A QUICK check in now on the state of Saturday night TV, 2016.

Unless my eyes deceive me, there’s a fully grown man, a police officer in real life, pouring a watering can over his head, convinced he’s the Wicked Witch of the West and moaning: “I’m melting! I’m melting!”

Another bloke is rearranging floral letters to spell naughty childish words like 'poo'.

And a law student is rubbing his nose on the other contestants because he thinks he’s a bumblebee collecting pollen for the queen, Phillip Schofield, who’s in his socks asking: “Where the hell are my shoes?”

They’ve been removed and hidden by the Wicked Witch believing them to be Dorothy’s ruby slippers. Obviously.

We’re in the strange, strange world of ITV hypnosis game show You’re Back In The Room, returning inexplicably for a second series.

It’s like the worst excesses of Spanish TV.

The drill’s the same. Hypnotist Keith Barry places five contestants in a “waking trance” having “rebooted their brains”, having selected them from “susceptibility tests” of which Schofe asked: “What were you looking for?”

Five attention-seeking goofballs who’ll do anything to be on TV, on the evidence of the series curtain-raiser, Phillip.

Therein lies the show’s inescapable flaw.

So keen are these people to do Keith’s bidding that it’s impossible to tell whether they’re truly under his spell or just play-acting.

Hypnosis is a real phenomenon, obviously, but stage-hypnosis has long blurred the lines because it demands entertainment on tap, and therefore potential exaggeration at best and fabrication at worst.

And if you can’t trust what you’re seeing, it takes a real leap of faith to actually enjoy it.

There is, after all, plenty to be dubious about here.

Contestant Tyler appeared to be giggling while in a deep sleep.

She then managed to wait conveniently until Schofe had finished asking a question in the quiz round, as she rode “the world’s tallest rollercoaster”, before doing her best Meg Ryan impression from When Harry Met Sally: “Yes!.. YES!.. YES!!!”

The quintet also often exceeded what Keith instructed them to do, like Scott who was told to say: “ET phone home,” every time he put cash balls in the prize trough but instead started saying it before the jackpot round had even started.

And Lorraine who not only continued showing her midriff, where she believed she’d written the answer to a question, to Scott long after he’d got it right but, in the final game, rather than only obeying the command to translate Schofe to the audience in her “alien language”, jabbered and trilled away while he wasn’t actually talking.

You’re ultimately left with more questions than answers, and You’re Back In The Room is far from forthcoming on that front.

There’s no explanation, for example, during the backstage playback with friends and family, why everyone can remember exactly how they’d felt compelled to act the way they did.

Or why Graham, as Darth Vader, kept accepting Phillip “Luke Skywalker” Schofield surrendering during a lightsaber battle, instead of taking him to the Emperor and turning him to the dark side of the Force.

Instead there’s the memory of Tyler retching at the Loose Women’s apparent dreadful body odour: “It stinks!”

The whole thing does.

Spudulikes…

Happy Valley’s mesmerising finale.

BBC2’s Stag climax.

This Morning’s “woman addicted to eating her armchair”.

EastEnders’ Jack Branning quoting Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet memorised “from a tea towel” to Ronnie: “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep.”

Tim “The Punaway Train” Vine and Darryl “The Dazzler” Fitton edging an 8-7 thriller in the Let’s Play Darts For Sport Relief final. Plus the MC announcing: “Tim, you require 93.” Tony Green: “Treble 19… (seven). So treble 18… (treble four). No, can’t finish now. So treble 14… (11).”

And Wednesday’s Budget, in which George Osborne heaped financial misery on millions. But on the plus side it shunted Loose Women. A price worth paying.

Spuduhates…

Famous, Rich and Homeless waste of space Willie Thorne finding an excuse to stay in another hotel and rough-sleeper buddy Per concluding: “He’s a big baby. You have to look after him 24 hours a day.”

The One Show’s Matt Baker and Alex Jones highlighting the BBC Breakfast “sexism” row cobblers by unsettlingly sitting the wrong way round.

The Voice’s Paloma Faith putting transgender Jordan, who, remember, no one turned for at the blind auditions, unfairly through to the live shows.

And Rylan announcing on This Morning’s showbiz news that Mariah Carey is getting her own reality show — four days after Ferne McCann announced on This Morning’s showbiz news that Mariah Carey is getting her own reality show. Well done everyone.