Jamie Oliver jumps on the culinary bandwagon in this bewilderingly cringey two-parter. Hasn’t even he tired of his own shtick by now?

I don’t really know what to tell you about Jamie Oliver’s new series Jamie’s Air Fryer Meals. It’s presented by Jamie Oliver, who first bounded on to our screens as The Naked Chef (no, he wasn’t) in 1999. He cooks meals in an air fryer. An air fryer is a little convection-type oven with a perforated basket that you put food in and the hot air circulates round it and makes things crispy without you having to dunk it in a panful of boiling oil. So, in essence, Jamie makes meals and puts them in a small oven to cook. Oh, and the programme is made in association with Tefal, who sell a line of pans endorsed by Jamie. The air fryer shown in the programme is a Tefal one. Jamie is very impressed with what air fryers can do. Maybe you will be prompted to buy one after watching his show.

There are only two episodes in Jamie’s latest venture and things are starting to feel stretched long before the end of the first. I mean, there is not much you can say about a little oven that is good at making things crispy and does so slightly faster than a normal oven would. “Two minutes!” shouts Jamie as he pushes another basket home. “Real cooking, with love and care!” If you say so, petal. “I love the way you can use this to bake and to roast and also to make beautiful sauces!” he says, as if pouring meat juices off a roasting joint was not the basis of most sauces and unique to the air fryer’s capabilities. “Wilt some spinach in 40 seconds! Happy days!” His cheddar and chive scones take 12 minutes, which is only a couple of minutes faster than the ordinary way of doing things. But no matter! Because while things are air frying, he explains, you can get on with boiling or steaming or cooking other things in ways that the air fryer cannot manage. I feel a fool to have stood by my ordinary oven for so long, watching a chicken roast when I could have been getting on with the potatoes. No wonder it takes me four days to make a family meal.

Ever wondered how the relentless stream of air fryer-based TV shows are being commissioned? Probably a bit like this

Oh, hi. Sorry, you’ve just caught me in a lunch meeting with the executives of Channel 4 as I pitch them some shows to take advantage of their new “anything with air fryers in it, we will make” policy. Sorry about that guys – it’s just readers.

So, my first idea is Ayr Fryer, a detective drama set in the west Scotland town of Ayr. DI Johnny Fryer (Robson Green) is new to the force – he spent his career in London but, after a chase went wrong and a lad tumbled head-first into a convection oven and died, he got reassigned north of the border. He’s really grumpy but, dammit, he’s the only copper on this force who’s doing things right – he notices things at murder scenes that other people have missed, he becomes fixated with the case. And, though he’s torn internally by dark forces and regret, he slowly starts to thaw when he meets a local single mother (Laura Fraser) who is refitting the old chip shop on the bay. “What’s this gonna be, anyway?” he says, over a cup of tea one morning. “An air fryer restaurant,” she says. “The food will come out 20% faster than if we did it in an oven.” He grabs his coat, keys jangling, sprints to the car without saying a word. He’s just remembered one of the suspects had a box for a Ninja Dual Zone, but said they couldn’t be at the scene because they were waiting for their chips to cook in the oven! They lied !