Neil Dudgeon

A somewhat surprising second series for the Caroline Quentin vehicle that isn't the one where she solves murders or works in a travel agent.

This is the one where she's married to Neil Dudgeon and they have kids from their previous marriages as well as a baby between them. The step-parent aspect doesn't generate much mileage - it just means the two older kids call her Maddy instead of mum.

Their neighbours, straight out of sitcom central, are still in residence and tonight when the kids from next-door show no inclination to go home, you might think you're just watching a remake of My Family.

Tonight, Maddy and her husband attempt to put the sparkle back in their marriage by going on a date.

Last series they were newlyweds and the spark had gone already. It's not a great sign either that the babysitter gets the best scenes.

Family comedy starring Caroline Quentin and Neil Dudgeon as Maddy and Jim, a recently married couple adjusting to a life together with each other's children. Unfortunately the success of snappy sitcom Outnumbered makes these humdrum shenanigans look as outdated as they are unfunny.

BBC1's new domestic sitcom Life of Riley has the bad luck to begin when the triumphant second series of Outnumbered is still fresh in our minds. By noticing the fairly obvious fact that family life is funny just the way it is, Outnumbered has demonstrated that the layers of sitcom contrivance in other shows are both tired and unnecessary, and actually smother the comedy.

Here, Caroline Quentin plays Maddy Riley, whose family consists of a nine-year-old child from her previous marriage, her new husband and his two teenagers, and a baby. Maggie last night found a pregnancy-testing kit - which, despite being unopened, instantly convinced her young Katie (Lucinda Dryzek) must be pregnant. Next, husband Jim (Neil Dudgeon) found the same kit and decided Maddy must be pregnant. And so on.

Needless to say, it's much easier to sneer at a determinedly mainstream sitcom than to write one. It's also true that Life of Riley does have some nice lines, especially when simply observing family life. The trouble last night was that with all that wildly implausible plotting to be done, there just wasn't room for enough of them. Instead, we ended up spending another half-hour firmly on Planet Sitcom: that strange world where people behave not like anybody in real life, but merely like people in other sitcoms.

Outnumbered is the great, definitive family sitcom, so I have no idea why anybody would bother with Life of Riley, which, apart from its nods to modern family life, could have been made 40 years ago with Wendy Craig in the Caroline Quentin role. Quentin is Maddy Riley (her name is Riley and the title of the series is Life of Riley - do you get it?), a mother who marries and finds herself head of a new brood - her husband's (Neil Dudgeon) children, her own son and a new baby. It's very broad and pantomime-y, with everyone mugging, shrugging and sighing, and it's packed with 'comic' misunderstandings and farce - Quentin even hides under a bed at one point. Life of Riley is innocuous, inoffensive and is just the kind of sitcom that will appeal to ten-year-olds who'll probably enjoy the way the family's knowing kids always get the better of their hapless parents.

The bbc seems to love its family based sitcoms. But for every My Family, which regularly pulls in the viewers, there is a Mad About Alice, the laugh-free show with Amanda Holden and Jamie Theakston that was put out of its misery after just one series.

This new offering, with Caroline Quentin and Neil Dudgeon, sits somewhere in between. There are some witty moments but these are drowned out by more regular unfunny happenings, so unimaginative and staid it's embarrassing.

Actors of Quentin and Dudgeon's calibre deserve much better scripts. They play Maddy and Jim, divorced parents who have recently married and are adapting to life as one giant family.