Martin Clunes

Newcomers such as Mock the Week can snap at its heels, but Have I Got News for You continues to operate at the same reliably high comic level that it has done for years. Much in the same way, you could say, as tonight's host. He's had his ups and downs, but Martin Clunes remains a British comic institution - he's currently in Doc Martin on ITV1 - and seems certain to prosper as the latest beneficiary of the show's Sugababes-style hot-desking policy. Also worthy of note this week is guest panellist, the Guardian's Charlie Brooker.

The long-running and consistently funny news panel show returns for its 38th run. Martin Clunes takes the presenter's chair as the series's first guest host. Joining him is Arlene Phillips, whose sacking from Strictly Come Dancing caused a storm of controversy, plus writer and broadcaster Charlie Brooker.

Surely the dumping of Angus Deayton as the regular host of Have I Got News For You, way back in whenever-the-heck-it-was, was the best thing that ever happened to this programme.

Not because Deayton was a bad presenter - let's be fair, the man's autocue-reading skills were first-class - but because it brought about the rota system, presenting-wise, that's managed to keep the show fresh ever since.

And given that tonight, believe it or not, is the start of its 38th series (with Martin Clunes in the chair), maintaining both its freshness and its must-watch status is no mean feat.

Mock The Week does a sterling job at, er, mocking the week but we still have a special place in our hearts for its televisual older brother, which returns tonight for an astonishing 38th series. Helping Ian Hislop and Paul Merton with the mirth will be satire's latest poster boy Charlie Brooker and axed Strictly judge Arlene Phillips, and Martin Clunes is back as guest host, a role he's made a good fist of before... though it beats me why they can't get someone permanent in the main chair.

Still, this is a BBC Jane Austen and compared with Doc Martin, which last week beat it in the ratings, it is a masterpiece. Yesterday's episode, in which Martin Clunes waded through the usual shallow rock pool of West Country misunderstandings, was much weaker than the season opener, and continued to deprive us of decent scenes between the bad doctor and his pregnant ex, Louisa. There is gentle drama and there is soporific, and this seems on the turn.

Having succeeded Victor Meldrew as television's leading miseryguts in 2004, Dr Martin Ellingham (Martin Clunes) was well-positioned for a long and fruitful career, which he's continuing - begrudgingly - with this fourth series of ITV's popular pastoral sitcom, Doc Martin. In tonight's episode, the Doc bungles a consultation with an elderly couple, berates heavily-pregnant Louisa (Caroline Catz) for being too active, and toys with the idea of leaving it all behind for a high-powered job at Imperial College in London.

Terminally dense PC Penhale (John Marquez) provides most of the Cornish clot comedy tonight as rumour of a genetic illness in the family brings on a bout of hypochondria. Meanwhile, with even Doc Edith's (Lia Williams) flirting failing to loosen up our emotionally constipated medic (Martin Clunes), the romantic focus remains on ex-fiancée - but soon-to-be mother of his child - Louisa (Caroline Catz), who has prenatal anxiety.

Quickening of the pulse

"If we can keep it going imaginatively, without just trotting it out, I think it's worth it," Martin Clunes said recently about Doc Martin, now in its fourth series.

So much for cosy clotted cream Cornish whimsy, this was Doc Martin dishing out edgy philosophy laced with knife-edge drama. Well, it was for five minutes or so. The rest was jokes about blue wee and bisexual beardy blokes, but I have to admit that Doc Martin knows how to tweak my guilty-pleasure buds. It helps that each and every character in it is slightly potty, thus reinforcing the citydweller's view that the country/seaside is nice for a visit but you're likely to go a bit bonkers if you actually live there. It teases you too, keeping potentially intriguing characters such as PC Penhale and Pauline Lamb puttering around in the background when you want to dig deeper into their endearing lunacy. Indeed, there are times when Doc Martin would be better without Doc Martin, so the threatened departure of Martin Clunes could actually turn out to be a good thing. So what if its lobster pots are overflowing with cardboard cut-out eccentrics, there's just enough salt among the whimsical sugar to make Doc Martin perfect chill-out medicine.

In a battle between Martin Ellingham and Peter Kingdom over who had the superior sedately paced Sunday-night coastal-set drama, the harrumphing GP would win hands down. Martin Clunes's Portwenn doc, with all his suppressed yearning, is a fully rounded presence, something it's strangely hard to say about Stephen Fry's Norfolk-based solicitor. Tonight's developments are a case in point. At the end of last week's fourth-series opener, long-suffering Louisa turned up at Martin's place looking very pregnant indeed. And it's no time at all before she's dealing with doctor Edith, who - as we also gleaned from episode one - has something of a history with Louisa's former fiance. You'd never find all this on a show like Kingdom, where romantic angst seems to be restricted to the supporting characters. So it's very nice to have Doc Martin back in the schedules, quietly but appealingly going about its business with a central relationship that the writers consistently find interesting ways to refresh.