Rob Brydon

Stacey thinks she's pregnant and spends the whole episode getting excited, but has yet to take a test. And Smithy avoids Nessa as he and the Essex massive spend a weekend in Wales, staying at Bryn's. Rob Brydon makes the very best of Bryn's ambiguities as he welcomes a gang of lager-swilling lads into his home. But the repeated gags (you slaaaags) and the heavy-handed plotting lack the initial sweetness this show was sold on. After the charm has gone, it's just people saying things to each other in two different accents.

For all its BAFTAs, series three of Gavin & Stacey was about as fresh or contemporary as Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Sadly, it's all become a bit twee and stagey.

It began with Gavin starting his first day at work - an occasion that necessitated every other character to ring him up. "Hiya it's me, it's Stacey," announced Stacey - the Betty Spencer of the piece. "I know," grinned Gav, virtually rolling his eyes to camera. Mugging furiously, Rob Brydon (Bryn) even turned up to bring him a packed lunch!

James Corden meanwhile went into squealing pig mode, over-acting his socks off.
"I don't know who he is anymore! He's changed!" Smithy moaned preposterously. With Gavin & Stacey reduced to caricatures, this series should be called Dave & Ness who remained a masterclass in understatement. The baby was christened "Neil Noel Edmond Smith." The days when the vicar is due and the turkey isn't defrosted can't be far away.

The BBC's hit comedy Gavin & Stacey was back with its winning formula of gooey romance, slapstick angst and recurring logistical challenge of getting a vast ensemble of Essex and Welsh people into the same room without it seeming odd. Perhaps that's its genius. This week they solved it with a christening party, adding yet more characters. Here was Nessa's dad and Smithy's mother (Pam Ferris, looking like she'd slept in a skip), and Ewan Kennedy was cracking as the new baby, Neil - strapped facing outwards on Nessa's back. "That's so I can smoke," she drawled.

The Welsh steal this show, led by Ruth Jones as Nessa - gnomic, brusque, experienced - alongside her spiritual opposite, Bryn (Rob Brydon), garrulous, sentimental and unworldly. I don't know about the Billericay element. Alison Steadman is a bit of a pantomime grotesque as Gavin's mum, and Smithy's Byronic laments for Gav - now installed in his new job in Cardiff - are fast losing their charm. I'm all in favour of a man expressing his feelings but if Smithy were my best mate I think I'd have to move farther than Wales.

All the same, I was interested to see whether the gentle BBC series, which returned last week for a third and final series, would have shed a little fairy dust in the aftermath of the lamentable solo efforts of James Corden and Mathew Horne. It didn't take long, however, to be reminded that neither actor has ever been a main draw among the superlative cast (though credit goes to Corden as co-writer). The action has shifted to Barry Island, which will please fans of Ruth Jones's brilliantly deadpan Nessa and Rob Brydon's Uncle Bryn - a caricature, but an excellent one.

The christening of Nessa and Smithy's son provides the excuse to lure the Essex contingent over the border, and the seeds are planted early for what promises to be a warm and fuzzy finale. No surprises perhaps, but for the home straight, I'm perfectly happy with more of the same.

Their sketch show was an obnoxious, homophobic mess, so it's probably wise that Mathew Horne and James Corden have returned in the show that first made them popular, Gavin & Stacey. The first episode of this final series was like a warm bath: slightly eccentric characters, love and empathy bubbling around the intertwined lives of three families. Gavin has moved to Wales to work and live with Stacey and was bored. His first day at work was littered with grating, if sweet, interventions - balloons, phone messages, a packed lunch from Rob Brydon's Uncle Bryn - which delighted his new, and yes kooky, colleagues.

You can see why Gavin & Stacey is universally loved: the dialogue is carefully colloquial, everyone has their turn, it affirms family and friendship, has a dark edge - but for this viewer there is a sense of old tricks being recycled. Everyone's quirks ("What's occurrin'?") are so well-worn they have lost their magic.

The only distinctive performances are Ruth Jones's monotone Nessa, with baby (who is with her though concealed at all times) and the marvellous, foul-mouthed Doris/Dor (Margaret John) who stuck two fingers up at the expectation that she'd make salad for the christening party. You should root for Corden's Smithy, father of Nessa's baby and trying to find a role for himself now his best friend has moved away and the mother of his child is with a new partner, but he's supremely irritating and unfunny.

