Charlie Brooker

Finally, an order: watch Black Books, because it's funny. Sitting alone in a room, watching a blurry nth-generation copy of this week's opening episode on tape, I was shocked to hear myself laughing out loud twice within the first five minutes.

Once the shouting dies down (or your rising tinnitus drowns it out) it's easier to concentrate on the programme itself, which seems to have borrowed the premise from Butterflies: Dad's a dentist, Mum can't cook, and their teenage son's a half-witted layabout.