Keith Watson

The Alternative Comedy Experience made an excellent point about its subject - if only it were a little bit funnier.

When did 'alternative' become a dirty word in comedy circles? Early on in The Alternative Comedy Experience (Comedy Central), Stewart Lee noted that 'for an entire generation of people, alternative comedy is a pejorative term', which led to a cracking definition of what the term alternative comedy actually means: 'Every second joke is funny.'

The tongue was firmly in cheek but there's a serious mission behind Lee's latest comedy caper. Disgruntled by the relentless commodification of comedy - the stadium tours, the DVDs, the rent-a-gob TV panel shows - Lee is after giving a chance to comedians with an edge to them. Let's kick Michael Mcintyre and the pack of mainstream comics who dominate TV's comedy schedules into touch.

It's a noble cause but, of course, The Alternative Comedy Experience, which consists of stand-up highlights from an Edinburgh club, is tucked away late at night on a minority channel. No scaring of the horses there, but it's a start. Comedy, like rock music in 1976, has become safe and complacent, the one-time young guns suckered into safety by money. You can scarcely blame them, but I will anyway.

My only wish is that it had been a bit funnier. Issy Suttie, Peep Show's Dobbie, and token crazy German Henning Wehn, seemed like safe, first-episode choices when here was a chance to really roam around comedy's outer fringes. David O'Doherty was the pick of the unfamiliar faces, coming up with the gag of the night which started with the economic crisis and ended with badminton. But it wasn't nearly enough.

For the most part, Lee's off-stage chats with the comedians easily eclipsed anything that had gone down on stage, prompting the idea that Lee should have a stab at being an alternative chat show host. That would be one with no guests.

Little Crackers has been a highlight at recent Christmases and I was hoping for more of the same from Common Ground, another batch of short films with a humourous edge. But both Floyd, with Charles Dance as an ageing rocker, and Patricia, which had Jessica Hynes as a Tory politician, felt like jokes where no one hadf thought up a punchline. Small doesn't always mean perfectly formed.

Interview: Sharon Rooney

Two minutes in to chatting with Sharon Rooney about My Mad Fat Diary and my shorthand is turning Scottish cartwheels, trying to decipher her rich Glaswegian accent. It's a credit to her convincing portrayal of the decidedly English teen diarist Rae in E4's new comedy drama that her voice comes as a surprise.

Ruth Jones interview

'Thank you for saying "different from", not "different to", that's my big bugbear at the moment,' smiles Ruth Jones at the end of our chat about the second series of her hit comedy drama Stella. It throws me off balance for a second. It's a new one on me to have my syntax applauded by an interviewee.

Last Tango In Halifax was a drama with heart to spare

It's not the sort of show that wins awards but it would be a crime if Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi didn't get the chance to dust off their thank you speeches on the back of Last Tango In Halifax (BBC1).

Taking us into dark heart of father/son relationships

One of the pleasures of Little Crackers (Sky1), the series of short comedy Christmas films that only three years in already feels like a warm tradition, is spotting the one that has the legs to grow into a fully fledged series. Chris O'Dowd blazed that trail, snapping the cherishable Moone Boy out of his Cracker. And this year my money's on Dylan Moran.

There are so many dramas that drop us in on couples' relationships where you can't imagine what they saw in each other in the first place, that it comes as a surprise when you're confronted with a pair of living, breathing lovers.

So my nomination for Most Believable TV Couple Of The Year 2012 (they won last year, too) goes to Steve and Becky from Him & Her, as portrayed in all their grubby, glorious affection by Russell Tovey and Sarah Solemani. They're not the usual portrait of love's young dream but there's not a heartbeat when you don't believe they are made for each other.

The third series of Him & Her has seen Steve and Becky's relationship picking up a gear, the over-arching storyline - inasmuch as a slacker comedy can muster an overarching story-line - built on Steve's plans to propose. So last night's penultimate episode took the bold step of taking us right back to the roots of their relationship. Seventeen episodes is a long time to wait to see how they first got together and it could have come a cropper. But it was a comic gem.

Writer Stefan Golaszewski gave his stars plenty of empty spaces to shuffle around each other nervously and you could almost touch the awkwardness. Tovey and Solemani were note-perfect as a pair who couldn't quite believe they fancy the bones off each other, wondering if anyone would ever make the first move.

It was all about the chemistry, and these two could bottle it up and sell it. Catch up with them before next week's finale - it's a corker.

Peep Show made despair ridiculously funny

The eighth series of Peep Show saw David Mitchell and Robert Webb return as odd couple Mark and Jez, whose unlikely bromance is now as comforting as it is funny.

Getting On is a minor masterpiece of a hospital comedy that truly deserves a wider audience.

This week, the staff were grappling with a green initiative cascading down from on high but it was Sister Den's story that caused cardiac arrest as she struggled with her pregnancy.

Joanna Scanlan, who also plays the 'blockage' known as Terri in Armando Iannucci's top-drawer political satire The Thick Of It, is an unsung heroine of British comedy.

It's a testing time for the super-powered community-service caper as the fourth series kicks off. It's survived the departure of a key player before, when subbing Joe Gilgun for Robert Sheehan proved a masterstroke. But with no less than three of the original cast, including Iwan Rheon's Simon, gone this time round, can it still cast its spell? With Karla Crome (so good in BBC2's Murder) among the newcomers, it's got a fighting chance.