Lucy Punch

Motherland, BBC Two, review

Promising pilot of comedy about middle-class parenting.

Essentially Mumsnet: the sitcom, an utterly hysterical and bracingly honest look at the messy business of motherhood. Diane ("Cunk") Morgan, Lucy Punch and Anna Maxwell Martin are by turns chaotic, uber-competitive and Not Coping Very Well ("I really want the children to be brought up like I was - by my mother") in this delicious one-off from the combined writing talents of Graham and Helen Linehan, Sharon Horgan and Holly Walsh. Fingers crossed for a series.

Motherland has realities of school run down to a tee

Modern parents will recognise themselves - and cringe - in this pilot comedy from Catastrophe's Sharon Horgan and Father Ted's Graham Linehan, says Ben Dowell.

Motherland preview

Frenetic, stressy and trying to juggle several balls at once... the whole tone of Motherland has a lot of parallels with the chaotic realities of parenthood, which it represents so well.

BBC Landmark Sitcom Season: the pilots review

In my last post I looked at three of the sitcom revivals that the BBC have produced but alongside these pieces, this new season also includes five new sitcom pilots. Over the next two weeks, all five of these shows will air and in this article I will pass judgement on them all.

Motherland - review

It's straight to the naughty step if the BBC declines to commission a full series.

TV preview: Motherland, BBC2

How kind of the BBC to save the sitcom pilot with the most potential until last.

Cop comedy drama Vexed has returned for a second series, complete with a brand new partner for Toby Stephens' lazy, disorganised and self-regarding detective inspector Jack Armstrong. Lucy Punch leaves the cast to be replaced by Miranda Raison as DI Georgina Dixon, and I'm sorry to say there is as little chemistry between the new pairing as there was between the old. Possibly even less.

This is something of a problem when your whole series is predicated on one of those love/hate, chalk/cheese, will they/won't they relationships beloved of television producers.

It is never helpful to apportion blame, but nonetheless the fault lies with Stephens' insistence on trying to play the comedy instead of the character. What he produces is a bizarre and wholly irritating combination of Simon Templar and Swiss Tony, the car salesman from The Fast Show. He attempts loveable oaf, but manages only the second bit.

No Lucy Punch in the second series of this comedy detective drama. Instead, we have Miranda Spooks Raison's ambitious Georgina Dixon alongside Toby Stephens as laid-back DI Jack Armstrong. She ruffles his feathers as she tries to beat him solving their first case together. More sparks to come, we think.

The biggest mystery to be solved in this police procedural is how it got recommissioned after a widely panned debut two years ago. The format borrows heavily from Moonlighting, purporting to be a comedy drama about a dishevelled detective (Toby Stephens) tackling crimes and sparking off a sassy female sidekick - Spooks' Miranda Raison has stepped in after Lucy Punch jumped ship. Upon examination of the evidence, there's little comedy and hardly any drama to recommend in tonight's opener about a car dealer's murder.