Olivia Colman

Like Nick Helm's BBC3 comedy Uncle, this period sitcom from Sky Atlantic begins with a botched suicide attempt, but (as with Uncle) the tone lightens significantly from there. Nick Frost plays the titular Sloane, a man out of time in a swinging 60s, separated from his wife and out of work, but ploughing on regardless. Created by Curb Your Enthusiasm alum Robert B Weide, it boasts a supporting cast including Peter Serafinowicz and Olivia Colman.

This phenomenally darker, third (and possibly final) series ended, as was mete, on a hanging note of cochineal bittersweet. Tom Hollander's Adam has pretty much lost the parish but regained a few friendships: friendships he didn't particularly want in the first place - archdeacon Rob, and lovely archfiend Colin (Steve Evets), than whom few supporting characters in a "sitcom" have ever been more subtly drawn or well portrayed. But their dogged belief in him, now reciprocated with genuine warmth, has been one of the many lessons on our journey through Rev, and at times it's been a gruelling one. Crucially, of course, he's regained the forgiving friendship of his wife, Alex: Olivia Colman, of course, with that trainstopping smile. "You just stopped being a vicar for Lent."

Never twee, always in surgeon-skilled hands, and it would be a crime greater than all those above [cop shows previously mentioned in the review] not to have someone thinking furiously about the machinations required to get Adam back to our screens for a fourth series.

Radio Times review

This episode strikes a different note from that we've come to expect from Rev; it's not delightful at all, it's sad and there's a bleakness to vicar Adam's life now that hovers on the upsetting.

But that's probably because Tom Hollander does such a wonderful job of making us care about Adam, a man who is all too human and fallible. The fallout from his indiscretion is instant and powerful as he faces the unwavering and angry gaze of his beloved Alex (Olivia Colman). Just when everything seems hopeless and Adam's world is about to crumble, a new member of the congregation is fortuitously on hand to help out.

Radio Times review

It's barely begun, and it's all over. Four measly episodes! Well, four quietly brilliant episodes, full of flim-flam and farce and staccato dialogue, but really, it's not enough.

The tone sails closer to comedy drama as some real feeling creeps in, both for dozy intern Will ("Yeah, cool, yeah, no worries..."), who may be my favourite character, and executive punchbag Ian (Hugh Bonneville). The latter's salary scandal is all over the papers, though another minor controversy, involving a Newsnight presenter in a short skirt, provides distraction on Twitter (#kneesnight).

Luckily, as we keep hearing, "Tony's pretty perky about this", but can Ian make it up to his one-time admirer Sally, last seen in Twenty Twelve? A cameo from Olivia Colman brings the answer.

Did W1A really need the brilliant Olivia Colman?

Olivia Colman was the best thing about Twenty Twelve, so it's understandable she should turn up in its sister sitcom about the BBC. But was her presence actually any help this time round?

Radio Times review

Hapless vicar Adam's hopes of rescuing the increasingly decrepit St Saviour's from imminent closure are given a boost when a Turner Prize-winning artist asks if he can unveil a new installation in the building. And he's prepared to make a substantial donation to the emergency fund...

It's good news, of course, but Adam being Adam (Tom Hollander, who also wrote the episode), he has to seek out new and inventive ways of sabotaging his professional and even his personal life, even when things seem to be going well.

He's adorable, of course, but sometimes you want to give him a jolly good shaking, particularly when he does something unforgivable and out of character, something that could jeopardise his relationship with wife Alex (Olivia Colman).

In Rev. (BBC Two), where Adam has been asked by two friends, Rob and Jeremy, to officiate at a "proper church wedding" in St Saviour. He can't, of course. It's against canon law, even if it's legal under proper law. His wife, Alex, thinks he should do it anyway. "As long as you don't get caught, it's just like parking on a double yellow," she says. Adam can't risk getting caught, because his church is threatened with closure as it is, for being insolvent and unpopular. To add to his woes, he's just come home without the baby, having left the pram in a shop, although he doesn't even realise this yet. I clocked it straight away, because I once left a baby in a shop. My vigilance now extends to babies from television programmes.

