Alison Graham

Steve Pemberton guests as a bizarre, equine-obsessed vet inspector who turns up at Sara's very peculiar practice. The place is even more shambolic after Daniel deserts his post to play sex games in his suburban front room. So Sara's simple-minded friend Justine (Nicola Walker) steps in to staff the reception desk, adopting a northern accent because she's a fan of All Creatures Great and Small.

It's a cheerful half-hour of amiable nonsense led by Sue Perkins. I know it hasn't set the world on fire, but its heart is in the right place and the gags are often clever.

There are many more hits than misses in Anna Crilly and Katy Wix's sketch comedy as the pair take aim and fire at television tropes. The best bit is a perfect pastiche of those terrible Top 100 scissors-and-paste list shows that were once a Channel 4 staple. Crilly and Wix make a good job of skewering the kind of talking-head contributors that no one's ever heard of: "Jane Dudgeon - Remembers Things" and "Jenny Crumb - Had a Column Once". There's a clever Apprentice spoof where contestants talk heightened passive-aggressive nonsense ("Totally with respect because I do respect you") and Ruby Wax guest-stars as herself (the show is directed by her husband Ed Bye).

Why are funny women on TV judged differently to men?

Why would any woman bother with the bitter world of TV comedy, particularly when she knows any contribution she makes will be shouted down both on the show and online, asks Alison Graham.

Sara's very loud, very angry French ex turns up uninvited and colonises the living room where she melodramatically writhes around on the floor. It's a madly over-the-top, heavily accented turn from the estimable Raquel Cassidy (Jack Dee's long-suffering wife in Lead Balloon).

Meanwhile, Sara (Sue Perkins, also the writer) tries to pluck up the courage to ask out the lovely Eve (Shelley Conn). It's fun and sweet-natured and there's great support from Nicola Walker and Dominic Coleman as Sara's friends, dim Justine and precious Jamie.

The second series of this comedy about a hopeless salesman (played by co-creator David Cross), has been hanging around for two years before finding a home on FOX. It's nowhere near as good as its excellent line-up of stars.

The superb Will Arnett (from 30 Rock) makes a brief appearance and Sharon Horgan is woefully under-used. Mad Men's Jon Hamm also turns up in a cameo role. It's very chaotic and silly, and contains some ill-advised rape "gags" that should never have reached the screen.

When Richard Briers died recently aged 79, there was a huge outpouring of affection for one of our great comic actors. Audiences felt as if they'd lost a favourite uncle.

It was John Esmonde and Bob Larbey's 1975 sitcom, which ran on BBC1 for three years, that cemented Briers's place in our hearts. He played Tom Good, an ex-City man who turned his back on his old life to set up a smallholding with wife Barbara in the London suburb of Surbiton.

As a tribute, G.O.L.D. is broadcasting back-to-back episodes, starting with episode seven of series one, followed by all of series two and ending with the final episode of series four. Age hasn't wearied a minute of it.

Friday night has become Chat Night on television, what with Graham Norton, Piers Morgan and his Life Stories and now a tenth series of Alan Carr: Chatty Man. Carr is an amiable presence who plays it for laughs. These should be plentiful as his first guest is Robbie Williams, a man not known for his bleak introspection. Williams will be singing his new single Be a Boy and giving us the lowdown on his life, which seems to be rather happy since he married girlfriend Ayda Field and became a dad to Theodora Rose.

Dame Judi Dench was a Norton guest only last October when she appeared alongside her Skyfall pals Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem. But who cares? She's lovely and she's a national treasure and obviously we just can't get enough of her because she's back tonight.

Dame Judi shares the sofa with a glittery line-up - Mila Kunis and James Franco, in town to promote their new film, Oz the Great and Powerful, and Jude Law, starring with Rooney Mara in the movie Side Effects. Music comes courtesy of Olly Murs.

Norton has secured another cast-iron Hollywood line-up as Richard Gere and John Malkovich grace the red sofa, with young actress Saoirse Ronan as the rose between two thorns.

Gere is probably best known now more as a Buddhist and a campaigner for a free Tibet than for his films, while Malkovich is still busy making movies, including the zombie comedy Warm Bodies, and Red 2 with Helen Mirren and Bruce Willis as a bunch of retired assassins returning for another dangerous job. Taylor Swift sings live in the studio.

Jessica Hynes guest stars as the impecunious and frightfully rude Lady Littlewood, who turns up at Blandings with her obnoxious son. She is in dire need of a rich husband so she fixes her beady eye on half-witted Lord Emsworth (Timothy Spall). He's far from being marriage material; apart from being a pig-obsessed idiot, he can't even remember her name.

It's the last in the comedy drama series that hasn't gone down well with Wodehouse fans. Still, with audiences of more than four million, Blandings obviously meets a need for some early-evening Sunday silliness.