Mastermind has gone soft

Be afraid, be very afraid. The chair is back, the seat is so hot, it might as well be wired to the mains. Also back is the title music, that gladiatorial call to intellectual arms which is ripe with the promise that somebody is about to be put to the sword, get the thumbs down. This is not any old general-knowledge quiz, this is an inquisition conducted with the kind of demonic verve that a heretic-persecuting Spaniard of the old school would have relished.

The chair appears in the opening credits as some kind of S&M fetish, redolent with cruel possibilities and the feverish sweat of past despair. This is Mastermind (BBC2). While the chairs remains the same - and if it isn't exactly the same chair as in the old days, then it looks just like it - the quiz inquisitor is different.

In place of the deceptively amiable Magnus Magnusson, we now have the unmistakably combative John Humphrys. The serial tormentor of politicians introduced himself with a degree of grace and a top note of knowing charm.

Humphrys was at pains to point out that Mastermind is essentially the same as it ever was - the rules are those originally drafted, and there are no new gimmicks or vulgar cash prizes, just the chance to win a trophy that was described as "the ultimate accolade".

Then Humphrys broke free of the historical straitjacket to announce, "I'm not allowed to interrupt," which listeners to his morning performances on Radio 4's Today programme will know must be a tough task for this most garrulous of men. In the event, Humphrys managed to find a loophole in this particular clause in his contract: whenever the noisy car alarm sounded to indicate that the two minutes question time was up, it was itself rudely interrupted by the new host.

That familiar mantra - "I've started, so I'll finish" - achieved a new level of finality. Humphrys took to it as you would expect from the man whose unspoken motto on the Today programme is, "You've started, so I'll finish."

Just as I was beginning to settle back into a reverie that has survived a seven-year absence without the heart getting any less fond, everything turned to ashes when it was announced that one of contestants, a chap called Peter, if you please, had chosen as his specialist subject The Smiths.

I yield to almost everyone in my admiration of The Smiths, but this is not the point. Mastermind requires something tougher in the way of mental gristle than this winsome and foppish quartet who were allegedly possessed of much wit and self-deprecating humour but still sound like a wet street in the middle of nowhere.

Humphrys, I thought, shared my opinion as he spat out a list of ever more preposterous song titles. Heaven knows, I was miserable after two minutes of that fluff.

Fortunately, Matthew, who followed Peter, had chosen the Roman Empire as his specialist subject, and this restored my faith in the integrity of the proceedings, particularly as it's fun to shout out "Caesar!" at the end of every question and know that you have a one-in-five chance of being right.