Julia Raeside

A parody 80s cop show, borrowing tropes from both US and UK police series, with some amazing cameos and a script laced with mostly weak gags. The deliberately hammy style sails too close to Toast. You can feel the good intent bubbling under but failing to surface because no one seems able to hit their comic stride. Although the two leads are very likable and tonight's opener features the unbeatable Paul Ritter as their villainous arch nemesis, an ice-cream and drug distributor, it misses by a mile. A great shame.

Yonderland: welcome return of the daftest elves on TV

The second series of the fantasy comedy series brings more well-crafted silliness to its sketches about rubbish wizards and magic squabbles.

A sixth series for the satire show that picks apart the week's news while making it look like a chat between three particularly witty friends down the pub. It features, as usual, Adam Hills as the genial mastermind and Alex Brooker and Josh Widdicombe as his grinning familiars. Tonight, the men are joined by stretched Muppet Stephen Merchant.

Where is Patrick getting his information from? Viv (Joanna Scanlan) wants to know, but she won't act until she's sure the leak is coming from inside her own department. There's been a shooting on a bridge: a surgeon taken out by a sniper while jogging. But as the team start hunting the shooter, Viv and Dinah (Elaine Cassidy) sneak around doing their own digging. And the ongoing murder investigation finally throws up a shocking breakthrough that leaves Viv reeling and completely losing her usual composure. Not for long, though. God, Viv's the best.

Second series for the super awkward-buddy comedy starring real-life best friends Emily Mortimer and Dolly Wells. The now-reconciled chums decide to stay in a lighthouse for inspiration, so they can write their new play together. Then it's off to Em's house in Brooklyn where Doll moves into the au pair's room. At first, it's all happy selfies and mutual appreciation. But it can't last long as the delicately balanced see-saw of their friendship begins to teeter. Tonight's guest star is Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Is it a mistake to axe Never Mind the Buzzcocks?

Last week BBC Two announced that the anarchic music panel show is to be dropped after almost 20 years. Are they right?

We're at the halfway point in Paul Abbott's smart cop drama and tonight the Friday Street law enforcers are on the trail of a gang conning the hard-up into selling their kidneys on the black market. The female leads utterly make this, giving Abbott's zappy dialogue true heart and humanity. That said, if we could just pop a moratorium on dead-girl victims in all TV drama for a year, that would be great. The unending parade of throttled, hacked women in canals - continued here - needs to stop.

Paul Abbott's new Manchester-set police drama starts with a bang as you would expect. Dina (Elaine Cassidy) is a determined, unafraid powerhouse of policing; Joy (Alexandra Roach) is her nervy colleague; and Joanna Scanlan is Viv, their boss. It's the women who lead this, and brilliant support comes fromPaul Ritter and Will Mellor. We didn't really need another police drama but, if there has to be one, Abbott is the man for the job. It thrusts and bulges with his energy and heart while avoiding procedural cliche. A brilliant start.

Inside No. 9: Intrigue, unease and emotional intensity

The second series of half-hour stories from Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton has been full of unexpected comedy and deep, dark horror, with nods to everything from Witchfinder General to Alan Ayckbourn.

Tim Key's Late Night Poetry Programme (Radio 4) is back for a third series and this week's episode dealt with "the thorny issue of dating", featuring short, bathetic stanzas on flirting, speed dating and other disappointments of the heart. He plays a version of himself: a disappointed, slightly pompous fool with some very odd ideas about courting. This week he brought female companion Ann White (a perfectly deadpan Ellie White) for a romantic tour of the studio, complete with champagne, to the growing annoyance of Tom Basden, his brilliantly dour musical accompanist. While he provided tender flamenco strings, the hapless bard attempted to set a quixotic tone, but it wasn't long before their carping took centre stage and Ann White retreated to the control room with a Brian Cox podcast. "You've been a sourpuss for almost two minutes now," Key hissed as the guitarist tried to push on with the show.

It's only 15 minutes long but every episode perfectly showcases Key's supreme command of tone. His sentences never end where you expect them to and the oddly appealing atmosphere he creates is so spellbinding, it's like emerging from a nice fog when he spits you out at the other end. Fifteen minutes is both perfect and far too short.