If, channel-surfing on Sunday night, you happened to flick over to ITV and saw a jaunty animate tree singing Madness’s It Must Be Love, it was not a sign that you had finally been broken by the booze and blurry boundaries of the festive break. The former footballer Peter Crouch saw it too, and had to tweet the following to dismiss speculation: “I can confirm I am not a singing tree.”

This was episode two of The Masked Singer, a fever-dream of reality TV programming newly imported from the US, wherein a panel of what might loosely be grouped as “personalities” (Jonathan Ross, Rita Ora) guess the identity of a ludicrously disguised performer by their voice alone. And that is how you get a man-sized unicorn prancing to Kate Bush’s Babooshka on primetime TV.

Like moving Scarlett Moffatt to rural Namibia or challenging families to kill then eat their pets, The Masked Singer feels like the type of TV show produced against all better judgment.

And yet, after two episodes – in which a big butterfly was unmasked as Bianca from EastEnders and a former home secretary performed Walk Like an Egyptian – it is proving a surprise ratings hit, drawing 5.5 million viewers on its debut, despite being panned in reviews. One tweet captured the ambivalence of the response: “#MaskedSinger might be the absolute worst and trashiest piece of TV ever made and if you think I’m going to waste an hour and a half of my life to find out which B-lister is under the Monster’s mask then you’re absolutely right.”

Watching a “sexy chameleon” slay Creep – my mouth slightly open – I was reminded of another hypnotic, horrifying spectacle. I had gone to see Cats on the strength of the hilarious writing it had inspired, hoping for a case of “it’s so bad it’s good” – only to discover it was, in fact, just bad, even boring. Seven people walked out of the screening I was at – and none of us could say we had not been warned.

My friend, a parent for whom a trip to the cinema now takes a village, was genuinely annoyed I’d gone at all: “People are frittering away their precious cinema privileges on Cats?!”

At risk of angering him further, it’s even worse: I’ve not seen The Godfather, any episode of Star Wars or a James Bond other than Daniel Craig, but I’ve seen – paid to see – Cats. And though I haven’t watched The Sopranos, or even Succession, yet I may watch every episode of The Masked Singer, because some spectacles have to be seen to be believed – especially if everyone says they’re terrible. Plus, I’m pretty sure the giant bee is Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud.

• Elle Hunt is a freelance journalist