John Crace

Parody is having a bit of a moment

Though parody may mock the original, it can also be a new, playful way in to understanding the original both for those who know the text and those who don't or were put off it at school.

Three episodes in and the third series of Episodes has settled in comfortably. Which is rather the problem. The main charm of Episodes was always its awkwardness.

Initially, Sean and Bev were the outsiders bringing their English reserve and idiom to the sledgehammer of the Hollywood TV industry; now, though, their accents apart, they are both native LA. They've long since ceased to care about the show they are writing and are jaundiced insiders in the dream-factory, churning out second-rate scripts in exchange for first-rate money. In short, a key part of the sit has gone out of the sitcom: Episodes has become exactly the type of show it used to have a pop at.

It is, at least, still a com. Tamsin Greig, Stephen Mangan and Matt LeBlanc are all wonderfully good actors with near-perfect comic timing, so there are still plenty of laughs to be had. Just not as many as there used to be. It's become routine. The scripts feel a bit saggier, though it's possible that's part of a meta gag in which writers David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik are mimicking the trajectory of Sean and Bev's own writing. If so, it's a dangerous game.

The key faultline is that Episodes has written itself into a cul-de-sac. There's nothing left to it apart from a series of relationships and most of the interesting things that can happen have already happened. Sean and Bev have split up, slept with other people and are now back together-ish, while Matt is just Matt. There's some fun to be had in the ongoing "Will Sean, Won't Sean, ever get a stiffy again?" saga, but you feel that Greig and Mangan are working overtime trying to make it funny. They know each other so well that they can finish each other's sentences and gags; more worryingly, so can I. I'm not even sure I'm that bothered whether Sean does get a stiffy or not any more.

Towards the end of this episode, Bev told Carol that she and Sean wanted to get Pucks! canned so they could go back to England. I couldn't help agreeing. Except we know that's almost certainly not going to happen as the BBC has already commissioned a fourth series. Like Sean and Bev, Episodes has become a victim of its own success.

W1A - TV review

More sitcom than satire: the BBC proves a bit of a struggle for Twenty Twelve's Olympic Deliverance man.

Not all the inhabitants of South Tyneside were that thrilled when the sitcom Hebburn (BBC Two) was broadcast last year, so I doubt they are pleased to see it return for a second series. I can't say that I was initially, either, as I hadn't found it particularly funny. It's still not exactly subtle comedy, but the first episode of the new run turned out to have more gags than the whole of the first series combined. If scriptwriter Jason Cook can belatedly find his sense of humour, then so can the people of Hebburn.

Bad Education - TV review

Jack Whitehall and Abbey Grove School need some special measures - unless, of course, it's all a send-up.

Count Arthur Strong - TV review

Following Count Arthur Strong's move from radio comedy slot to television, he needs to up his game - and his gag quotient - pretty damn quickly.

"Don't get me started," said Gerald, Baselricky town council's health and safety officer, on a couple of occasions during the first episode of Ben Elton's new sitcom The Wright Way (BBC1). If only Elton had listened to Gerald, everyone would have been a great deal happier. Lame doesn't begin to describe this car-crash of a comedy that involved actors standing around awkwardly doing their best at damage limitation. There was no point in them even trying to make the script convincing.

Several well-telegraphed knob gags; a slapstick routine involving taps that wasn't funny the first time, never mind the second; "comedy" lesbians; a litany of familiar Middle England rants about women taking too long in the bathroom, loading the dishwasher properly and how the modern world has generally gone mad; and a lead character who plans to shut down the whole of the town to reduce a speed bump by 6mm. I've had more laughs reading a Richard Littlejohn column. The Wright Way is a sitcom that would have looked and felt badly dated in the 1970s.

What's happened to Elton? If he intended to write a latter-day Reggie Perrin, someone should have told him he had missed the mark badly. I know there are a lot of people who have never liked him or found him funny - he did too often mistake shouting for humour - but his heart was in the right place and he took aim at worthwhile targets. Back in the 80s, when a great many entertainers were riding the Thatcher - sorry to bring her up again, but it's unavoidable - bandwagon of self-interest, he was in the vanguard of those with a vocal, leftist opposition.

If nothing else, Elton made you think; in The Wright Way, he does precisely the opposite. More unforgivably, he's not even funny with it. Has he mellowed, sold out or just given up? Maybe he feels that Thatcher won so there's no point in fighting old battles. Either way, he has written a sitcom that only someone like the late baroness would probably have enjoyed. And if that doesn't give him sleepless nights, it ought to. My name is John Crace, good night.

I'm sure that her agent might see things differently, but I've rather felt that Sue Perkins hadn't been doing herself any favours by positioning herself as the female Stephen Fry. Quite apart from it being annoying to find her popping up on TV three or four times a week on any show that asked, it seemed like a dilution of a genuine talent. So it's a relief to find her back on form and returning to her core business in her new sitcom, Heading Out (BBC2), in which she plays a gay vet who is about to turn 40 and is terrified of coming out to her parents.

There were a few rather flabby moments in the middle - almost as if Perkins had lost her nerve and thought middle England couldn't stomach a lesbian sitcom without a Benny Hill-style netball scene along with a crap 70s muzak soundtrack - but the start and the end were sharp and often extremely funny. If Perkins can keep the gags coming then this sitcom definitely has legs. More than can be said for Mosley, the dead cat, who came dangerously close to stealing the show.

Why the coalition cabinet is just like Dad's Army

Michael Gove may have been compared to Young Master Grace, but there's another 70s sitcom that resembles the current government more closely.

There were a few beacons of light [on New Year's Eve]. Normally the idea of a whole hour of a Simon Amstell stand-up routine would be at least half an hour too long, but in Numb: Simon Amstell Live at the BBC (BBC4) his morose, loser schtick was a welcome antidote to all the relentless cheeriness and ersatz sentiment everywhere else. Amstell's killer line was: "You wake up. And it just gets darker." Thanks to the rest of the TV schedules, I knew exactly what he meant.