The Verdict finale: The show that became a national punchline limps to the finish line

Gosh, hasn't time flown? It seems like only yesterday that the nation was saying, as one, "What, a commercial network is doing Q&A, now? With Karl Stefanovic and … Mark Latham? Is that a typo?"

And now, after two months and eight episodes, we're at the grand finale. And what a long, strange trip it's been. Well, long at any rate – although that's at least in part because it's running late, thanks to the shrieking extended conclusion to The Block.

Will Karl Stefanovic be back with another season of The Verdict?Credit: Channel 9

Normally The Verdict screens on Thursday nights, so moving the final show of the year to Wednesday seems like a mercy killing. Maybe The Block audience will stick around to see whether Latham is in a good mood (spoiler: no, obviously), but it probably makes little difference since The Verdict's ratings suggest that the audience consists of viewers that had Channel 9 on when they lost their remote.

The panel is a who's-who of previous guests, including disgraced former AFL player Campbell Brown, Mamma Mia group's editor-in-chief Jamila Rizvi​, ex-Triple M broadcaster and Mamma Mia writer Rachel Corbett, John Howard's immigration minister Amanda Vanstone, and the author and Australian Republican Movement chair Peter FitzSimons. (In the interests of full disclosure, please note that Vanstone, FitzSimons and I are all proud Fairfax columnists, and therefore have matching tattoos).

Mark Latham believes he has a "right to offend".Credit: Channel 9

One of the most exciting things about The Verdict is that it's genuinely surprising what will turn out to be controversial. That's because "controversial" in this context means "a thing Latham has a bee in his bonnet about for some reason".

For example: the tenth most compelling story of the year was Jarryd Hayne, beloved for playing NFL for the San Francisco 49ers, for a bit. And everyone was largely in agreement that yes, this is good, and on to the next thing.

Said Thing is Donald Trump, and Rizvi makes the entirely reasonable point that "It should be a joke," before speaking about his plan to wall out Mexican immigrants and put Muslims on a database. Ahhhh, but Latham does not concur. "He's running as an outsider, he's sticking it up the liberal elites, and I'm joining with him. Up yours!" Good comeback, grown man!

Brown also digs Trump. "He calls it how it is, he's not in for personal gain…", before FitzSimons laughs in his face. "He's barking mad! Can you imagine the index finger of Donald Trump on the button?"

Thing Eight is Mick Fanning's great white attack, which everyone agrees was a close shave. Except for Vanstone, weirdly, who insists that people that get attacked by sharks bring it on themselves by going in the ocean, thereby offering a rich insight into the development of Howard-era social policy.

Gay Marriage Campaigners are Thing Seven, and everyone's pretty much agreed that this should just be settled by now. Except, naturally, Latham who identifies both the real victim here - Mark Latham - and the cruel, thoughtless people that won't shut up about wanting equal civil rights as fellow citizens, the selfish jerks.

"Part of me says get it done because I'm sick and tired of hearing about it," he opines, before declaring that "The gays are like the last Mohicans, rushing in saying marriage is great". Honestly, The Gays, can't you just think about Latham's feelings just once?

The Sixth Most Important Thing is Michelle Payne winning the Melbourne Cup, which again everyone thought was great. Except that Latham, again, made clear that everyone else was thinking it was great for the wrong reasons.

"People like you that left her out in the cold, you didn't want to know her before the race," he roared at a bemused-looking Vanstone, who had admitted that she didn't know who Payne was before the race – a not-unusual situation, one might think, but one that made Vanstone, FitzSimons, Corbett and, by extension, most Australians (bunch of elites!) "shallow and largely hypocritical" for being impressed with her victory.

Number five is the refugee crisis and… oh, hell.

Stefanovic admits "It's a heavy transition," and Latham leaps to the defence of Tony Abbott's brave Border Control policies and insists once again that anyone who felt affected by the photo of Aylan Kurdi's body being carried off the beach is, once again, "shallow and hypocritical", reminding the nation again how much of a bullet we dodged at the 2004 election.

FitzSimons and Rizvi (who, significantly, is the only panellist to use the child's name) talk about the way the photo changed the debate in Australia, but Latham, Newman and Vanstone sneer about those whining lefties who did nothing more than click on Facebook, forward stuff on Twitter, attend rallies around the country, sign petitions, agitate in their communities, directly canvass their MPs and get Australia to admit 12,000 refugees from Syria. Yeah, what a bunch of shallow hypocrites.

"They're just like 'I'm a nice person, I lit a candle,'" sneered Vanstone. Awww, bless.

Four is Adam Goodes being booed, which is obviously totally not racist as Latham explains. "If they're black, white or orange I'll boo 'em," said the man we once considered as Prime Minister, "and I'll happily boo Adam Goodes". Oh, and he once met an Aboriginal man that totally existed and he said booing Goodes wasn't racist, so: case closed!

FitzSimons is passionately not taking this. "Did you not see what happened when he stood as ambassador for DJs?" he thunders. "This is bullshit, and we can do better than this."

Number three is the execution of Chan and Sukumaran, and Vanstone and Latham are again clear that the real villains here are the media and the do-gooders. Cambell agrees wholeheartedly: "At the end of the day they were convicted drug peddlers, they're not getting any sympathy from me," he bravely says about two dead men. "Maybe we should think about tougher penalties ourselves."

Rizvi points out that part of the point of prison is rehabilitation, which clearly had worked in this case, but then Latham's talking about how he's offended by drugs because he's a father and I can feel parts of my brain shutting down as a defensive reflex.

Number two is Malcolm Turnbull, and Vanstone is clear that the party did the right thing. "I don't think Prime Ministers have a right to stay as long as they want. You lose the party's support, you lose the job. That's that."

Campbell sees it differently, as "an act of political treachery". Conversely, Rizvi makes the most astute observation of the night regarding Turnbull's tactics: "He's using the language of the Left to do the work of the Right."

The number one Thing of 2015 is Islamic State and we're thankfully spared the sight of Latham insisting that he knew about Daesh before you shallow hypocrites jumped on the bandwagon. Karl gives a little speech to camera explaining that terrorism is awful before changing gears abruptly to ask everyone's feel-good moment of the year.

Corbett praises Caitlyn Jenner for bringing transsexuality into the mainstream media, FitzSimons hails Japan's rugby victory, Rizvi hopes this is the year Australia makes progress on domestic violence, Campbell and Vanstone both pick the Melbourne Cup, and Latham sneeringly picks Bill Shorten's dance on Kiribati, because some wounds never quite heal.

Stefanovic's feel-good moment of 2015 is Bindi Irwin's triumph on the US Dancing with the Stars, which outrages Vanstone. "She's not the only kid whose father died," she snorts (and again, insight into Howard-era social policy…).

"And Amanda Vanstone won't be back next year," Karl… um, jokes, presumably? The Verdict's not actually coming back, right? Can't they just give the time slot to Mark Latham: Elite Hunter?

Let's see what 2016 brings, shall we?