Phelim O'Neill

BBC continues unabated with its ungodly pact with Will Mellor, cruelly ignoring public demand or opinion. With a Beady Eye song serving as both theme tune and warning to quickly change channel, the Flynn family return for another series of non-jokes and situations that only work if all the characters are stupid. Here, we get supposedly hilarious mix-ups over a poached cod and a bungling burglar. It's written by Men Behaving Badly's Simon Nye, who used to knock out decent ribald comedy with a hand tied behind his back. Here, he attempts to do it with both hands tied.

The Beast's series finale is basically a clips show - one that focuses on The Midnight Beast's famed music videos. Not a bad idea, as the fake promos are probably the most successful aspect of this show. It's never easy for meagre TV budgets to compete with the megabucks music video directors have to chuck around, but these cheap and very cheerful ones manage far better than most. So sit back and enjoy the complete versions of Medium Pimpin', Strategy Wanking and other "hits".

Daniel Renton Skinner's comedy alter ego makes for an excellent supporting character but still comes across as a little lacking when hosting his own show. Epithemiou/Skinner is great when dealing directly his guests - this week Sir Ranulph Fiennes - where he gets to use his character tics to full effect. The linking comedy skits are pretty painful, though, with plenty of cuts to the audience rolling around laughing as if to convince us that, yes, lots of people do find these lazy non sequiturs hilarious.

A new series and a new partner for DI Jack Armstrong as this comedy-drama cop show returns. He's not looking forward to meeting George, expecting a strict, rule-adhering man. What he gets is a strict, rule-adhering woman called Georgina. What are the odds, eh? Still, it's a setup that takes mere seconds to get up and running, leaving more time to devote to this week's case involving the murder of a flashy car salesman. The leads, Toby Stephens and newcomer to the show Miranda Raison, have breezy chemistry - more important here than the convoluted plotting.

After having their image (or lack thereof) mocked by rival band Shadow Rack, who look just as ridiculous and desperate but at least display some uniformity, the boys set about sorting out their style. With a live appearance on national telly looming it's pretty clear they're going to get things drastically wrong. Bit of a weak week storywise but still some good lines ("Integrity? That's not even a word") and, apart from a well-done but hopelessly out of date Rage Against The Machine parody, some funny songs.

Episodes delivers a finale that is nearly all sit and hardly any com. It's Merc's big night at the Man Of The Year Awards, which gives a great opportunity for all the characters to be in the same place. Trouble is the show takes an age to set all this up, forgetting to include any actual jokes as it clumsily moves the pieces into place and reminds us what they've all got at stake. We're left with some desperate, lumbering slapstick and shouting in the final few minutes, the sort of thing a bad soap opera does when it tries to be funny.

Time to see if the millions of hits the titular comedy band have generated on YouTube can translate to viewing figures. This gets off to a great start, as we're introduced to the combo, playing a poverty-stricken, unsigned version of themselves ("We're unsigned because corporations suck ... and because we're shit!"), then it's straight into a cracking music video of them dressed as cardboard tower-block Transformers, rapping about kicking sharks in the face. Like major reference point Flight Of The Conchords, they're too good to pretend to be this bad for long.

Another meeting where Bev and Sean think their show is going to be axed turns out to be about something else entirely. The problem they are faced with is one of the more realistic Episodes has dealt with, as Matt LeBlanc's decreased screen time on Pucks! has given him the chance to stuff his face and pile on the pounds. In the more soapy part of the show, Bev goes on a date with Morning's brother Rob (James Purefoy), an apparently normal LA resident, something the show has in very short supply.

Not many of the problems faced by the writers and producers of the show within this show ring particularly true. More credible and much better played is the storyline in which Matt LeBlanc tries to get one of his Friends friends to guest for the all-important sweeps week. Cue lots of scenes of LeBlanc doing one-sided phone conversations that reveal he's managed to insult and offend all his old co-stars.

With ratings plummeting on the show-within-the-show Pucks!, market research is called in to save the day. Matt LeBlanc, from bitter experience, is no fan: "Yeah, research said Joey was gonna be a hit!" He's even less happy when the results come in showing that another cast member's hair is testing better with the audience than he is, leading to an episode where he's practically written out of his own show. Elsewhere, Beverly is missing hanging out with Sean, and discovering he has a Facebook page nearly sends her over the edge.