Robert Webb

This sixth series of the sitcom about two hapless flatmates (played by David Mitchell and Robert Webb) continues to be consistently funny so it's good news for fans that a seventh has been commissioned. Tonight, Mark (Mitchell) finds out that Jeremy's (Webb) new Russian girlfriend Elena has a secret but can't bear to break his friend's happiness by spilling the beans. Meanwhile Johnson (Paterson Joseph) gives Mark more food for thought by asking him to go into business.

Episode three of this sixth series of the black comedy starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb shows why this is still the funniest British sitcom on TV at the moment. Self-serving Jeremy (Webb) realises that he's in love with Elena (Vera Filatova) and decides to be less selfish to win her affection.

Hurrah for the return of the Bafta award-winning comedy about two socially inept flatmates. After last week's typically witty first episode in which Mark (David Mitchell) and Jeremy (Robert Webb) tried to avoid facing up to the fact that one of them is to become a father, Sophie (Olivia Coleman) finally reveals whose baby she's carrying. But both boys are more interested in pursuing their respective love interests: Mark makes a final play for IT worker Dobby (Isy Suttie) and Jeremy takes a shine to an arty Russian émigré.

Socially inept Mark (David Mitchell) once used the Siege of Stalingrad as a template for seduction, so it's hardly surprising he's so hopeless with the ladies. He hasn't learnt his lesson; tonight, when the object of his adoration - shy former workmate Dobby - turns up for a date, he resorts to a plan of attack as he goes in for a kiss: "Time for me to roll in my militarised divisions! We're Roosevelt and Stalin!" It's excruciating and hilarious, as are his housemate Jeremy's (Robert Webb) equally clumsy attempts to romance an attractive Russian woman who lives in the same block of flats. But Mark and Jeremy are at their comical best when they are at their most craven and pathetic. So sit back and get ready to hold your jaw as it drops into your lap when the unfortunate Sophie finally reveals which one of them is the father of her baby.

Of course, for many of us, this week was not just some normal, ho-hum weeky week: as unremarkable as April 7-14, say, or, I dunno, February 19-26 inclusive. No. This week was Peep Show week. The return of the sitcom locked in a permanent, and fabulous, battle of champions with The Thick of It to be the definitive show of what we must, still, sighingly, refer to as "the Noughties". Peep and Thick are like the John McEnroe and Björn Borg of comedy - sometimes one triumphs, sometimes the other, but for miles and miles around there's no real competition. No competition at all. That one writer - Jesse Armstrong - works on both lends the very real possibility that he might be the funniest person in Britain.

I'm not in the habit of suggesting that the Government should forcibly take sperm samples from scriptwriters, and keep them in a cryogenic vault, in the event of a "comedy emergency" in which everyone funny dies, and we need to restock Britain's gag-writing ability with a concerted breeding programme. But, you know, it might be worth bearing in mind.

As series six starts, Peep Show's profile - once so "cult" that its future looked perilous - has never been higher. The inexorable rise of David Mitchell - thinking lady's beaky sex-penguin du jour - means that even the show's first trailer was subject to mass excitement on Twitter. When we last saw Jez (Robert Webb) and Mark (David Mitchell), they had just found out that either one of them might be the father of Sophie's (Olivia Colman) forthcoming baby. This is an usually "big" plot for the show - after all, even when Super Hans (Matt King) got addicted to crack ("That stuff is more-ish!"), it didn't really take up more than six or seven gags.

Within minutes of the first episode opening, more "big" stuff has happened - Mark has got the terminally feckless Jez a job at his company, JLB - but then JLB goes bust. The sexy business dick Alan Johnson (Paterson Joseph, playing one of the all-time amazing sitcom characters) comes to deliver the bad news: "I just got in from Aberdeen. JLB no longer exists. Thank you, Britain, and good night!" and then is driven away at top speed in a company car.

"That's the last Beemer out of Saigon," Mark sighs. The problem was that, as the episode went on, I noted, with mounting terror, that I wasn't really ... laughing. Yeah, there were a couple of nodding smiles, and the "Beemer" line got what would, on a Laugh Graph, be called "a snorty chuckle", but ... the usual, glorious, abandoned fug of a) borderline hysteria and b) intense emotional anguish, caused by minutely observed cases of total t***tishness, wasn't descending.

I was looking a cataclysm in the face: that Peep Show might have "gone off". We've all got to stop being funny some time. Maybe this was their time. Maybe it was all. Over. Or - maybe it was just a bad opening episode? So I rang people. I blagged. I cried. I sent a courier that cost £38. I got episode 2 sent over, and sat down to watch it in a state of pre-emptive tension rivalled only by the day before my C-section. And oh, thank God - episode 2 is one of the best episodes yet. Mark and Jez have a debate about the temperature setting on a boiler that is less like dialogue, more like an MRI scan of the idiot human brain. Then, later, Jez gets to deliver the line, "I'm a feminist - so I believe women should have any mad thing they want." It's all going to be OK. It's all still amazing. When The Thick of It comes back next month, the skies will be, once again, filled with the boom and clatter of their glorious rivalry.

It's been a busy 2009 for David Mitchell and Robert Webb, what with their sketch show, countless panel games and, perhaps most memorably, cross-dressed Webb prancing his way to victory on the Comic Relief celebrity talent contest Let's Dance. Now the duo return as stars of this ever-improving sitcom. The sixth series finds the hapless flatmates still in denial about one of them fathering Sophie's baby. Mark (Mitchell) wangles Jez (Webb) a job and continues his pursuit of IT girl-geek Dobby. Naturally, his dreams are soon scuppered - this time, by a routine fire drill.

Following in the footsteps of Kevin Bishop's cringe-fest, Peep Show is back to remind us (and Channel 4) what TV comedy is all about. With Mark and Jez still co-habiting in Croydon and drowning in each other's apathy, it's clear not much has changed (and of course we wouldn't want it any other way). Mark gets promoted and celebrates by getting a new boiler; and also gets Jez a job at his office, providing a platform for a rather brilliant quote regarding a work / porn incident. One of these idiots might be the father of Sophie's baby (anyone else secretly hoping it's Super Hans?). Recently Robert Webb told us that the thing that gets shouted at him most is "Oi, Peep Show". He sighed. But everyone, including him, knows this is the best thing they've ever done by a country mile. Lovely.

Webb 'delighted' with new Peep Show

Robert Webb has claimed that the new series of Peep Show is the best yet.

The return of one of the finest ever sitcoms in the history of the world ever - fact! Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's darkly comical flat share work of genius starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb is on tip top form as ever. Considering it's on its sixth series, that's no mean feat. Brilliant, inspired stuff!

I'm going to do a Derren Brown now and predict with absolute certainty that the winner of Most Popular Comedy in the National Television Awards in 2010 will NOT be Peep Show.

How do I know? Well, its ratings are so low it doesn't even make it on to the long-list, so you couldn't vote for it even if you wanted to.

How weird and depressing is that? Perhaps if Derren does succeed in gluing viewers to their sofas tonight, ratings will pick up.

Well done anyway to Channel 4 for keeping the faith. This is series six and they've already commissioned series seven, so the eight or nine of us who do appreciate this comedy gem will be able to get our weekly fix of David Mitchell and Robert Webb. Far from running out of steam, the show just keeps getting better and better and is even in tune with current affairs.

This week, Mark gets Jez a job at the finance company where he works - but the credit crunch is about to hit Croydon and that brand new sofa suddenly looks like a foolish extravagance.