HOW would us humble viewers have coped last Saturday night without help from judge Suzi Digby (pictured) to guide us through the final of BBC1's Last Choir Standing?

"I have one thing to say to the people at home – don't just trust your eyes, use your ears."

Listening? To a singing contest? Phew. Without that vital piece of advice, I would have been sittingon my sofa, fingers firmly in my ears, singing "La-la-la" at the top of my voice.

It was the climax of the "biggest choral battle ever", if you believe presenter Myleene Klass, and went off with more of a whimper than a somewhat harmonic bang.

The three finalists kicked off proceedings with Elton John's I'm Still Standing (see what they did there?), gamely accompanied by co-host Nick Knowles' impression of a Year 12 geography teacher on the dance floor at a school disco.

Then the BBC, in its scandalous, money-grabbing wisdom, opened the phone lines for voting before the choirs had even warmed up their vocal chords (call charges from other networks may vary, we were helpfully informed).

Along the way we had The X Factor-borrowed emotional journeys back home and Digby and fellow judge Russell Watson announcing: "That's the best performance of the series, the competition starts here," after every flaming song.

And finally Watson took to the stage sounding like a poor man's Van Morrison to Stevie Wonder's Heaven Help Us All. My sentiments exactly. The final did have its moments – Klass hitting Revelation singer Crystal in the eye with her mic, the best choir, Only Men Aloud, actually winning, and Watson, on giving a standing ovation, declaring: "You got a Watson 'stander', it doesn't happen very often." On live TV too, how embarrassing.

But Last Choir Standing was just summer schedule padding for the main event, Strictly Come Dancing, which starts again with a preview show next Saturday.

TV's equivalent to a pot noodle – it feels so wrong and yet it feels so right.