Sharyn, one of the contestants on the first episode of Channel Nine's new Sunday night game show You're Back in the Room, is host Daryl Somers' most ardent fan. "I'm excited about you," she declares, gazing admiringly at him before professing her love for the Hey Hey It's Saturday mainstay. "I've been ready for you all my life." Somewhere a pink ostrich is disconsolately shaking its head.

Somers, a performer not averse to being the centre of attention, almost bounces up and down with excitement as Sharyn fawns over him, which is no mean feat for a 64-year-old who has survived fronting Dancing with the Stars. The smitten Sharyn is, of course, under hypnotic suggestion. That's the hook of this new show, which plays like it's trying to take audiences back to the future of television.

The underlying question is: can the repetitive You're Back in the Room dupe a national audience?

2016 has so far been a terrible year for Nine, which has seen previously dependable prime-time offerings like Reno Rumble crushed by Seven's reality juggernaut My Kitchen Rules. The renovation competition has already been shunted out of its 7.30pm timeslot, and while it hasn't been sent to purgatory – i.e. screening on one of Nine's digital channels – the network's scheduling filler has already been deployed on Wednesday nights: more episodes of The Big Bang Theory – one of them is even new.