In Rev., Adam managed to recover his baby and offer his friends Rob and Jeremy a non-binding prayer service in church. The happy couple turned up from the register office in their wedding gear with a champagne-sipping, confetti-throwing congregation behind them and proceeded to make Reverend Smallbone's well-meant half-measure look like a very gay wedding indeed. The bishop, naturally, caught wind of it. Adam did his best to do the right thing, and he still got caught.

It was all played for laughs rather than tears - with Olivia Colman's drunk Alex a particular highlight - but at the end Adam got angry and married Rob and Jeremy for real, in the church, in secret. And I cried at that. Could secret gay weddings - and the pink pound - be the saviour of St Saviour?

Does a sitcom actually need to make me laugh? That's the question I asked myself during the first episode of the third series of BBC Two's Rev. I certainly was glad to be given another opportunity to return to Saint Saviours and follow the exploits of the Reverend Adam Smallborne (Tom Hollander).

Once again Rev looks at the way that different people deal with faith by showing how many more people attend the local Mosque every week than come to Adam's church. James Wood's script is brilliant at combining this fairly deep subject matter with a light-handedness that makes it easy to like. Rev also excels due to its fantastically decent central characters Adam and Alex who are surrounded by a cavalcade of oddballs and mercenaries. Tom Hollander is brilliant in the lead role as he plays Adam as thoroughly down-to-Earth chap albeit one who constantly is worried about something or other. The brilliant Olivia Colman adds a bit of gravitas to her role of Alex whilst Simon McBurney and Miles Jupp continue to provide the laughs as Arch Deacon and Lay Preacher respectively.

As a fan of Getting On, I'm ecstatic that Scanlan and Pepperdine have joined the cast as a brilliant double act who may end up closing St. Saviour's. Even if the church does indeed close I hope that doesn't mean the end of what is brilliantly written and extremely well-acted series.

While it never makes me laugh out loud, Rev still provides plenty of good humour and that's sometimes all you need.

There's a ripped-from-the-headlines quality about tonight's episode. Same-sex marriages became legal in England and Wales on Saturday, but the Church of England has stipulated that it won't be carrying them out, although it will stretch to prayers for newlywed couples.

And tonight, we see the dilemma that could typically pose for vicars when two gay friends of Adam's announce that they're getting married and want him to do the honours ("No confetti!"). St Saviours has never seen such a turnout, but Archdeacon Robert (the fabulous Simon McBurney) doesn't reckon this is any cause to celebrate. He does, however, have some good advice for Adam who wants to take his wife Alex (Olivia Colman) on a mini-break. He says, mystifyingly: "You can always tell a good pub hotel by whether the bedrooms have got logs in them."

And you can always tell a good non-wedding by the hangovers the next day. A drunken Alex, who is working her way through the Smallbones' drinks cabinet, is a real highlight.

And so is Hugh Bonneville, who pops in again as Roland, the media-friendly cleric who's now running training courses to save churches all over the world.

The wonderful thing about Rev. (BBC Two, Monday) is that it is meant to be funny and it is genuinely hilarious. Tom Hollander and Olivia Colman play the leads but it is more an ensemble comedy with top performances, too, from Simon McBurney as the Archdeacon, Miles Jupp as Nigel and Steve Evets as Colin.

In fact dear Colin provides all the jaw-dropping, non-PC moments; not least for his fundraising efforts for St Saviour's which amounted to supplying drugs to the estate. He knows his market.

It was especially touching to see him present Adam (the Rev), with some oversize track pants from Sports Direct for his new baby as part of his campaign to be "godfather". Who knows what that term means to him?

Rev also pushes the boundaries or let's say, gives them a nudge. Last week, Adam bumped into Yousef, the local Iman, who had a sense of humour, "within limits". I could not understand why Adam did not jump at the chance of attending one of the Iman's "Jihadi barbecues". The mind boggles.

The best line, however, came from the archdeacon who said he was off to hear "Rageh Omaar giving a talk on Djibouti pirates". I was gutted to have missed that one. If only the Church of England could harness the power of Rev., it would have no trouble filling the pews.