It may be time to admit, however reluctantly, that the best days of Superstars now officially lie behind it. We've given the latest revival (courtesy of Five this time) of the hallowed, cross-discipline sports dust-up four weeks to prove itself - to give us even one image to carry with us down the years the way we bear aloft the image of Kevin Keegan skinning himself alive between an overturned racing bike and a cinder track. And so far, nothing of the sort.

As close as we've got in this dutifully faithful 2008 version was probably Mark Foster, in round two, heat one, going for a slam dunk and producing not the faintest sign of either a dunk or a slam. The swimmer approached the basket confidently enough, but as he began to launch his considerable frame skywards, something (nerves, perhaps, or just basic incompetence) caused him to sling the ball straight up in the air and over the backboard. One for the “blooper” album, no question. But it's not exactly Stan Bowles wheezing along in a rowing boat. It isn't even Jonah Barrington controversially oiling up the squat thrust board.

Consider this: despite having openly invoked the gods of slapstick by inserting a high diving competition, the new Superstars has yet to yield even one sequence to surpass the belly-flop produced by Bobby Davro in the 2003 series of Channel 4's The Games (“the slap heard around the world”).

So how come this bulletproof 1970s format, properly prefaced by the great Johnny Pearson theme tune, is limping along with a faint smile on its lips, rather than cutting an arrogant and imperious swath through the traditionally denuded summer schedules? Call it a tragic lack of Ron Pickering, maybe. Or blame society. Customs and values have changed. People have moved on. It's a totally different culture. Ask today's kids what a dip is and they'll tell you it's something in which you dunk a breadstick.

It isn't, of course. As a generation reared on Superstars will tell you, a dip is one of the most comprehensive gym-based tests of strength a competitive sportsman has ever faced in a televised context, and Sir Steve Redgrave turns out to be surprisingly bad at it. Mirroring the show's problem in miniature, the captain of the white team is not entirely what he used to be, fitness-wise.

There are gentle allusions to him being “not quite at his rowing weight” and admissions, every now and again, in the wake of some failure or other, that “weight may have been a factor”. In an interview after the rock-climbing event, Jim Rosenthal was more blunt. “Hauling your bulk up there - not easy,” he said. A lesser Olympian might have clipped Rosenthal round the back of his head for that one, but restraint under pressure is why we value Sir Steve, whatever weight he's at.

Nevertheless, we cannot avoid reporting that, in a head-to-head with Martin “Chariots” Offiah the other night, Britain's greatest Olympian managed a measly 13 dips to the former rugby league paceman's 46 - a disheartening outcome for the five-times gold medal-winner, not to say a symbolic moment for Superstars generally and, moreover, a blow for British rowing that it ill-needed going into the Beijing Olympics.

On the upside, though, it's a pleasure to remark that the official braced beside the parallel bars, keeping the score, in the approved manner, with a rigidly locked arm, is none other than Graham Poll - a happily redemptive outcome that could not have been foreseen during the 2006 World Cup, when the official from Tring, Hertfordshire, got busy with the yellow cards and accidentally brought his professional career crashing about his shoulders, If only one had been able to comfort the referee in his personal darkness back then. “Don't worry, Polly. Two years from now, you'll be on Superstars, providing the fist for the dips.” How quickly his anguished face might have brightened.

Nevertheless, one's abiding sense is of a decline. When Brian Jacks was in his thrust-tastic pomp, Superstars was the pinnacle that lay beyond all other sporting pinnacles. It was serious enough to attract David Hemery, for heaven's sake. Now it's staffed with regulars from the reality television repertory company - Chariots (Strictly Come Dancing), Iwan Thomas (Deadline, Celebrity Stars in their Eyes) and Lee Sharpe (Celebrity Wrestling, Celebrity Love Island, Celebrity Pretty Much Anything That Will Have Him). Once only legends walked here, but now it's just another stop on the post-career media fun-ride - Ready Steady Cook in gym kit. And that's not right, is it?

Quite good at basketball, though, Sharpe - three baskets in a winning time. Finally, he seems to have found something he can do on television. I'm not sure there's a series in it, though. And I'm not sure there's really a series in Superstars, either, although, with four rounds to go, I would be happy to be proved wrong.