MISSING: one TV presenter. Bushy facial features. Answers to the name Rufus Hound.

If found, please return to BBC2 teatime drivel Too Much TV, where he was last seen 16 days ago voicing a homemade sock puppet as Sara Cox delivered some home truths: “Just as things were going so well for your career, this is what you’re doing.”

At which point Hound, on a hosting rota with Cox, Aled Jones and the Autocue-challenged Emma Bunton, realised he was committing professional suicide and vanished from our screens.

A lucky escape.

Done well, shows about television can be classics (TV Burp and Clive James on TV).

Done badly, without a critical eye, they’ll have a whooping studio crew and a relentlessly positive agenda that places “that’ll do” mediocrity, like Further Tales From Northumberland, on the same podium as BBC1’s fantastic The Night Manager.

And they think viewers will thank them for it.

They won’t, of course. They’ll switch off in droves.

Not that this great audience desertion has dissuaded TMTV (which it began calling itself affectionately on day two) from recommending absolute dross in its “What are we watching tonight?” slot.

Britain’s Horror Homes, It’s Not Rocket Science, Shop Well For Less, C5’s Trauma Doctors, Troubled Teens: Jail Shock on CBS Reality and “people spending too much money on swimming pools” on Animal Planet’s Insane Pools: Off The Deep End.

It’s like reading the Emmys shortlist, isn’t it?

And guess which new series Cox was previewing here: “When I saw the trailer I got goosebumps. It looks great.”

Game of Thrones? House of Cards?

No cigar. Davina McCall: Life at the Extreme, a show that TMTV itself boiled down to clips of the host gasping: “Oh my God, it’s a giraffe/cheetah/polar bear cubs.”

But any talk of a programme actually worth discussing, Happy Valley’s terrific finale, was banned by Cox because: “I was on a train, I’ve taped it, I don’t want to know.”

The only dissenting voices are viewers invited to “vent your fury with what’s on the telly” down the phone.

The “fury”, though, included Jenny from Norfolk: “The (You’re Back In The Room) hypnotist Keith Barry is rather dishy. I wouldn’t mind him knocking on my door and trying to hypnotise me. He can do it tomorrow if he likes.”

Please, Jenny, calm your fury.

Then there was this actual dialogue. Aled Jones: “There are some great shows on tonight that everyone is talking about.”

Cox: “On ITV at 8.30pm is The Cruise.”

I tell you, you can’t get to those water-coolers for the throng of people talking about The Cruise.

But the true measure of just how diabolical is TMTV is that it has desperately missed Rufus Hound, the only mildly subversive element.

Though thinking about it, he may not be the only one after all.

Just two days after Hound’s third and final appearance, Bunton said of BBC2’s forthcoming The Hollow Crown: “If you’re going to watch any kind of Shakespeare, this is the one to watch.”

No, on second thoughts, I’m sure it wasn’t a barbed comment at Rufus Hound, and that his current place of work is just a coincidence.

On stage at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Spudulikes…

DANIEL Mays in Line of Duty’s cracking opener.

Gordon Buchanan’s Tribes, Predators and Me.

The Night Manager’s spectacular nighttime desert weapons demo.

Paddy McGuinness’s uppercut connecting with Harry Judd’s kisser in Sport Relief’s wrestling.

Rock ’n’ roll Shaun Ryder answering daughter Pearl’s Big Star’s Little Star question: “Which of these would be Daddy’s favourite day out?” with: “Peppa Pig World. It’s really good.”

And BBC2’s funny, beautiful and uplifting Employable Me, with Tourette’s sufferer Paul’s introduction: “Hey! (Whistles.) Famous! Do you know Jon Bon Jovi? Hey! Hey! Click-click. And tonight, Matthew. Hey! (Blows raspberry.) Hah! (Flicks the Vs.) I’m Paul Stevenson, I’m 52 and I want… click-click-click-click hah!… a job.” Somewhere there’s a Starbucks missing its “next customer” barista.

Spuduhates…

Sport Relief’s under-rehearsed, seven-hour endurance battle.

Myleene Klass failing to include her I’m A Celebrity bikini shower scenes in The TV That Made Me, when that’s very clearly the TV that made her.

EastEnders’ Phil Mitchell: “How old is Mick?” Shirley: “Thirty-nine.” That’s odd, Shirl. I recall you saying on Mick’s birthday, January 19, 2015, that you took him to see West Ham when he turned eight in 1984. Why don’t you or the scriptwriters know your own son is 40?

And Bear Grylls: Mission Survive’s “next time…” teaser with the host announcing: “OK, rectal rehydration!” No thanks. I’m taking the week off. Column returns in a fortnight.