PICTURE the scene. The brainstorming session to celebrate ITV’s 60th birthday.

Some network bigwig: “We should do a live episode of the nation’s favourite soap.”

“Hey, great idea. The plot must be epic, though. Any ideas?”

“Let’s get a panto baddie to terrorise the largely unlikeable, dysfunctional Platts no one cares about and then get bumped off, like Dr Black in Cluedo, by Kylie, with the spanner, in the lounge.”

“Yeah, that’ll do.”

So came Corrie Live, a technical triumph, minus a brief sound problem in the kebab shop, that didn’t, disappointingly, produce a “How’s Adam?” fluffed line or much else going for it beyond Roy and Carla and Roy and Cathy.

Those heart-pumping trailers, with Callum chasing the Platts to a precipice on the cobbles, were a cheque ITV simply couldn’t cash.

Hopes of an hour-long siege disintegrated when the villain was whacked over the head before you could say “Meerkat promo”.

It was a recipe for overacting, by the younger cast members, and as subtle as Tony the builder’s glaringly obvious set-up, out of left-field, telling Gail a week last Monday he’d found a manhole in her garage that needed filling and covering up.

Only just failing to add: “With dead Callum inside it (wink-wink).”

Even David, staring at the manhole cover on Wednesday, told Kylie: “It’s the obvious thing.”

The pair had been cornered into dumping him there, of course, after Tony and Todd drove off in the drug-dealer’s car just as the Platts were about to load the body into the boot.

You could almost hear the comedy trombone sound effect.

Yet the episode saw fit to award itself applause and helium balloons at the end.

In truth it was a forgettable affair with a breathing corpse, wobbly camerawork, Roy’s accent dropping in and out of Weatherfield, the health and safety crew’s audible warning klaxon before Callum’s car blew up and Bethany, blundering into the murder scene, somehow failing to spot the remaining blood on the floor that Sarah hadn’t mopped up.

Corrie’s problems, however, run much deeper and go back far longer than recent events like Jason constantly holding his ribs and groaning, like a battered WWE wrestler, in case we’d forgotten he’d been beaten to a pulp, or Callum’s thugs trashing the Platt’s house while having the good manners not to smash the wall pictures but put them slightly askew.

It has forgotten its strength is simple human tales and northern humour.

The moment the rot set in for me was when outgoing showrunner Stuart Blackburn gave a depression story to the show’s biggest comedy character, Steve McDonald.

It sucked the joy out of this once great soap.

This fact was exacerbated by a string of unwelcome and ridiculous ideas such as the “not Gavin” nonsense, Simon becoming a mum-basher and the notion that Sarah Harding can act.

Truth be told, Stephen Mulhern’s behind-the-scenes post-mortem Corrie Live: Uncovered, on ITV2, was more entertaining than the actual episode

The latter has left us stuck with the shadow of Callum “for years to come”, according to Blackburn.

That’s as foolish as anchoring ITV’s 60th birthday on a character succinctly summed up by Nick Tilsley on Monday.

“He’s a backstreet drug dealer. Not Tony Soprano.”

Yeah, that’ll do.

Spudulikes…

Japan’s heroics against South Africa igniting the Rugby World Cup.

Celeb BB’s Janice Dickinson making up with Austin: “It’s water under a duck’s back’s bridge.”

The Chase: “Which actress won her fourth Oscar 48 years after her first?” Contestant: “Samuel L Jackson.”

X Factor finally springing to life with complete berk Ryan Ruckledge getting smashed at the Bootcamp bar, throwing a diva strop and going out in a blaze of glory to Simon Cowell’s words: “What a horror of a human being.”

And the Osmonds testing high street leaf-blowers on This Morning (for the record, Little Jimmy Osmond’s £34.99 Argos model came out top). Unless, that is, someone spiked my tea and I was hallucinating. Which is more plausible than the Osmonds testing leaf-blowers for ITV.

Spuduhates…

Downton Abbey becoming merely an overhyped, glorified soap.

ITV exorcism drama and bona fide turkey Midwinter of the Spirit.

A public marriage proposal, via the Rovers’ bar blackboard, worming its way into Corrie Live.

Ice cream man Andy Taylor failing to sing 99 Problems on X Factor.

James Hill summing up 29 days of mind-numbing Celeb Big Brother rows over “coat hangers and boiled eggs — what’s it chuffin’ matter?”

And C5 refusing to air the only moment ever worth watching on Celeb BB’s Bit On The Side — the glass-hurling fight between Farrah Abraham and Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace which hospitalised ’Allo ’Allo waitress Vicki Michelle in the crossfire. And no, I don’t expect to write those words again either.