Switch continues to be the TV equivalent of eating a tub of ice cream under a blanket on a Monday night. It’s sweet and entertaining, but it is definitely a guilty pleasure. Not least because it’s slowly turning into an uncensored Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Spells can do almost anything in the world of Switch – they can create an enchanted portfolio, make someone unemployable, bring microwaved animals back to life – and yet it’s apparently impossible to simply conjure up a few quid in order to pay the bills. Without any kind of cauldron-based quantitive easing to rely on, our witches are relegated to being employed like the rest of us mortals. Good job too. Were it not for job plots Switch would just be an hour of attractive people getting off with one another.

Tired of working in a boutique, Jude gets the coven to spill their spells on her portfolio so that she can land her dream job. And then she lives happily ever after? No, it all goes predictably pear-shaped, as she finds herself completely out of depth, in the kind of storyline you’d expect to see in an episode of Bewitched. One where Julie Newmar might make a special guest cameo as a bitchy fashion designer. But at least it gives Nina Toussaint-White something to do other than snog boys.

While Jude is playing corporate Snakes and Ladders, Hannah is tricked into becoming a ‘professional shoplifter’ by a scam artist, in a plot that’s the equivalent of being tied to the train tracks by a cackling madman: you can see the payoff choo-choo-ing a mile away but are unable to do anything about it. Just lie back and let it run over you.

Meanwhile, back in the flat, watery-eyed Grace continues to fall for Jude’s boyfriend Gerry, a man who’s exactly 80% bed-head and 20% boyish grin. And OMG, text your mates, they totes almost smooch. Fortunately in a classic ‘foiled kiss’ moment, a scream from their five acre living room brings them to their senses. It’s Stella’s ex-girlfriend, Lucy (This is England‘s Rosamund Hanson).

With all the charm and subtlety of a Muppet made of trumpets, Lucy honks back into Stella’s life after being forgotten by a spell conjured years beforehand. While the two make an unlikely couple – one loud and carefree, the other motherly and level headed – Hanson and Turner’s individual performances are very good indeed. Turner in particular plays the conflicted lover well; first as the disgusted ex struggling to remember Lucy and embarrassed by the idea they ever dated, then as a dreamy-eyed girlfriend when the two get back together.

It’s the most fully-formed plot of the episode, but it can’t last of course. Nothing in Switch ever does, save for the pervading aura of upbeat trendiness. But it’s difficult to dislike Switch. It knows what it is, and it doesn’t try to be anything else. It’s not magic, but it brings a sparkle that Monday night telly needs on these cold dark nights.

Aired at 10pm on Monday 29 October 2012 on ITV2.

> Order Series 1 on DVD on Amazon.

What did you think of the episode? Let us know below…