CAN there be many people left in the UK who have not fulfilled their ambition to sing a power ballad on primetime TV while Simon Cowell makes a buck out of it?

His latest offering after The X Factor and Britain’s Got Nits (or something like that) was Walk the Line (STV, Sunday-Friday). It was a talent show, it was a game show, and it was a right guddle. Besides singing for their supper, the winning contestant each night had to decide whether to take a 10k prize, or come back and compete against new contestants. At the end of the six nights there was half a million to be won. A life-changing amount, but only one person could win. That’s showbiz.

The judges were Alesha Dixon, Dawn French, Craig David and Gary Barlow. Dixon seemed to have been given the Simon “cruel to be kind” Cowell brief, but her heart wasn’t in it. The best she could do was to like something, then like something else a little less. Dawn French was hipster mum, down with the kids (“I had all the feels” she said of one performance), with Gary Barlow was the been-there, done that, got the millions in the bank to prove it, father figure.

The different acts soon blended into one big power ballad soup, with the audience cheering any bid to hit the big notes. The “line” turned out to be a golden runway that each night’s winner walked as they headed into the next round. Maybe it was meant to suggest a catwalk to celebrity heaven. What it really bellowed was sausage factory conveyor belt.

Adding more steps to this week’s total was Walking with Jim Moir (BBC2, Friday), featuring the artist better known as Vic Reeves going for a moderately-paced hike along a section of the Kent coast. The self-operated camera, functioning like some high tech selfie-stick, lends each programme in this likeable series a slightly strange, off kilter air. This was even more the case as Moir goggled at the houses set some way back from the shore. “Suburbia by the sea,” he called it. If Patrick McGoohan had suddenly appeared, pursued by a large white blob, the viewer would not have been too surprised.

Moir was happy as a clam striding along the beach, closing his eyes at one point just for the thrill of it. Correction: make that happy as the guy driving the miniature steam locomotive on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, who claimed to have the best job in the world. Moir believed him, as did I.

Later, scarfing fish and chips and a pint at walk’s end, Moir’s gig did not look too shabby either. Two questions: is it a walk if you take a train for part of it; and how did Reeves and his comedy pal Bob Mortimer go from masters of bizarro comedy to wise old men of the countryside? All that surreal humour must take its toll.

I know what you are thinking. When oh when will the TV gods give that promising up and comer Jimmy Carr his own game show? No, we must not be sarky about the repentant tax avoider, not least because he does it so much better.

I Literally Just Told You (Channel 4, Thursday) was, said Carr, “The only game show in the world that gives the contestants the answers before we ask the questions.” So he joked in his intro that he had 26 vials of Botox injected into his head. First question: how many vials … etc. You get the idea. Basically, all the contestants had to do to win cash was be sober. The audience at home at 10pm on a Thursday might have had a harder time with the answers.

An hour of people struggling to remember things does not sound like much of a winner, but factor in Carr and it’s a different story. As seen on Blankety Blank, Carr has softened somewhat in recent years. Yet when one contestant on “Literally” said she was not sure who Prince Charles was, a glint could be seen in Carr’s eyes. A cat looks at a mouse like that. But he thought better of it, teased the contestant gently, an everyone was a winner. A whole hour, though?

Succession (Sky Atlantic, Monday, 9pm) reached its finale in the suitably operatic setting of Italy, and what a closing act it was.

This third series of Jesse Armstrong’s comedy drama has had its moments of brilliance, though at times it did seem like a drama in search of a place to go next. Armstrong has now addressed this, turning the story on its head so that it is no longer “the sibs” against each other. The stage is thus set for the mother and father of all showdowns. From Brian Cox’s wounded but resurgent lion to cousin Greg finding another buyer for his soul, Succession was easily one of the best shows of the year. Sneaky Tom, eh? No power ballads, either, unless you count Kendall’s doomed bid to sing Billy Joel’s Honesty. Nurse, my ears!