John Crace

There are some titles that make my heart sink. Last Tango in Halifax (BBC1) was one of them, because I knew exactly what I was in for from the very start; a light, bitter-sweet rom-com with plenty of outdoor shots of the Yorkshire countryside to draw in the same viewers who lapped up the James Herriot vet tales. With not a hint of butter. And so it proved. Within seconds of their first appearance on screen, every character's life story was pretty much established. The widowed grandparents who used to fancy each other as kids - will they, won't they get together, what do you think? - the struggling grownup children and their dead or feckless partners, and the grandchildren making their way in the world. The only part of the first episode that took me by surprise, was Caroline's (Sarah Lancashire) lesbian dalliance with one of her teachers. Though on reflection, I should probably have seen that one coming, too.

Actually, that wasn't the only surprise. Or the biggest one, which was that despite it all being terribly familiar and predictable, Last Tango was not at all bad. It was the quality of the acting that made the show work. While I couldn't help wondering what Derek Jacobi (Alan) and Anne Reid (Celia) might have done with a more challenging script, I couldn't fault their commitment. It's not that often a pair of 70-year-olds get to take centre stage in a rom-com and they did so with charm, coyness and experience; they even managed to make the ridiculous car chase feel slightly less ridiculous. God knows how.

The rest of the cast weren't so shabby either. Both Nicola Walker (Gillian) and Sarah Lancashire have expressions that can convey a world of pain without saying a word - a distinct advantage here - helpfully glossing over most of the clunkier elements of the plot. So against my expectations, I found myself making a note to watch next week's episode. Even though I have still got a fair idea of exactly what's going to happen.

I know Fresh Meat didn't start out as a rom-com and writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong still might be horrified to find their creation described as such. But that is undoubtedly what it has become, albeit in a very street-smart, sharp and funny way. It's amazing how many rom-coms forget to add the com part.

But if it was the humour that initially caught people's attention, it has long since become just one element in a show of increasing depth. Much as I admired the performances of Derek Jacobi, Anne Reid et al in Last Tango, I wasn't greatly involved with their characters and I wasn't at all put out when their hour was up. With Fresh Meat, I am. I feel a sense of loss when the closing credits roll. I've come to care about these people. I love the way they move from the deadly serious to the totally absurd mid-sentence, in the way only university students can. I love the awkwardness of their relationships. Or rather, entanglements.

As JP - his Stowe chums call him JPaedo, but be careful what you tweet - Jack Whitehall is in danger of making posh boys sympathetic and Josie's attempts to make the housemates believe she hasn't been kicked off the course were becoming more and more poignant. Only Vod could imagine Josie must have acquired a smack habit. Don't ever change, Vod. Nor you, Kingsley and Oregon. And as for Howard ...? How could Sabine have gone back to Holland?

Even the minor characters - the geology lecturer excepted - are well drawn. Professor Shales (Tony Gardner), Oregon's ex - she has now got off with his son - is a case in point. As John, the slightly seedy man having a midlife crisis in Last Tango, Gardner was fairly one-dimensional: as Shales, the slightly seedy man having a midlife crisis, his desperate sadness is almost touching. Almost. When rom-coms are this good, what's not to love?

TV review: Last Tango in Halifax; Fresh Meat

Reviews of comedy dramas Last Tango in Halifax and Fresh Meat.

If Getting On (BBC4), Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine's sitcom set in a geriatric ward, makes it to a ninth series, I'll be very happy. Though to call it a sitcom is to do the show a disservice, as it's got far fewer gags and many more laughs than most. As well as being darkly funny - old age and death are both subjects rich in humour for the self-aware, the middle-aged or the deeply unpleasant - Getting On is also tender and surprisingly moving, as Nurse Kim (Brand) and Sister Den (Scanlan) try to ignore Dr Pippa (Pepperdine) and treat the patients with an entirely believable mixture of indifference and respect.

Most of all, everything about this show feels real and unforced: from what's included - such as the sheet shortages - to what's not. Few of the patients speak; fewer still have any visitors. Getting old is most definitely not for wimps, and Getting On should be prescribed viewing for everyone.

One of the things that makes Fresh Meat work so well is that it's actually a soppy sitcom - with more than a hint of romcom - with the comedy stemming from the characters gauche attempts to project themselves as hard and knowing when the reality is they are anything but.

All the characters are much as we left them. Kingsley has grown an apology for a goatee, but otherwise his and Josie's on-off relationship is still on-off, Vod is still on the scrounge, Oregon is still trying not to be posh and JP is still ... Jack Whitehall. I'm not convinced there's a difference between Whitehall and any of the characters he plays, but for the time being that doesn't really matter as he is rather good at being whoever he is. Writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong also appear to have written out the show's major weakness - geology lecturer Dan - and introduced Giles and Sabine to make sure the meat stays fresh. A comedy that's actually funny. It could catch on.

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By rights, Alan Partridge should have been dead as a character years ago, the last drops of humour long since wrung out of the local radio presenter from Norwich, but Steve Coogan keeps finding ways to make him feel fresh.

It's not so much a reinvention as a layering process. Coogan knows we know Partridge, so he doesn't waste time or insult his audience by writing unnecessary scenes to re-establish his character: rather it feels as if we are starting where we last left off and the pleasure comes from Partridge continuing to reveal more of himself than he actually intended. As the cracks in his public persona widen, he becomes a genuinely darker, more complex, more interesting character. And more sympathetic - though that could say more about my attraction to the twisted.

The set-up was a parody of any number of early evening TV documentaries in which a minor celebrity fills an hour of screen time by pottering around some fairly dull places, talking to fairly dull people while trying to convince everyone it's all enormously interesting. On its own, this would have made good comedy, as there were also sideswipes at Bear Grylls' and Dan Snow's annoying presentational tics of adding drama to the tediously mundane. But with Partridge it's always what you don't expect that makes him so well worth watching. His piece about Norwich city hall that started off as a riff on The King's Speech and ended with him fantasising about Hitler making a victory speech from the balcony with the bronze lions below raising their paws in Nazi salutes was just wonderful.

There were any number of other great moments, such as Partridge taking over the fruit and veg market stall and saying: "I had a go at doing the things it's taken Mike 25 years to learn, and it was a piece of piss. But I like Mike. He's a sort of village idiot from years gone by"; or Partridge test-driving a Range Rover, saying: "I bet you think we just included this because I wanted to have a go in one"; you just know there are out-takes like these in every documentary maker's editing suite.

I found Walking and Talking (Sky Atlantic), Kathy Burke's new series about two 14-year-old girls in 1970s London who walk and talk adolescent angst to be not compelling, though this might have been because I was all funned out by the rest of Sky Atlantic's comedy output then. I know TV channels like to have themed evenings and load their schedules accordingly, but it's not how I like to watch television. I don't get home from work on a Monday evening and think, "Tonight, Matthew, I shall just watch comedy", in much the same way I don't choose to watch only documentaries on a Tuesday, crime dramas on a Wednesday or panel quiz shows on a Thursday. I like variety. And even if I didn't, almost any comedy won't seem that funny after Alan Partridge or Veep.

Walking and Talking had its moments and I suspect it will be a show that creeps up on its audience rather than wows it from the off. Personally, though, I could have done with a few more laughs. Most of the ones I did get were from Burke's own cameo as the Angry Nun in the school playground. More of her and I could be persuaded.