David Stubbs (II)

Tonight, the Olympic Deliverance team are forced to come up with a strategy that reconciles the apparently irreconcilable demands of the Muslims and the French. The Algerians are demanding a Shared Belief Centre that faces Mecca, while the French are threatening to pull out of the Games if a separate mosque is constructed. Clever, if not exactly original: the Sydney Olympics were preceded by a similar Australian comedy, The Games. That proved to be an anti-jinx, as the 2000 Games were lauded as an organisational success. Will Twenty Twelve do the same for London?

One of the finest episodes of this series to date, scripted by Steve Pemberton. Led by a fearsome martinet of a coach, members of the British Olympic synchronised swimming team turn up at the hotel, with a fawning Joyce prepared to eject guests from the pool to accommodate them. Elegant they may be but, as Tim Healy's down-to-earth transvestite has it, they're "thrashing about like a bag of cats in a canal" beneath the surface. While it's not exactly Pinter, it's ITV fun at its best.

Most of the regulars return to top up their perma-tans but there's a significant newcomer tonight in the form of ex-Corrie stalwart, Loose Women's Sherrie Hewson as the new resort manager Joyce Temple Savage, determined to hoist the place up a star with expertise gained in "three years under Richard Branson". Such dodgy double entendres are the small-ish price to pay for Benidorm's warm, amiably recumbent fare.

There's an intriguing twilight zone between hipster music and comedy in which only a few dare to dwell - Look Around You and Jam belong to this rarefied tradition. Here, Noel Fielding, a jollier but no less effective master of the genre, returns with his latest show, a neo-psychedelic riot of mirth that regurgitates decades of memories of broad, Technicolor TV entertainment from The Banana Splits onwards. Tonight's luridly droll cornucopia sees two French chefs take a trip to the moon, a New York cop going undercover in Miami and Noel attempting to create a felt-tip masterpiece.

The format has been revamped. Frank Skinner is in the chair and, rather than chance the quality of an edition on a single guest, they've spread their bets across a panel of three, with Skinner determining which of their peeves - growing up, film and TV, etc - will descend into Room 101. There's a less whimsical, slightly harder edge to the guests' critiques; Danny Baker rails against "cool" with a written, prepared text dripping with bile, Robert Webb lays into Jeremy Kyle with undisguised scorn and even Fern Britton has a go at the homework heaped on today's kids.

Sheer affection for the hapless Brockman clan sustains this seasonal episode, which, although perfectly watchable, isn't up to the standard of their last Christmas special. We may even be coming to the end of the line for this excellent series - the children are getting older and seeming more like regular middle-class sitcom kids, rather than the striking, precocious infant improvisers of yore. Tonight, a Premium Bond win has afforded them the opportunity of a Christmas break in the sun. But before the airport dash, there's an emergency trip to the dentist for Karen and a visit to a now ward-bound granddad, lost in a world of sing-song.

As Brooker has observed in these pages, 2011 has been a grimly bumper cornucopia of events, what with Royal Weddings, the phonehacking enquiry and riots, to say nothing of Pippa Middleton's backside looming unseemly like a double moon over the media landscape. With the assistance of Doug Stanhope, Adam Curtis and Brian Limond, Brooker will be glancing back beneath arched eyebrow over the events, factual and fictional of 2011, dousing its overheated manias, controversies and moral panics with a cool and justly savage wit.

This strange and generally wonderful series takes a slight misstep in the final episode of its run, in the form of Dan's girlfriend Anita, a thoroughly obnoxious (but more scripted than fully realised) character. Still, the torments to which she subjects Steve and Becky's neighbour make for some very funny and moving scenes. Dan's small talk with Shelly - "How have you been?" "You know." "Yeah." - sighs volumes of enduring melancholy. As for the couple themselves, their stoical cheer and happiness in each other's company, despite frequent outsider intrusions on their lovenest, is put to the test by a calculatedly offhand remark by Steve's ex.

If you think this series has been iffy so far, you're advised to tune in tonight, if only to have your worst fears confirmed. As Warwick copes with divorce negotiations with only his accountant for representation and checks out a new flat with his idiot PA, we're subjected to a relentless volley of little-person gags that leave us, like the estate agent, looking on with unsmiling, dumbfounded horror. How on earth was this ever waved through? What happened to Gervais? As ever, redemption comes briefly in the form of the celebrity insert - this week, it's Steve Carell.

The opening few minutes of this excellent sitcom say as much about the male of the species home alone as Simon's Cat does about cats. It's not long before family and neighbours intrude, however, to gather optimistically around the television for the lottery. Laura is an eloquent study in bigotry and she's convinced Paul has a cancerous lump on his testicles. Meanwhile, Dan drops in with his seemingly nice cousin Alex. Steve and Becky are, as ever, superb, so comfortable in the proximity of each other's skins.