It began with an unprecedented third-party surge, with Channel 4 opening its campaign for the couch-potato vote 55 minutes before the two established parties - BBC and ITV - even got into the game. There would be, the announcer promised, "very strong language and adult humour", not something that had ever been delivered by the traditional coverage, and it was rapidly clear that the Alternative Election Night really did have fresh policies to offer.

They had Lauren Laverne and Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell and they had an anchor, Jimmy Carr, with a novel approach to clarification: take their beginner's guide to proportional representation, for example. "The easiest way to explain it," said the comedian drily, "is to someone who's interested and already understands it".

With the satire muzzled by broadcasting restrictions until polls closed, they filled the time with a special edition of Come Dine With Me - three politicians and a pundit competing in a hellish unpopularity contest. Derek Hatton cooked scallops with asparagus for Edwina Currie, Brian Paddick and Rod Liddle and the viewers watched aghast.

"They might as well have called that If You Only Had One Bullet", said Carr, not the last time in which he deployed a candour which would have been welcome on other channels. I'm not sure that anybody with a choice in the matter would have turned over at 9.55pm - for the fiesta of vacuity which fills the gap until the first significant result arrives.