Tycoon ITV1, 9pm Dara O'Briain's Tough Gig ITV1, 10pm HAVING shaken the dust of Dragons' Den from his shiny black Grensons, Peter Jones retains his principal day-time gig as the man from Pig (that's Phones International Group to you, buster, and don't forget it). But by Thatcher's beard, it's on TV that Peter is still at his most vital and thrusting in a now-a-go-go capitalist fashion.

Tycoon ITV1, 9pm
Dara O'Briain's Tough Gig ITV1, 10pm

HAVING shaken the dust of Dragons' Den from his shiny black Grensons, Peter Jones retains his principal day-time gig as the man from Pig (that's Phones International Group to you, buster, and don't forget it). But by Thatcher's beard, it's on TV that Peter is still at his most vital and thrusting in a now-a-go-go capitalist fashion.

Stateside, Peter is a judge on American Inventor, the reality contest he co-created and co-produces. The show survived into its current season despite its first series being enthusiastically panned by most US television pundits. "A bloated disappointment that spends more time on the judges than the inventors and their inventions," jeered one critic. "An appalling amalgam of humiliating ridicule, primitive humour and heartbreaking pathos," averred another. "Unspeakably awful," pronounced a third, "not just a travesty of the type of television that American Idol so dramatically popularised, but an unintentional parody of it as well."

Sadly, Tycoon isn't anywhere near as memorably slag-worthy. It's just a pallid photocopy of The Apprentice - with the added problem of Peter Jones.

Peter's slimmer and more toned than he was on Dragons' Den, as well as a good deal blonder, but essentially he's too bloodless to carry a show. He criticises his aspirant entrepreneurs bluntly but not grippingly, and waxes wooden when reading from the autocue.

The fellow so lacks colour, dears, he can drain the life out of a combo of blue pinstripe suit, pink stripy tie and brown striped socks. So the only thing that's going to make Tycoon work over the next six seeks is its cast of wannabes.

Four of them seem quite nice, which is no bally use. The other pair might just prove consistently foul enough, however, to compel folk to keep watching, willing their downfall. One's a blonde glamour model called Lauren, who was evidently cloned from DNA scoured out of old cosmetics containers discarded by Paris Hilton and Victoria Beckham. Lauren's air-headed mission statement consisted of the phrase: "It's really important for me to succeed because I hate failure." Duh!

That leaves the emotionally needy woman I suspect Britain will wind up loving to hate this summer. She confidently introduced herself as "Elizabeth Make Things Happen' Hackford", but then burst into tears part-way through giving Peter her spiel - the desperately sad claim that "I could move mountains".

Elizabeth subsequently recovered to annoy us again with this bit of modest self-analysis: "I think sometimes people might think I'm a little bit arrogant, but that's probably because of their own insecurity." Elizabeth "Make That Awful Woman Go Away" Hackford: not so much a tycoon, more a buffoon.

Dara O'Briain was back for another Tough Gig, the series which aims to "take comedians out of their comfort zone" - otherwise known as the dizzying void that is everyday 21st-century reality.

Dara was thus plonked among fantasy role-players in a sun-dappled glade near Canterbury for a week, and tasked with devising a stand-up gig from and about the group's lifestyle. This process was limply revelatory.

I was hitherto unaware, for instance, that most fantasy role-players are, in day-to-day reality, medical lab assistants or car windscreen fitters. This you'd never guess if you saw them playing out their fantasy roles by wearing fishnet gloves, painting their skin green (or red) and gluing cut-up cereal packets to their heads.

Hearing them speak fantasy-ese - part Star Trek, part Spartacus - is a different matter. "Many a moon has a-risen since I've been looking for my people," as one awkwardly stated.

As Dara might have put it, conversing with his audience in their own lingo: "Hide in shadow, ya thickos, hide in shadow."