This was alternate-reality television at its best.

In keeping with the eccentricities that three years of minority government has made us all too familiar, Election 2013 unfolded on our TV screens like an adapted-for-Canberra version of that discombobulating film of a decade or so back, in which everything happens in reverse and the viewer spends the movie trying to work out quite how the protagonists ended up where they did.

Thus it was that a viewer who tuned in at 5pm was told the result – a Labor debacle – an hour before the polls had closed in the east, and three hours before they'd finished voting out west. A viewer who tuned in a few hours later – 9.36pm to be precise – might have expected to see the inevitable result of that debacle in the form of a grim-faced and teary Kevin Rudd admitting defeat and slinking away into the night.

Instead, what we got was a soon-to-be-ex PM whose celebratory entry into the ALP function at the Gabba was conducted on foot only because his supporters were apparently so giddy at the beautiful belting just delivered them that none were sober enough to carry him aloft in triumph.

It reminded this viewer of a Tandberg cartoon after the 1984 election in which a beaming, champagne-quaffing Andrew Peacock is told: “Congratulations Andrew! They said you couldn't win and you didn't!”

It was that kind of night. Everything was relative.

As Kerry O'Brien, ringmaster of the ABC's circus telecast and himself girding his loins for a late-night retirement speech, spoke for many when he puzzled over Rudd's 24-minute victorious admission of defeat: “It sounded less like a concession … was it a speech where he was justifying his return?”

Inevitably, it had come to that - the only question the assembled media and political talent who consumed the airwaves had to answer on Saturday night: how bad was it going to be for Labor, and was it as bad as it might have been, and if it was worse, then was the torture of the past three years all worth it?

The Labor luminary whose views on the matter were most apposite was nowhere to be seen, but in the continued dignified absence of Julia Gillard from the battlefield the party had fielded a battalion of its keenest minds to proffer views and analysis across the television dial.

They were as one, and they were as one from the git-go, led by the grizzled, grunting, grey eminence of Bob Hawke on Sky, a network which had declared the election all over while many were still engrossed in a more surprising defeat unfolding from Kardinia Park.

“It's sad, is the simplest way of putting it,” was Hawke's view of the bloodbath to come.

Over at Nine, a 5 o'clock kick-off came with a panel hosted by Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson and balanced by Peter Costello for giddy triumphalism, Simon Crean for resigned despair and Amanda Vanstone for pithy contributions and a trademark fashion statement.

Her kaleidoscopic blouse, with a fish-tank motif, was a highlight, as was Vanstone's hint of potential liveliness to come. She'd come bearing wine for later.

“I'd just had a little discussion with Karlos,” she said, but regrettably, Stefanovic was sticking to coffee for the business end of proceedings.

Nine's panel agreed it was all over before the telecast had really begun. Across at the ABC, Labor's Stephen Smith was in concurrence when Aunty kicked off at 6pm.

Within the hour, Smith had also provided one of the lines of the night in discussion over the fate of Labor's Dick Adams. “Big Dick's hard to dislodge from anything,” Smith declared.

It was a sentiment once thought equally applicable to Peter Beattie, but even the former Queensland premier wasn't pretending. He'd surrendered on Twitter early, then spent the night popping up across the networks with variations on this line, to the ABC's Annabel Crabb: “I would put it in the category of bloody difficult. That's a political term as you know.”

Other lines to remember: “Rip it in, mate.” That was Anthony Albanese's answer when asked how he was travelling in his seat. On Seven, a reporter declared from Lib HQ: “The Moet is flowing.”

On Sky, as a Queensland results page flashed up: “I can't even see Peter Slipper there.”

From Kerry O'Brien, ominously: “Kevin Rudd is back in the Parliament in some form.”

And from Clive Palmer: "You can only sleep in one bed at a time, have one meal at a time. If you're lucky, sleep with one woman at a time."

As is clear, not everything made sense, though most viewers were able to interpret what was going on at Malcolm Turnbull's party, when the member for Wentworth popped up on the ABC swaying in time with a victory tune apparently only he could hear.

After that, it was only a matter of time before the duelling climaxes of the night, the Rudd concession and the Abbott victory speeches.

As is customary, Rudd was first on - and on, and on, and on.

Then came the PM-elect, on stage alone to start with, but it wasn't a daughter-free zone for long.

The Abbott women were ushered into shot soon enough, along with a gatecrasher who was soon sent packing in to the night.

It was the only real surprise twist – save for one magical moment at the end. Kerry O'Brien told the nation that after 10 elections, he had called his last, and after a night of looking backwards he urged us to look to the day ahead.

His sign off - “The sun will still rise tomorrow” – was fitting. If ever there was an election telecast in which every inevitably was flagged hours in advance, it was this one.