15 women who had the potential to become astronauts. This documentary tells the story of the 13 who passed tests including sensory deprivation, X-ray exposure and enemas, but whose ambitions were thwarted when Nasa shut down the programme.