Jack Seale

The best of many, many good things about this lovely series? As it's gone on it's got funnier, even as more dramatic storylines have come in. It's because the laughs come from the characters, of course, and the finale gives all of them a resolution (of a kind - series two is coming), while slipping in more gags than ever.

As Big Alan ponders whether to tell bonkers Brummie Nancy to go away, and Emma and Sunil tackle the problem of their son's birth coming days before their wedding, we're most interested in the love triangle between Stella (creator/writer Ruth Jones), nice boxer Sean and estranged hunk Rob.

The notion of a first love never dying has been strongly handled, carried by the performances of Jones and the serenely imposing Mark Lewis Jones as Rob. There's quite a bit more of the story to tell.

Raising children is the topic dealt with by Stephen K Amos, with unreliable assistance from fellow stand-up performers Ava Vidal, Howard Read and Smug Roberts. Read is on his specialist subject: he's the star and creator of CBBC's brilliant Little Howard's Big Question.

Having created a solid set of characters, Ruth Jones has bravely loaned them to other writers for the odd episode. This week, Ben Edwards and Simon Ludders step in to deliver big developments and fantastic comic set-pieces. Sweet, stupid Karl is on top form painting Emma and Sunny's nursery, while Big Alan's crazed admirer Nancy corners him during a persistently weird meal.

Funniest of all is Dai's court appearance: moving our beloved gang of earthy eccentrics to somewhere august creates hysteria.

Last week's bombshell happened a day or two ago in Roger and Val time - so having had a chance to stew, now Val starts a massive barney. The volume's turned up on the dialogue to the point where, in fleeting moments, you wonder if the show's going to lose its essential warmth. But Roger and Val love each other too much, and the writers love tossing in cheeky references (Asda, Take a Break magazine, Roger's predictable ordering in Italian restaurants) too much for that to happen.

Trailer: Armando Iannucci's Veep

Take a first look at Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus in action in the HBO political comedy, written by The Thick of It creator Aramdno Iannucci.

At first, this new comedy goes through the motions with a depressing lack of imagination. Its main characters - nice virgin; crass, gawky, showboating virgin; swotty PC girl who secretly loves nice virgin; posh, bright girl who's rebelling against her parents - are archetypes from American films, unaltered. Real teens are a lot more diverse, and funny.

But the title tells you this is a set-up episode. The booze-fuelled fumble in the middle will spawn a baby. Can Pramface step up and grow up? Someone thinks so, because they've splashed out on Anna Chancellor and Angus Deayton as the parents at war. And the young actors are blameless. Pramface could still recover from its inauspicious start.

Rich in laughs: how Sky took over British comedy

Why is all the good new comedy on satellite? Sky's Lucy Lumsden explains her masterplan.

A fourth series of chummy but barbed collaborative satire. Thomas's unusually sharp, mildly eccentric audience members put forward policies that they think should be enshrined in law: the right to graffiti people who walk slowly along pavements, for instance, or a plan to reconfigure Britain so that half our car journeys are steeply downhill and require no fuel.

It's best when it's not as silly as it appears. Is the idea of giving everyone a £10,000 voucher to spend to stimulate the economy a worse idea than bank bailouts? And should the Lords be re-appointed annually via a lottery? Why not?

Why Roger and Val just can't be bettered

Jack Seale welcomes the return of a uniquely great sitcom.

Now we're purring. Stella's son Luke is out of prison and, new this week, her ex's dreadful girlfriend has gone into the dog-grooming business: "One of our most popular packages is 'the Dog's Dinner', which includes a colour rinse of your choice." Every character does their thing so nicely, the show can flit between them at its leisure, and they're all welcome when they pop up.

Luke (Craig Gallivan) is the main story in episode four, however. Stella desperately hopes he can stay out of trouble, despite Mo from the Bap Factory's insistence that "he'll be back behind bars before you can say Britain's Got Talent."

The story's a simple one but you can relax in front of it, confident that it'll never lapse into tweeness - because there's nothing less relaxing than that - and that there'll be killer jokes along the way.