Channel 10 gave me a Facebook moment last night.

And no it wasn’t Mike Goldman sending me, like, the 29th friend request this month – it was the return of Good News Week (Mondays, 9pm).

There it was, as familiar as the old friends from primary school Facebook helps you find, complete with the same old theme song, host, set, format and the newspaper clipping confetti toss.

Mikey Robins was even there, albeit having undergone a Kathy Najimy-like shrinking since we saw him when the show last aired way back in 2000.

GNW was reportedly given the phoenix-from-the-ashes treatment only because of the American writers strike. Ten execs panicked when their crystal ball showed up more holes than Swiss cheese in the 2008 programming schedule and quickly ducked round to Paul McDermott and Mikey’s house, shook them awake, ran them under a cold shower, told them to put on a shirt and tie and get to work.

Hmm, perhaps not the best way for a much-loved TV show to be born again. It conjures up images of paramedics slapping on the defib paddles in vain attempts at revival and shouting “Clear!”

Anyway, it certainly started shakily with so-so jokes from Paul – who looked not quite as sharp and somehow ... fuzzy?

He was saved by an audience who were reacting like they’d been supplied with liberal amounts of free booze – booze that would have been Chateau de Cask back when GNW was at the ABC, but here at Ten was probably more Jacobs Creek-y.

Panelists last night were split into two teams of three, as always, captained by Mikey and Claire Hooper, who’s replaced Julie McCrossin.

She was joined by Lano’s pal Frank Woodley and Chaser Craig Reucassel.

On Mikey’s team were the hilarious Cal Wilson and Pat Cash took out the What The? award for most bizarre guest choice.

He didn’t contribute much, but it was slightly more than Claire, who is shaping up to be my most annoying television personality for 2008.

She was obviously nervous, unfunny and completely unaware of comedy rule number one: timing (delivering one-liners when the audience was making the most noise, having reacted to the first actually funny line from another panelist; delivering one-liners too late – taking the joke too far (the wheels on the bus, Amy Winehouse) or delivering one-liners and then taking them back in a particularly cringe-worthy moment when referring to one of the Olsen twins caught in Mikey’s backside. Um, Claire, Mikey has lost, like, 100 kilos – he doesn’t have that big of an ass anymore!)

Craig, Frank, Cal and Mikey were sharp, switched on and the source of lots of laughs out loud. The games were great, the charades very clever and the mystery prop segment intriguing as always. This is more like it – the TV equivalent of a comfortable pair of old jeans.

But those jeans had just come off the line and were a little tighter than I remembered. Read: plenty to improve on.

Claire – shape up girl. You can be funny, I’ve seen your stand-up – just relax and listen to the audience and the other guests.

Directors – tighten up those cuts to clips. We need to go from Paul introducing a news clip STRAIGHT to that clip – we don’t need a shot of Mikey performing a pensive pregnant pause in between.

Directors and camera operators – inject more variety into your audience cutaways. We don’t need to see the same three people in the crowd every time.

Set designers – make more of your (huge) surroundings. More colour, why not try holding different segments in different sections of a seemingly huge space – there could be a Bad Street Theatre Dome or something. And, hello, where’s the band?

In short, de-slick it, but slick it up at the same time. Make the technical aspects more snappy, but rough up the atmosphere – make it seem more “live”. Need inspiration? See RockWiz.

A great start, but you can get better.

And, while I’m here – let me issue huge congratulations to Home and Away following last night’s big Milco reveal episode. All I could say through the tears was “Wow”.
- REBECCA MARSHALL