Mistaken identity

'Is... that... your... identity?". Donny Osmond - yes, him of Puppy Love fame - points his finger as he slowly says the words, each one separated by Pinteresque pauses.

He's aiming this phrase in turn at each of the 12 people on display in front of him.

Deal Or No Deal has boxes and Golden Balls has, er, balls that contestants must eliminate in order to win big money. Actually, not so big money in the case of Identity as the BBC is only giving away a top prize of £10,000. The licence fee rise doesn't go very far.

This is peanuts compared to many TV quiz shows, but then this is teatime when budgets don't run to making people millionaires or sending them round the world.

Identity has potential but becomes tedious and repetitive when dragged out in a 45-minute slot.

The person playing the game must match jobs with the 12 strangers standing on the platform. The more they get right, the higher they climb up the money ladder.

Donny is there to move things along as well as utter the inevitable catchphrases, or at least the makers hope they'll catch on. "Let's play Identity," he says, getting the ball rolling.

Anne-Marie Banks is the player. She's a financial advisor. Called Banks. Ho-ho, chuckles Donny.

She's faced with a dirty dozen strangers - as the series calls them - who are accompanied by descriptions including nanny, hand model, ex-boy band member, young farmer and kiss-a-gram. There's also someone who was "awarded the MBE" which, as far as I know, doesn't count as a job.

There's usually an easy one to start with. The first edition had someone billed as a Sven impersonator, so it didn't take much to identify him.

The easy one for Anne-Marie was the Brookside character. And there standing in front of her was Sue Jenkins, whom fans of the late Scouse soap would recognise as Jackie Corkhill.

Anne-Marie pointed the finger, but Sue had a bit of fun by saying, "I was a long-running character in Coronation Street...".

Anne-Marie's face was a picture as she thought she'd got it wrong. She hadn't and continued her climb up the money ladder.

She can turn to others for a bit of help. There's a panel of experts - anthroplogist, professor of criminology and body language experts - she can consult over one of the strangers.

Three strangers are invited to volunteer a piece of information about themselves, so she knew the one who said: "I can't drive" wasn't the bus driver. At least, we all prayed he wasn't the bus driver.

The ex-boy band member proved a tricky one, but not the MBE recipient or that London bus driver. "She's got really long legs, she could reach those pedals," she notes about one of the women.

Donny's impressed. "You're very good at this game," he tells her, shortly before she picks a wrong 'un and slides down the money ladder like a lap dancer down a greasy pole.

Each of the strangers is expected to utter a little witticism when confronted. So the trainspotter says: "well spotted" and the window cleaner tells her: "sparkling performance".

And so we reach the end of Big Brother. Does anyone care? I've finally managed to keep the promise I made myself to avoid watching it. The few glimpses I've had while channel-hopping haven't produced anything to make me press the stop button.

The ratings have been steady rather than spectacular, but the show's inability to produce the water cooler moments, the incidents we all talk about afterwards, has meant this series has been so low key as to be almost non-existent.

After the controversy of this year's Celebrity Big Brother, C4 was obviously going to play it safe and avoid any more headline-grabbing incidents if possible. That seems to have resulted in opting for the soft, safe approach without risk of offending anyone.