Hugh Dennis

The fifth episode of the third series of the family comedy maintains the good form of last week's, fuelled by an early confrontation between Pete (Hugh Dennis) and Sue (Claire Skinner) and the typhoon-like arrival of Sue's sister Auntie Angela (Samantha Bond) and her ghastly American psychologist of a husband, Brick (Douglas Hodge). That's before an awkward restaurant meal dredges up Angela and Sue's acrimonious history. As usual, daughter Karen (Ramona Marquez) has her own opinion on the matter, deftly using her ingénue quips to throw a cold light on adult hypocrisy.

This is one of the funniest episodes to date. Last week, you may remember, Dad (Hugh Dennis) had woken up with a crippling hangover after a night out that involved green cocktails. It gets worse. It turns out that he danced with a woman called Mimi who kissed him - and he kissed her back - and now his wife (Claire Skinner) has found out. One way and another it could hardly be a worse time for the unspeakable sister (Samantha Bond) to arrive for a visit with her new boyfriend, an American therapist with a ponytail called Brick (Douglas Hodge). They all go out for a meal and the evening degenerates into a classic middle-class bloodbath, during which little Karen (Ramona Marquez) dissects the ponytail's psychobabble with lethal precision.

The fourth episode of what has been an inconsistent third series of the sitcom following the travails of the Brockman family. Sue (Claire Skinner) is trying to prepare the house to show around potential buyers, at the same time as Pete (Hugh Dennis) gets ready for his colonoscopy while hung-over from a drunken night out. The children are up to their usual mischief, with Karen (Ramona Marquez) refusing to go to school and Ben (Daniel Roche) in trouble for playground antics. Though the show feels as if it's winding down as the children grow more knowing, on the form of this episode it remains more inventive than most of the competition.

Dad (Hugh Dennis) has woken up with a crippling hangover having being ambushed by bright green cocktails. His youngest son, Ben (Daniel Roche), is bitterly disappointed that he missed the sight of his father being sick. "Your face is all grey," he says, "like someone shaded you in with a pencil. You smell like the relief teacher who didn't last very long. The one with the shaky hand who kept bursting into tears for no reason." Because the day of Dad's hangover also happens to be Friday 13th, Karen (Ramona Marquez) is refusing to leave the house in case something bad happens and she is eaten by bears on the way to school. And to cap it all, this is the day that house hunters are coming round to view the house. Once again, Outnumbered provides half an hour of pure happiness.

On Wednesday's The Vote Now Show I was expecting Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis to take aim at the barrel and start blasting. But all we got was a couple of spoof mic gaffes, such as Churchill doing his "fight them on the beaches" speech then saying, "it's bollocks, but they love it". The rest felt stale only hours after the Mic Moment.

Best value was Kate Adie on past elections, when slightly embarrassing events were hardly reported. She recalled going around with Keith Joseph, from whom people visibly flinched. He was shunted into a branch of Woolworth's, scattering scared shoppers, and left by himself at the tills. "What've you got?" the check-out girl asked, waiting for him to pay. "We have tremendous plans for education," he informed her.

His Conservative descendants have plans for the BBC. It's their fish in a barrel. So if I might reiterate my recent plea: if you value the Beeb, don't vote Tory. Shoot them in the foot instead.

Video: a pest on The Vote Now Show

As listeners will have heard on Wednesday night, BBC Business Editor Robert Peston made a guest appearance on The Vote Now Show, where he was interviewed by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis.

Once again Outnumbered provides half an hour of pure happiness. The episode begins with the two brothers at loggerheads. The younger one, Ben (Daniel Roche), has changed his brother's status on Facebook to "Jake is a transvestite", so Jake (Tyger Drew-Henry) responded by changing Ben's Facebook status to "Ben died on Tuesday". Meanwhile Dad (Hugh Dennis) struggles to explain to the children what a colonoscopy is ("Will we be able to watch it live on television?"), while Mum (Claire Skinner) makes a doomed attempt to try and explain to her 13-year-old son what is meant by the objectification of women. It's consistently funny, but best of all is the adult tennis match featuring Ben as a ball-boy and seven-year-old Karen (Ramona Marquez) as the referee.

Having recently endured a colonoscopy in real life, Hugh Dennis must have thought he'd heard all possible jokes about bums and cameras. But Ramona and Ben dream up some more tonight when his character Pete is due to have the same procedure.

Tonight's theme - if this collection of non-sequiturs can claim a theme - is Why It's Wrong To Treat Women As Sex Objects Or Domestic Servants. But there's more comedy in the bit with Ramona re-enacting The Apprentice with her stuffed toys.

Speaking of TV, Jake and his dad have very different tastes as Pete moans about Making Of... shows. "TV shows are like pork pies," moans Pete. "They're fantastic but you don't want to know what goes in them." Which might explain why he now needs to have a camera shoved up his insides.

Passion is a word that's bandied about a lot on reality TV programmes. But I've never seen anyone so tirelessly dedicated to putting that passion into action as I have in this show.

For those who prefer the gag-o-meter turned up to 11 on their election coverage, there's The Vote Now Show. Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis and the rest of the hardworking Now Show team are offering comedic biteback three nights a week for election season, with programmes being recorded just four hours before transmission to make sure they're bang up to date on the day's events.

On Monday, Andy Zaltzman subjected himself to a John Humphrys interview (Humphrys is delightfully game), while Jon Holmes' consideration of stirring theme tunes for party leaders provides the belly-laugh we all sorely need. Tuesday's instalment included John Finnemore's hilarious dos and dont's for campaign leaflets - horse illustrations are key, apparently.