Alison Graham

Lucy's strait-laced parents arrive from their local amateur dramatic group, and they need actors for a new production. It sounds terrible, with a villain described as an "evil, impotent, wart-ridden narcissist". Naturally Lee (Lee Mack) is everyone's first casting choice.

After too many so-so episodes Not Going Out slides back onto its well-worn tracks with an increased quotient of funny gags, though you'll see most of them telegraphed from about five miles away. Mack is great as he froths with jealousy at Lucy's insufferable leading man.

Why does comedy make people so furious?

"Maybe we should all calm down a little and laud anyone who tries to make us laugh," says Alison Graham.

There's already been some positive early buzz about director JJ Abrams's massive, CGI-laden blockbuster Star Trek into Darkness (and particularly about its baddie, our own Benedict Cumberbatch), so Mr Spock himself, Zachary Quinto, and his co-star Zoe Saldana, who plays Uhura, will doubtless be warmly welcomed in the Ross studio.

Quinto is probably best known to television audiences as the wicked Sylar in Heroes, and latterly as a doctor in the brilliantly odd American Horror Story. Also on the show tonight are magicians from The Illusionists stage show, and music comes from Mr Radiohead himself, Thom Yorke.

I have a soft spot for Russell Howard, because he's a very nice young man and, having sat through a three hour recording of a 30-minute Good News episode, I admire his attention to tiny detail. He's back tonight with an eighth series of the show that's a cheery mash-up of Have I Got News for You and the late, lamented Harry Hill's TV Burp. Good News is a monster hit for BBC3 and a routine iPlayer chart topper, and has a devoted social network following.

A cheap skiing holiday in eastern Europe turns into a nail-biting comedy nightmare for Lee, Daisy and Lucy when they become stranded in a cable car far above the piste.

The episode plays out in real time, which helps to build up the hysteria as the group come to realise that the local woman stuck in the car with them is heavily pregnant. You can probably see where this is going, can't you?

What follows is typically ribald, buffoonish Not Going Out fare as hapless Lee (Lee Mack) is inevitably nominated to act as midwife - what with Lucy (Sally Bretton) being incapacitated by an accident and dim Daisy (Katy Wix) being, well, dim Daisy. Throw her a stick and she is guaranteed gleefully to seize the wrong end. Of course it's deeply silly, but as usual there are gags that will make you laugh, despite yourself.

At the launch of the sixth series of Not Going Out, its star Lee Mack said the absent Tim Vine - who played Tim, Not Going Out's good-natured voice of reason and a perfect foil for Mack - would be replaced by an "abstract concept". What he meant was there'd be a lot more plot and story to make up for the Vine-sized gap. You'll be able to see what he was getting at in a very farcical opening episode involving dead rabbits.

All the usual Not Going Out tent-poles are in place; the quick-fire gags at which Mack is the unsurpassable master, the silly situations (very silly, as it turns out) and the excellent Sally Bretton and Katy Wix as Lucy and Daisy. It's frantic, frequently funny and refreshingly unpretentious. But you'll miss Tim Vine. I do.

Hardly anyone likes Heading Out, it's been kicked to death then dumped in a shallow grave by audiences and critics, so it's perverse to make it recommended viewing. Except I like it. I know it's as annoying and stupid as everyone says it is. But it's harmless and it doesn't try to be novel or pioneering, and I've laughed at least once at each episode. But never mind, it ends tonight as hapless vet Sara at last decides she absolutely MUST come out to her parents. Cue a disastrous dinner party.

Business isn't booming at Ignition Car Wash Solutions as The Apprentice-type team managers trade nuggets ofbusiness-speak numbskullery. It's the perfect pastiche and Katy Wix cleverly pins down all those tics and traits shown by every reality-show contestant who is quietly dying on the inside.

Again some bits of Anna & Katy work better than others. But the cod-German mickey-take of Friends and Seinfeld, Das Michael, has its moments and the spoof TV list-show Countdown of the World's Least Favourite Moments is a dream.

Excitable vet Sara and her daft friends spend a hellish night in the chilly ancestral home of her barking-mad life coach Toria. It turns out Toria's hearty parents are as bonkers as she is, which is just as well as Toria wants Sara (Sue Perkins) to practise on them how she will come out as a lesbian to her own mum and dad. Toria's family (motto "Kill Them All"), including Dawn French in a grey wig as Toria's mum, is impertinently intrusive and the night is full of farcical misunderstandings as well as ghostly noises on the landing.

The idiot-speak in Anna Crilly and Katy Wix's spoof The Apprentice is frothing nicely: "Business in the workplace can help achieve synergy for tomorrow," says a gormless team-member. Or, my favourite, "Can I just answer that myself with a 'no'?" smarms Wix, as a vacuous project manager. Some sketches work better - much better - than others. Crilly and Wix as two butch quadbike instructors and an obscene game show fronted by Brian Dowling are weak and over-long. But Olden Roadhaus, the foul-mouthed German version of Antiques Roadshow, is a winner.