David Harewood

Regardless of the fact that the TV schedules are already rammed with the damned things, all sharing near-identical formats, television continues to spew out comedy panel shows. Channel 4's Was It Something I Said? is the latest manifestation of a tedious trend.

The basic premise, upon which the contestants are invited to riff, is the world of quotes and quotations. A world very familiar to anyone who has listened to an edition of BBC Radio 4's Quote... Unquote during its 49 series' residency.

But originality clearly isn't high on Was It Something I Said?'s priorities. Take a look at the line-up - David Mitchell in the chair, Richard Ayoade and Micky Flanagan as team captains, and Charlie Higson and Jimmy Carr as guests.

Individually, I like them all. Collectively, as part of a comedy panel show, their terrible familiarity provokes in me a level of screaming boredom that is borderline hysterical.

Even the fine actor David Harewood, roped in as guest 'reader', has been spotted slumming it elsewhere in the BBC's Would I Lie to You?. Presumably, Harewood's ambition was atomised at the end of Homeland's second series, along with his character.

But possibly the most predictable and depressing aspect of the show was its total absence of women. Whether this was the deliberate product of an anti-feminist agenda, or simply down to the fact that Sarah Millican wasn't available, we can only guess.

David Harewood appeared on Was it Something I Said?. That's quite a fall, from being head of the CIA to reading out quotes on a Channel 4 gameshow. Basically it's that Radio 4 show Quote Unquote on the telly, with David Mitchell asking the questions. And the questions being "who said this?" and "how does this quote go?"

Not the most imaginative format then, but of course it's not really about the game, it's about which panellist can be funniest. And the answer to that is Richard Ayoade. Certainly he's much funnier than his teammate Jimmy Carr; they don't seem to like each other very much either, which is quite jolly. No women about obviously, it being a panel show.

Does David Mitchell ever catch Jimmy Carr's eye across the set of a crowded panel show and think: 'I know exactly what you're going to say here'? More opportunities for celebrity ennui tonight. This new series sees Mitchell in the chair, Carr as a guest and other usual suspects Micky Flanagan, Charlie Higson and Richard Ayoade making up the numbers.

The wild card is the slightly out-of-his-element guest David Harewood, who has presumably been selected for his boomingly stentorian voice, because the core of the show is quotes - famous ones, outlandish ones and obscure ones. It's not the most striking panel-show concept we've ever come across and, notwithstanding a couple of mildly amusing moments - including Harewood's scarily good Obama impression - it never quite gets off the ground.

Mitchell's other regular panel gig, Would I Lie to You?, has punched above its apparent weight for years now, but we'd bet against this proving similarly enduring.

Was It Something I Said?, yet another comedy panel show (this one based, with great originality, around quotations), has been hand-tooled to inherit Homeland's audience, not only going out directly after the new adventures of Carrie Mathison, but also featuring actor David Harewood - Homeland's now blown-to-smithereens CIA director David Estes - as guest quotation reader.

Host David Mitchell has, of course, been recently conducting a media discourse with Fast Show creator Charlie Higson over whether or not comedy panel shows are blocking other, rather more expensive forms of television comedy. Higson was a guest last night, so the timing of that spat makes you cynically wonder whether it wasn't merely pre-show publicity, or whether Higson had a genuinely bad time recording last night's opener.

Mitchell's riposte has been that panel shows are often more funny than scripted comedy, a view to which I'm not unsympathetic, especially when Richard Ayoade was holding forth last night, effortlessly neutralising supposed team-mate Jimmy Carr. Did I write neutralise, or did I mean neuter? These macho cockfights are the reason why female comedians give such shows a wide berth, and needless to say, all six panellists were male. Mitchell had even grown a Mumford-lush beard, while Carr appeared to be in the process of growing one - it was as if their faces were actively leaking testosterone.

James Corden laughing in the face of danger

The series looks wonderful, expensive and moody and there are several amazing cameos in it (David Harewood, late of Homeland, appeared for a few bewildering seconds). All this just seemed rather wasteful in the circumstances: the script somehow doesn't live up to it.

Cheeky chappy James Corden sticks to type but nevertheless tickles with former Gavin & Stacey co-star Mathew Baynton in this fun comedy-thriller about two office drones embroiled in a case of mistaken identity. After answering a lost mobile phone, Sam (Baynton), a figure cut closer to a Quentin Blake illustration than an Iron Man-style superhero, is burdened with the company of eager beaver colleague Phil (Corden) when he goes to the rescue of a hostage.

The evolving bromance has a familiar flavour, but it's by steering clear of complete spoofery that The Wrong Mans finds its surprisingly comfortable stride, somewhere between gags and action. The success of films like Kick-Ass suggests we're a public with a soft spot for have-a-go heroes, making Corden and Baynton's offering well gauged. It's the television equivalent of jelly: not particularly sophisticated, but a pleasant treat all the same.

Famous faces (David Harewood, Dougray Scott) are underutilised, sliding past the camera as if on a conveyor belt peopled by Corden's celebrity pals. Luckily, Baynton's impressive comic dexterity covers everything from deadpan to daft, tempering Corden's potentially dominating presence and making for a balanced double act.

James Corden's new six-part comedy caper is assured of a better reception than his last TV outing with the very iffy sketch show Horne & Corden. Maybe because he's got a new comedy writing partner and co-star in Mathew Baynton, of Horrible ­Histories, who played Deano in Gavin & Stacey. So this could well be a case of the wrong man(s), but the right Mat.

This is a hugely ­confident, well-plotted and hilarious new series. Imagine 24 written as a sitcom with Corden taking on the Kiefer ­Sutherland role.

The pair star as workers at Berkshire County Council whose lives are turned upside down when Sam (Baynton) witnesses a ­car crash - the first of many action- packed stunts that set this apart from the comedy run of the mill.

He finds a mobile phone at the crash scene and is drawn into a dangerous kidnapping conspiracy populated by real villains. Mail room boy Phil (Corden) is busting a gut to get involved.

Several years in the planning, the pair have worked all the angles and the action scenes are as convincing as the comedy.

The snow in the opening scene probably wasn't scripted but it gives it a wonderfully cinematic look, while the casting of David Harewood (long before he became a big star in Homeland) is another happy accident.

And just like 24, each episode ends with a massive cliff-hanger moment, guaranteeing you'll be back for more.

Love him or hate him, James Corden undeniably does have a range of talents - actor, writer and co-creator of some very funny comedy (we'll politely forget the car crash of his misguided BBC sketch show with Mathew Horne). And now, dontchaknow, he's come up with another comedy vehicle, The Wrong Mans (****), which had a very accomplished debut last night.

Corden, late of the National Theatre and Broadway, has co-written, with fellow Gavin & Stacey alumnus Mathew Baynton, a comedy thriller in the style of Simon Pegg and Joe Wright's Cornetto trilogy, with appreciative nods (in the title) to Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 thriller and, in camerawork and misfit leads, to Peep Show.

Baynton is nice but weedy Sam, who wakes up one wintry morning with the mother of a hangover, only to find his pushbike has been stolen so he has to walk to work, as a town planning and noise guidance adviser for Berkshire County Council. On his way, he's the only witness to a car crash and he picks up a ringing phone; a man issues threats and in later calls it's clear a woman has been kidnapped.

At work Sam takes postboy Phil (Corden) into his confidence. Phil is beside himself; he's a 31-year-old living at home with his mum and he keeps trying to organise fun days paint-balling or bowling with his colleagues (oblivious to the fact they all think he's a boring knob); for him, this mystery is his very own live-action Grand Theft Auto, and he convinces Sam not to call the police but to try to rescue the woman and become heroes.

The opening episode efficiently essayed the set-up, and there are some promising relationships to be explored in the following five weeks. Sarah Solemani (who was so brilliant in Him & Her) is Sam's boss, but also the girlfriend who recently dumped him because he was too needy, while Tom Basden is the horrible colleague we'd love to be taken down a peg or two.

Corden clearly has pulling power, as those names above suggest, and Dawn French, Nick Moran, Rebecca Front and Dougray Scott will appear in future episodes - although David Harewood, who appeared briefly last night, shot his scenes before his Homeland stardom. The opener had some neat twists and turns and ended on a great cliffhanger. Definitely one to stay with.