Britain’s Got Talent (ITV1, Tuesday, 1 June, 7.30pm) trundles on like That’s Life on growth hormone injections, with Esther Rantzen replaced with the Mount Rushmore of grinning idiocy – Cowell, Holden and Morgan. We all know the format and, sadly, we now know that the punchline isn’t anything like satisfactory.

Last night, the semi-finals of the show were transmitted. Now, semi-finals are usually very tense affairs with a lot of fraught sweating accompanying feverish performances, leaving everyone involved a mixture of the worry of an outed politician and the turbulent giddiness of Little Richard in his underpants.

Alas, not so with this show.

On some subconscious level, everyone knows that the end result of this show is a job. Not fame and fortune like the winner of The X Factor may get, but rather, the promise of regular work. We recognise Diversity (who won the last one), but only in the same way you recognise that guy from the shop near your house. They’re the entertainment equivalent of Kettle Chips – initially quite exciting, but at the end of the bag, they were just crisps.

Naturally, this doesn’t stop the assembled team thrilling and cooing over every aspect and pivot. Ant and Dec are still on hand, designed to look at bit lost as they’ve no-one to interview… no weirdos with more eyes than teeth to chat up in the auditions. Instead, they have to say “did you enjoy that?” over and over whilst being stared at by the increasingly frightening Amanda Holden, who is now doing a really superb impression of a pillow with a thick vein running through it.

So what happened last night? Well, we once more saw the sexual tension of the Woman and Her Dancing Dog act, the ubiquitous dancing troupes… one of whom reminded me of The Pussycat Dolls only without the singing (you can decide whether that’s a good thing or not), some singing pre-natals, Dom Joly sat a piano and Nile Rogers from Chic dancing like Michael Jackson to Michael Jackson records with an elderly Rick James.

Baffling.

Obviously, its the easiest thing in the world to kick a show like this. However, this isn’t just an exercise in prodding a Cowell show… Britain’s Got Talent lacks something that the glorious trash that is The X Factor has.

Real fame and thrill (as well as mind-melting bafflery) lies in the weird TV groove of X Factor, with the show hovering tantalisingly over pre-teens open piggy banks, waiting to collide headlong in one long sickening, but fascinating union. Britain’s Got Talent is a road that leads to that most boring of spectacles that is The Royal Variety Performance.

There’s no threat of glamour, no promise of drug induced breakdowns in the pop world and nor is there any remote chance that we’re going to hear about the winner falling out of the bedroom window of a Premiership footballer with a colon full of expensive truffles. Nope. This show leads to a blueblood rattling the bones in their wrist as they politely clap at a prole.

As such, Britain’s Got Talent is very old fashioned with modern sheen. Like finding a forty year old cake and smearing it in fondant icing in the hope you can pass it off as a thoughtful gift. Alas, no gift is ever that thoughtful when it went off years ago and is handed over by the dead-eyed Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden.