Trinity

Never a martyr to originality, ITV rolled out their latest spooky drama Trinity that is part Lost, part Codename Icarus and part any US college-set comedy-drama that goes straight to DVD, and then straight to the charity shop, and then straight to recycling when the DVD is taking up space that could be used for a DVD that has a better chance of selling, such as Bobby Davro's Rock With Laughter or Fred West Sings Sinatra.

The young characters in Trinity can be summed-up in a few words - Dorian (likes sex, preferably incest, but will settle for virgins; very arrogant); Charlotte (feisty Christian, easily corrupted); Rosalind (loves sex, hates love); Theo (poor but bright, likes sex); Angus (moron, stoned); Raj (stoned, moron). The last two are supposed to offer comic relief through their tripped-out dialogue and drug taking but are perhaps the most egregious screen presences since Scrappy Doo.

There's a temptation to write-off the first episode as an excruciating and clumsy introduction. The first reason is that the truly atrocious scene in which distressed virgin (her father died recently, as never tires of telling anyone) Charlotte (Antonia Bernath) is seduced by the predatory Dorian. After revelling in the joys of sex for the first time, Charlotte suddenly appears as though she's just read the Karma sutra in the 15 seconds it's taken for Dorian to get his end away and is lustful for more. That is until she spots the cross dangling from her neck, and is suddenly tormented by a religious guilt that swamps very pore of her soul prompting her to lambast Dorian for taking advantage of her (and in so doing causing Dorian's face to break out in an emotion that isn't arrogance or scorn for the first time in his life).

The second reason is that away from the debauchery, that is as calculating a sensual device to lure in the casual viewer as a half-naked woman is in a video by the offensively crap All-American Rejects, there is a sinister beguiling plot handled deftly by Charles Dance as the sharp, menacing Dr Edmund Maltravers, the Dean of Trinity, and Claire Skinner as the sympathetic Dr Angela Donne concerning some mysterious experiment or research being conducted at the university.

Of course, we don't know what it is yet, and are unlikely to ever know - as Trinity will probably be hacked to death by the ITV cost-cutting monster that lurks under the bed of every creative thought in independent television - but we can only hope that whatever the devious plan is that it involves the gradual elimination of every single student in Trinity - that by itself would win it a Bafta for Most Satisfying Drama Series.

TV Review: Trinity

Let's get one thing straight before we go any further. Trinity is a preposterous programme. However, any criticism you level at it will just wash off like rain off a duck feather. You see, this is a show that is completely aware of how bad it is. It's going for the So Bad It's Good angle.

There are lots of beautiful young people in Trinity hopping in and out of bed with each other. Meanwhile, a couple of idiot stoners huddle in a wheely bin as arrogant sloanes with posh floppy hair exercise an ancient privilege by peeing on them. We're at a collegiate university, it's very, very silly, Porterhouse Blue meets There's Something About Mary, that kind of thing. It's early days I know, but I think it looks quite promising.

I can't imagine that there will be a big demographic overlap with the potential audience for Trinity, ITV2's weird gothic thriller, set in a fictional Oxbridge-style college. The first time I looked at this the online screening system stuttered wildly, so that the soundtrack ran fluently beneath a series of still images of the characters gaping wildly. It was like a strange high-tech version of Deidre's Photo Casebook from The Sun, and it seemed appropriate really because all the dialogue here would be far more at home in a speech bubble. The story begins with the death of a vicar in a mist-swathed churchyard and then shifts to new term at Trinity, a traditional establishment just about to take its first intake of swotty oiks. The college's usual students - dandyish young toffs who are majoring in advanced hooliganism and applied debauchery - don't think much to this. There is boy tottie and girl tottie, a lot of sophomorically naughty sex, and a couple of comedy dopers who are about as funny as accidentally stubbing a joint out on your own kneecap. What there isn't is a shred of psychological continuity, so that at one moment a mousey Christian student is expressing shock at what one takes is her first sight of a naked man and at the next she's helping him to peel off her knickers. It wants to be so bad it's good, but sadly it's not quite bad enough to make it.

The writers of Trinity (ITV2) have got bare-faced cheek - and that's not a reference to leading lad Christian Cooke's penchant for wearing his boxers at half mast. What's obvious is that this toffs v peasants black comedy thriller pays a huge debt to Society, Brian Yuzna's 1989 horror classic where the rich literally feed on the poor. Society (the movie, the concept) is all about fitting in and that's the motor driving Trinity, a bizarrely enjoyable hybrid of Gossip Girl and Brideshead Revisited - with a dash of Dr Phibes - that's set in an imposing university where the elite have ruled the roost for centuries. Though they let the odd working-class oik in for a spot of amusement.

It's not the subtlest satire you'll ever see but, what with Charles Dance doing something murky in the lab, dark secrets swirling round the quadrangle and a young, lusty cast bouncing from mystery thriller scenes to parodies of American Pie at the drop of a pair of knickers, there's never a dull moment. My guess is that the incidental pleasures are likely to outweigh any burning interest in discovering the truth behind the shadow hanging over drippy heroine Charlotte's past but, with potty-mouthed posh totty Isabella Calthorpe having a ball rolling her tongue around the filthiest lines in the script, Trinity is shaping up as an unholy treat.

ITV2 is not interested in family audiences. It just wants the under-34s. Last night it aimed for them with a comedy drama that predicts or recalls the terror of your first term at university. The eponymous Oxbridge-style college in Trinity contains plenty to be scared of. It is run by a sinister snob played with lethal silkiness by Charles Dance who keeps a troll-like boffin called Linus working on a secret necromancy project. Scarier than them, however, are the students, hoorays whose eccentricities stretch from hooting at jokes in Latin to having sex with their cousins. In the opener's best scene, Trinity's version of the Bullingdon Club hold a Feast of Fools in which two gullible proles are volunteered to prance around the party in their underpants as court jesters under the impression that this is a good way to meet girls.

Into this madhouse arrive the pleb freshers Theo (Reggie Yates), who is not averse to finding a way into some posh knickers, Maddy (Elen Rhys), who is daffy and Welsh, and Charlotte (Antonia Bernath) who is a Christian but otherwise normal and whose father has just been killed. The characters are well drawn, the plot is ingenious, the sex is raunchy and the look is opulent. But Trinity has about half as many jokes as it needs. If ever a script needed punching up, it was this one.

It would help if Trinity knew what it wanted to be: teenage drama, Gothic murder mystery or a comedy about class. But the mix of genres does this eight-part series no favours. Yes, it looks sexy and stars Charles Dance, but the script is woeful and the concept desperately cliched. The setting is an exclusive university which prides itself on being for the rich and powerful. Until now, that is: at the behest of the new warden, Dr Angela Doone (Claire Skinner), Trinity has opened its doors to all classes and incomes. Among the new arrivals is Charlotte (Antonia Bernath), whose father was a don at Trinity but who died in mysterious circumstances related to the university's dark secret, one overseen by Dr Edmund Maltravers (Dance), the snobbish and devious dean.

Picture new students at an old university, some of them arrogant toffs dedicated to having a good time, others smart and hard-working but naive. Yes you've seen it all before, but never quite like this. Charles Dance and Claire Skinner at least bring some class to this cartoonish new comedy. The script is writing-by-numbers and the comedy - well let's be kind and call it broad. Somewhere there's a mystery bubbling away, but it's hard to imagine what else is going to be chucked into the pot. For some, this might be so bad it's good.

You may not be feeling too well-disposed towards ITV2 at the moment - after all, they were going to broadcast a show featuring LowCulture favourite Christian Cooke's bare buttocks months ago, but decided we'd probably like to look at Jordan staying classy again instead. But the first episode of Trinity finally airs tonight so you can breathe a sigh of relief (although chances are you've already seen the bottom in question in that preview clip on the internet.) Taking place at Trinity college, where until now only the rich and powerful were admitted (presumably they didn't get the memo about how that sort of thing's been illegal for years) commoners are now entering for the first time.

Frankly I've got no idea what to expect - the ITV promotional material features spooky flames, "all is not what it seems" and some stuff about mysterious secret societies. But then the Radio Times describes it as a cartoonish, knockabout comedy, so I guess you'll just have to watch and make up your own mind whether or not the comedy's intentional. But beware: The last time ITV tempted us with Mr Cooke's nipples the result was Demons, a show whose USP was basically "Buffy the Vampire Slayer ripped off by someone who's never actually seen it." So approach with caution.