Michael Hogan

Episodes (BBC Two) is a Transatlantic affair about a husband-and-wife writing team (Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig) who decamp to Los Angeles and adapt their History Boys-esque Brit hit into a dumbed-down US sitcom starring Matt LeBlanc. How very meta. How very postmodern. How very mediocre.

The cartoonish American characters supplied the lion's share of laughs. Ageing playboy LeBlanc sent himself up gamely: vain, self-destructive, increasingly doughy but still silver foxy, with enough flashes of Joey Tribbiani to keep Friends fans happy. Daisy Haggard and Kathleen Rose Perkins were funny as face-pulling, nice-but-dim network executives Myra and Carol, with a tendency to trip over their own high heels in their scramble up the career ladder.

There were some sharp lines. Matt's battle for custody of his children was undermined by his arrest for drunk-driving. "You're the worst client I've ever had," barked his lawyer (our own Nigel Planer, putting on a ropy American accent). "I'd happily trade you for two Mel Gibsons and a Tiger Woods." Carol was infatuated with her square-jawed boss but insisted: "Obviously I would never go there." Beverly (Greig) raised a sceptical eyebrow: "Pur-lease. You keep an apartment there."

Newly reconciled Beverly and Sean (Mangan) were on the rocks again after she admitted having a one-night stand. It's this central pair that are the problem. They convince as writing partners but not as a couple. Mangan, who is normally excellent (see Green Wing, Dirk Gently) comes over like a whiny student. Greig's character is the moral centre of the show but this makes her a bit blank and boring. Their chemistry is strangely sexless. A snogging scene was faintly uncomfortable, of the sort that makes a teenager go, "Ugh, Muuum, Daaad, that's disgusting!" if their parents kiss.

Somehow Episodes has made it to a third series without leaving much of an impression. A fourth has even been commissioned. Presumably it survives owing to the star power of LeBlanc. It makes the odd sharp observation about Hollywood and the fickle nature of celebrity but feels undercooked. It's so busy smugly admiring its own cleverness that it forgot to add enough jokes.

Derek is a so-called comedy about a care home worker with learning difficulties. This self-indulgent vanity project attempts to be movingly bittersweet but is instead mawkish and embarrassing. Most of this penultimate episode was dedicated to a dead dog, while Gervais's eponymous character cried, gurned and mugged for the camera. As deceased pets go, it was no Norwegian Blue parrot.

The Office was a work of comic genius but in the decade since, Gervais's output has been on a downward curve. Derek is the trough. It borrows devices from The Office (the mockumentary format, the Tim 'n' Dawn-style romance to lend it heart) but uses them ham-fistedly. Gervais's patronising central performance is based on crudely drawn mannerisms and fortune-cookie clichés. Do we really need a multimillionaire to don a cardigan, cock his head to one side and tell us, "Be nice to animals" or "Kindness is magic"? The cast, especially the excellent Kerry Godliman, do their best with a clumsy script, but the only three-dimensional character was that dead dog.

Episodes, Derek: is this British sitcom death knell?

So with the awful Derek airing the same evening as the deeply average Episodes, is the death knell sounding for British sitcom?

10 great forgotten comedy shows

As BBC Two unearths some old comic gems for a new documentary, Michael Hogan looks at 10 shows that have been forgotten by history.

Can Comedy Playhouse save the British sitcom?

As the BBC revives its Comedy Playhouse strand, Michael Hogan wonders if it can replicate the success of Steptoe & Son and Porridge.

Trying Again: 'warm, witty and winningly old-fashioned'

The excellent cast, including Jo Joyner and Chris Addison, and the fizzing script of Sky's new cosy sitcom made it a winner, says Michael Hogan.

Tommy Cooper: the best quotes

Last night David Threlfall turned in an award-worthy performance as Tommy Cooper in the ITV biopic Not Like That, Like This. Here, we celebrate the fez-wearing comic conjuror's finest lines...

What The Trip To Italy tells us about male friendship

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's gently competitive riffs and references highlight the changing composition of modern male relationships.

W1A, episode two, review

After last week's breathless and slightly smug opener, Beeb-satirising mockumentary W1A (BBC Two) got into its stride.

W1A, BBC Two, review

On the evidence of this opener, W1A doesn't have the charm of its predecessor Twenty Twelve.