Is Bonekickers the worst show ever made? Of course it isn’t (that thing with Ben Elton and Alexa Chung from last year made a decent claim for that), but you’d think that the bile spewed by many, many readers of this site and others made it so. I’ve really never seen so much hatred reserved for one show… it really took me back. I took a fearful beating when I went to the press screening and reported back that it was good fun. I still stand by that claim - it was pretty dreadful, the dialogue was awful and the stories stupid, but it was fun and light and an easy (if sometimes infuriating) way to spend an hour. When people saw this first episode, many commenters to this site implied that I was an arse. So did so many people take the people to write in and have a go at the show?

The simple answer that question was because it was shite. Simple, really. Take last night’s series-ending episode. We had seen obvious storylines involving Boudica, Joan Of Arc and the Knights Templar throughout the series, and we knew that Gillian had this sword obsession (phnarr!) going on. So it Excalibur all the way last night, and even I thought it was pretty rubbish. I mean, the shot of Gillian rising from the lake with sword aloft really took the biscuit.

And this is why I think so many people felt short-changed. The history and the archaeology side of things remains really interesting. The fates of the real Arthur, Joan Of Arc and Boudica should have been dealt with far more care and at least some better dialogue. Some of the stories wrapped around these myths and truths were simply absurd. People tuning in at 9pm deserve some half-decent drama. Let’s not forget it came from the creators of Life On Mars, so people really were expecting some top stuff.

In fact, Bonekickers in its current state would have been great pitched as a family drama. I would have loved this if I was a teenager, and I think the BBC really missed a trick not scheduling it on a Saturday teatime.

In the end I agreed with both writers in The Independent and The Guardian – that even though it was mad it was curiously satisfying, and at least had the convictions of its madness. It was certainly far from perfect, but didn’t deserve the abuse it got.

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