Six Degrees of Separation, BBC2 - TV review: The BBC's desperate attempt to make science "cool"

The show had a scoring system harder to fathom than the imaginary Bamboozled game show in Friends

Having already proved himself a competent musician, academic, presenter and author, it would seem that quiz show host was a career move too far for Prof Cox, host of science-based Six Degrees of Separation.

The premise was a novel one. A panel of scientific experts (mathematician Dr Hannah Fry, geneticist Prof Steve Jones, anatomist Prof Alice Roberts and theoretical physicist Prof Jim Al-Khalili), led by two celebrity captains (Ben Miller and Hugh Dennis), had to find the scientific connections between six unlikely objects. Last night, the teams were tasked with tracking the journey from analogue to digital via a record player, Galileo, a dung beetle, whipped cream and the inner Earth.

With forced jokes, a string of sickening introductions (every guest was prefixed by "the brilliant/fantastic/fabulous"), punchlines including "has this got something to do with viscosity, Brian?" and a scoring system harder to fathom than the imaginary Bamboozled game show in Friends, the BBC set about desperately trying to make science "cool".

If only the schedulers had talked to one another they might have realised they had just done that with Countdown to Life an hour earlier, and Six Degrees of Separation could have been left where it belongs – somewhere near the cutting-room floor.