Michael Jackson will be pleased, on returning to the BBC for the top job, to discover that some parts of his Late Show grand projet still remain, like the remains of a greater civilisation. It's a coincidence that the two surviving chunks of the old cultural warhorse - The Newsnight Review (nee The Late Review) and Later... With Jools Holland - now hunker down next to each other at the twilight end of BBC Two's Friday schedule, much as they used to do on Thursday nights when both were in their infancy. Newsnight Review occasionally touches on new releases, and last night's show sampled The Killer's album, but it's not entirely clear why: Germaine Greer hardly strikes me as someone who keeps her CD rack topped up with new releases, and as such, her dismissal of the album came across less the sort of knowledgeable dissection of the subject ballet and movies receive on the programme; more a parent asking that the noise be turned down. There is room on television for an intelligent music review programme, but Newsnight Review isn't really the place for it.

Nor, of course, is Later... With Jools Holland, which is now in its 390th series. There's some suggestion that the programme has worn out its welcome a little now, and while nobody would want to see it axed for the sake of it, it does give off a feeling of being just a bit grating. The opening titles, of Jools pointing at pictures of The Great Acts of series past, should only be watched alone as they appear to have been specially designed to raise the desire of the audience to punch someone repeatedly; the swirl-around-as-all-the-bands jam would work as a way of introducing the bands if Jools didn't then dance around the studio and do it all over again; and then, of course, there's been the attempts to lend the show some atmosphere by having an audience of celebs and hangers-on. When the programme started, there wasn't this strange bunch of figures hovering at the edges, like a cross between woodland creatures peering from the fringes of the forest and a Top of the Pops during the fuel crisis, and it really doesn't make the show any better having them there. Whistle Test got some really great performances simply by not having any audience at all - for a lot of artists used to grandstanding, taking away the gallery they're usually playing to sets them free to give the show of their lives. Other programmes, with a proper audience, at least manage to build up a sense of feedback and connection. Later's halfway measure doesn't do anything - a few chums and a couple of sub-Hello faces creates the feeling that the band are doing a quick turn at their secretary's leaving do and hardly brings out the best in anyone. Worse, it gives Jools an excuse to do some interviews with the faces who've turned up - so in this edition, we got to hear from Edith Bowman and Colin Murray - Bowman, with her homecut fringe and gardener's shirt looking more and more like the daughter Harold Steptoe never had; Murray coming across like the husband she'd got married beneath herself to.