Imagine you're a member of the commissioning board at ITV. You're trying to compete with top BBC shows like Sarah Jane Adventures, Merlin, and Doctor Who. So, what do you do? Do you gather together the best, brightest and freshest talent from the UK and brew up something wonderful, exciting and new?

Nope, you rehash the worst bits of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sky 1 crapathon Hex to make Demons, the new six part Saturday night fantasy series that's set to compete with the likes of prime time shows on the other channels.

Although, someone needs to look up the the word 'compete', as Demons is the most badly written, paced, and acted piece of nonsense to hit our TV screens in quite some time.

If you were fortunate enough to miss it, the premise of Demons is pretty weak. Luke, an average kid (who spends the first half of his episode shirtless - thus ITV shallowly try to tick the teen girl / gay boxes) finds out from his mysterious mentor Rupert Giles - I mean Galvin (Philip (Life on Mars) Glenister) that he is the son of legendary vampire hunter Van Helsing. Yawn.

What's My Line? It should be pointed out that Glenister's hokey American accent is so bad it literally deserves its own paragraph. So dire and unconvincing is this accent that it tears apart any semblance of credibility the show has every time he opens his mouth. Quite why the producers didn't shift him back to his normal gravelly tones after the first day of shooting is incredulous.

The story revolves around Luke discovering he has powers (heightened reflexes and strength) *cough Buffy*, and meeting some of most poorly acted vampire monsters that clearly came from Big Bads R Us. If the main characters weren't bad enough the secondary ones are truly terrible, with Luke's maybe girlfriend, Ruby, particularly grating on the nerves.

Overall, an abysmal start to a series that should never have been commissioned - at least not like this. Right now there are no redeeming features to this series. Richard (Gaius) Wilson from Merlin is in next week's episode, but I doubt even he will be able to brew a poultice strong enough to sweeten this show's pot.

The greatest battle this pile of fetid demon poop will have to face is abysmal ratings. In the same quarter as you have spellbinding TV like Dead Set, you've got the abysmal trying-to-appeal-to-every-audience mishmash of utter drivel as Demons.

Overall: 2/10. Avoid.