Richard Osman

Richard Osman's head is stuffed full of Pointless knowledge, as any fan of BBC One's excellent early evening quiz will know. This should mean the presenter will wipe the floor with the opposition as he joins Victoria Wood, Jason Manford and Alan Davies to field Fry's questions.

Still, there are no guarantees in the QI world, which not so long ago revealed the quite interesting fact that many of its former facts are now considered to be fiction. Sometimes you just can't win.

Watching Sarah Millican is like being gently tickled: strangely comforting and likely to produce the odd giggle. Tackling car shows, crime shows and quiz shows gives her the chance to make jokes about having George Michael as her sat nav voice and Countdown being easier now you can pause live TV. Bradley Walsh, Richard Osman and Quentin Willson respond to Millican's playful questions with grace, but the latter does look embarrassed when she talks him through her car's sanitary towel compartment.

Sarah Millican's whole deal is being quite a bit ruder than she looks like she's going to be. This works well for a stand-up, but it's a modus operandi that makes her harder to place in a TV setting. This show has the visual trappings of an early evening, shiny-floor affair, but with a mild smut factor more characteristic of the end of the pier.

Perhaps Millican should just go for broke and unleash the full gobshite - she might have to shuffle back to a later spot in the schedules but she'd surely be more comfortable with the situation.

Tonight's third series opener includes some low-level Top Gear baiting, a slightly awkward interview with Bradley Walsh and an encounter with Richard Osman from Pointless ('You filled Anne Robinson's old slot'). Not dislikeable, but still a bit of a muddle.

A drum roll, please, for the much-anticipated, always enjoyable offcuts episode. These are the attempts by celebrities to fool other celebrities that ended up on the cutting room floor, not because they weren't funny (they are) but because they were surplus to requirements - or just a bit too guessable.

But we can still revel in Charles Dance's claim that he answers the phone in a Belfast accent or Dermot O'Leary's obsessive approach to stacking crockery. Best of all is a duel between Lee Mack and Richard Osman over whether the latter invented a superhero called Snooker Table Man as a child. We're fairly sure Osman is improvising furiously, but if he is, he's doing a great job...

Pointless giant Richard Osman tears himself away from his desk by Alexander Armstrong's side to slide into one of the guest seats for the first of a new series of the topical news quiz. Osman is surely destined for the guest host gig at some point but tonight it's down to Stephen Mangan to give Ian Hislop and Paul Merton free rein to roam around the lunatic fringes of the news, while Osman's fellow guest, Joan Bakewell, offers sage titbits.

The satrical edge on HIGNFY has dulled very slightly over the years. These days, Ian Hislop and Paul Merton don't so much lacerate the week's events and personalities as chew them over with the odd comic flight of fancy.

Occasionally, let's be honest, that makes for an underwhelming episode, where the panellists never get up a head of steam and only the host's scripted gags keep things rolling. But more often, the big old beast of a show rouses itself and delivers an enjoyably surreal spin on the news, providing us with a neat comedy coda to the week. One of the best episodes of the last series had Richard Osman as a guest, punning about David Cameron's "mandate" on gay marriage and showing an almost shameful knowledge of Spice Girls hits. Happily, he's back again tonight, with the excellent Stephen Mangan in the host's chair for the first show of series (drumroll, please...) 45.

David Mitchell is sandwiched between two TV giants this week. Literally. Pointless's Richard Osman and The Inbetweeners' Greg Davies are both about 6ft 8 in tall where Mitchell is a good ten inches shorter.

Osman's dry wit has won him a cult following among daytime viewers but given the wider platform of primetime TV, it turns out he's genuine comedy gold. His first attempt to bamboozle his opponents involves a Cluedo-esque story about burying a badger with the Banker from Deal or No Deal. It leaves his fellow panellists crying with laughter. Patsy Kensit has her comedy moments too, though. When asked rhetorically by a straightfaced Osman, "You're not an actress, are you, Patsy?" she swiftly replies: "A lot of people would say no."

In the remainder of the show Bob Mortimer insists he can split an apple with his bare hands, while Davies reveals he is the schoolboy creator of the "Snorkel Parka Music Practice Room" game.