The good news for fans of mainstream ITV is that after its feeble first episode, Houdini And Doyle has switched to ITV Encore for the rest of the series. Where it will wither and die.

A kind of Edwardian X Files without the budget, this disappointing drivel is based on the unlikely friendship between great escape artist Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Yes, the dynamic duo were genuine chums. But did they team up to solve crimes with a pioneering police woman in a Mary Poppins-style uniform? Only in this brainless programme.

Nothing wrong with a bit of light-hearted fantasy. But this far-fetched nonsense is heavy going. Too dim-witted to be fun.

How strange to depict the genius who wrote the greatest detective books in literary history as a credulous fool who gets everything wrong.

Playing dozy Doyle, Steven Mangan does his best but fights a losing battle against a banal script. Meanwhile, Houdini (Michael Weston) is the sceptical American who relies on weird science to cleverly solve all the mysteries.

By an extraordinary coincidence, America’s Fox network has bought the show. Just fancy that.

The opening salvo’s puny plot about murderous misdeeds at a nunnery was thin to the point of anorexic. The sightings of spooky apparitions were put down to eye-fluid vibrations caused by the thundering trains at newly opened London station. Really.

Call that a logical explanation? By then I’d given up the ghost.

Silly stories in a theme park version of old London town might just work in the States. But over here, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman do it so much better.