I can see why people like Gavin & Stacey, I really can. It's warm. It's cuddly. It's the celluloid equivalent of on a mug of tea and a slab of Dairy Milk. And it really is all of those things - Joanna Page, who plays Stacey is cute as a button, just Bridget-Jonesy enough for us empathise with, the type of lass any well-brought-up young girl would want to be friends with. And Mat Horne (Gavin) is, for want of a better word, fit. In a safe way. And well dressed, with the not-at-all-bad-looking Page as his girlfriend, so mothers like him and men have a degree of grudging respect for him. And then there's James Corden, who plays Gavin's best mate, Smithy, and everyone knows that James Corden's lovely. So yes: as Bob Hope would say, what's not to like?

Except, erm, I'm afraid I don't. Like it, that is. I like Ruth Jones, aka the indomitable Nessa, fag-smoking, drink-swilling best friend of - inexplicably - Stacey. But that's all. At least Nessa's funny, a quality which, it's worth pointing out, is rather useful when it comes to a comedy show. But apart from her, I can't fathom one of them. Not even Bryn, played with aplomb by Rob Brydon. He's too nice. Far, far too nice. They all are. The whole thing is. It's so nice, you cease to care. It becomes... elevator music.

But anyway, what do I know? Clearly, nothing. Seven million people watched the Christmas special last year, and seven million can't be wrong. Can they? Anyway, last night was the start of the third (and last) series, which saw Gavin settling into his new job in Barry, while the Essex crowd geared up for the christening of Smithy and Nessa's baby, named - wait for it - Neil Noel Edmond Smith. One of the few laugh-out loud jokes of the episode. Any Gavin & Stacey fan would have been thrilled, I'm sure. All the usual bumf was there: Stacey freaking out over an article she's read in Psychologies magazine, Bryn popping his head through Gavin's office window, Smithy ordering enough food for an entire army. Me? Well, like I said. Elevator music. Pleasant enough, no plans to buy the album.

Gavin and Stacey have moved back to Barry, and the Shipman family cohort is heading down the M4 for Neil the baby's christening. It's a mixture of warm, toasty moments and crass comic set pieces in lieu of gags. Between Jones and Corden you can guess who wrote which bit. Tedious phone business with Smithy and Gavin repeatedly calling each other "slaaaags" - probably Corden. Sweet exchange between Stacey and her mum: "Ooh, I just called you Gwen!" - most likely Jones. It's still nice, but it has an extra edge of cynicism since the Horne/Corden toxic media assault of 2009. Rob Brydon steals the episode as usual, though.

Where Little Britain produced bizarre, gross-out comedy, Gavin & Stacey is a very traditional sitcom. It works in the manner of Dad's Army or Birds of a Feather - the eponymous leads, played by Mathew Horne and Joanna Page, provide a focus in front of a background populated by slightly grotesque caricatures, such as Rob Brydon's camp and simple-minded Uncle Bryn. Now for this third and final series, James Corden's Smithy is still living in Essex while Gavin (his best friend) and Stacey (Gavin's wife) have moved to Stacey's home town of Barry Island in South Wales. As the familiar characters reunite for the christening of Smithy and Nessa's son Neil, viewers who are new to the series (which has previously won two Baftas) may find that this opening instalment is not as immediately likeable or accessible as they might wish. Who, after all, would choose to spend time in the company of Gavin's shouty mother Pam (Alison Steadman) or Stacey's offensive best friend Nessa (Corden's co-writer Ruth Jones)? But as this first episode continues (next week's second is much funnier), it becomes obvious that these weirdly dysfunctional families makes a kind of sense - and that their ludicrous travails are no more ludicrous than most family's. So it's all very sweet, even if there's none of the innovation or edginess you'd find in The Office or The Thick of It.

Did you know that Stephen Fry is on Twitter? Someone should report it. Anyhow, QI is his best work for about 10 years and shows no sign of tailing off just yet. He's joined by the person who will play him in the The Adventures Of Junior Fry, David Mitchell, Dara O'Briariaiaiaiaaiaaiaiain, reliable Rob Brydon and Alan 'Bloody' Davies. Perfect if watched through a red wine haze after a big meal.

QI returns from its holidays to make a fresh assault on our ignorance, and with something of a dream team: Dara O'Briain, Rob Brydon and David Mitchell - with Alan Davies in his usual right-handman role and Stephen Fry asking the obscure questions as our twinkling schoolmaster of a host. Preview DVDs were unavailable but QI is always a garden of comic delights - more so than ever tonight as Fry tests his pupils' horticultural knowledge.