You definitely have to be in a certain state of mind to draw full enjoyment out of ITV2’s Switch. That state of mind is probably ‘just finished texting your BFF about a guy you fancy and sinking your second glass of Lambrini’, but if you’re up for an hour of candy floss drama with a smack of supernatural, Switch accomplishes the job.

After their hexing last week, the girls march on the champers-swilling Witches of Kensington, all of whom speak and act like a lot of malfunctioning posh robots sent from a future where dressage is the only form of entertainment. And OMG, they’re totes aggravate, yah. Fortunately their appearance is brief, so we don’t have to ‘sadface’ at their antics for long. But they do leave us with a plot point by casting an oddly specific ‘anti-employment’ hex on the improbably perky effervescence of starlight and smiles that is Hannah (Tointon).

Jobless and looking after a neighbour’s unruly boys, Hannah and the Camden coven create a magic remote control to Sky+ the kids at their whim, similar to the one you might have seen in the few enjoyable seconds of the Adam Sandler film Click. Given its potential it actually feels like an underused bit of witchery but that’s because there’s so much else going on, not all of it terribly important.

In the ‘Spell of the Week’, Jude (Toussaint-White) asks for a better manager and gets mop-headed pothead Gerry (Jamie Davis), to whom she promptly attaches herself by the lips for the rest of the episode. But ooh, Gerry’s rather dishy with his hot bod and guitar case, and in a narrative strand that is likely to cause pulled hair, slapped faces and shouts of ‘You bitch!’ at some point, Grace has a bit of a thang for him too.

That Grace, characterised as the human equivalent of a well-loved raffia handbag, is uncertain and unlucky in love is hammered home to an overwhelming extent. Her date with the limping handsome chap  – who’s weirdly perky in a ‘burst into a rendition of a song from Glee then take a knife from the kitchen sink’ kind of way – is not only a failure but an odd piece of plot. One that you feel only exists to make Grace’s fancying of Gerry all the more obvious. It’s only Phoebe Fox that makes it bearable to watch.

Just two episodes in, Fox feels like the best-applied talent in a show of great actresses (we know Jude is boy-mad, now let’s give Nina Toussaint-White something to actually work with). That looks to change next week, as focus moves on to the love life of Lacey Turner’s Stella and her ex-girlfriend; the brilliant Rosamund Hanson, better known as Smell from This is England. That in itself should be enough to keep viewers coming back for Episode 3. But please, let’s hope that the ‘final minute plot development’ isn’t going to become a regular trope for Switch.

Aired at 10pm on Monday 22nd October 2012 on ITV2.

> Order Series 1 on DVD on Amazon.

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