Sam Wollaston

Oh dear, Reggie Perrin (BBC1) is back. The remake with Martin Clunes. No, no, no, no, no. It's not actually even that bad, just a very bad idea. Anyone who knew - and inevitably loved - the original, will wonder why the BBC is scarring the memory of what was a brilliant sitcom (and how can Clunes hope to fill Leonard Rossiter's shoes?). Younger people will probably wonder why they're making a lame old 70s-style sitcom with a laughter track, and jokes you can see coming as clearly as you can see what's going on in Reggie's mind (that trick's not funny any more, by the way). Comedy has moved on. Look at the best comedy on TV now - Him & Her, and The Inbetweeners, of course. It's not just because they're filthier and closer to the line that they're funny; it's because they're more believable, they reflect the world we live in, they're relevant. Reggie Perrin doesn't, and isn't. And someone at the BBC is showing a depressing lack of imagination by commissioning it. I suppose the fact that it's been recommissioned means plenty of people are watching, too. That's also depressing.

I'm enjoying Grandma's House (BBC2) more and more. Simon Amstell can be ever so slightly annoying as himself. But I like the other characters - mum's boyfriend Clive with his crap jokes and his positive-thinking, self-help book attitude; Grandad with his "cancer" (which may be a raisin); Auntie Liz who no one takes any notice of unless it's to have a go at her appearance, especially now she's got her frilly Prince blouse; and young Adam who can't decide whether he's a child or a grown up - he knows he's interested in "pussy" but he also dropped his phone in the loo when he was taking a photo of his poo.

I watched this one twice and enjoyed it just as much second time round; that's a good sign in a sitcom. I don't know how long it will feel fresh. Could it survive a second series? I'm not sure. But right now there's a subtlety and a sharpness about it. And yeah, it's funny.

Last year sarky, squeaky-voiced Simon Amstell gave up hosting the comedy pop panel game Never Mind the Buzzcocks to pursue other things, maybe act a bit. Now the likable - though clearly quite pleased with himself - funnyman is doing just that, starring in a new sitcom called Grandma's House (BBC2).

But is it acting? Because he plays a character called Simon who is thinking of giving up hosting a comedy pop panel game in order to do other things, maybe act a bit.

"Act?" says his horrified mother. "You can't act, can you?" She isn't happy about Simon's decision. Watching her son taking the piss out of pop stars on the telly makes her dead proud. It's the only thing that gives her joy and she records every episode. She's not really his mum, she's funny Rebecca Front, who can act a bit. I have no idea what the real Mrs Amstell thought about her son's decision to quit NMTB.

Can Simon act, though? Well, it's hard to know really, given that he's essentially just being himself. It's not exactly playing King Lear, is it? (Unless you happen to be King Lear.) But he is likable (in spite of clearly being quite pleased with himself). As he was on Buzzcocks. So what you have is a fairly traditional sitcom, with someone being himself at the centre of it, got it? It does take a bit of getting your head around. Maybe think of it as a kind of British Curb Your Enthusiasm.

No, that's clearly ridiculous, an insult to Larry David. But it does sort of work. Amstell is funny and the other characters are good. I especially like cousin Clive, who's about 13, has recently decided he doesn't want to be an independent financial adviser when he grows up, and enjoys visiting a website called Interracial Creampies (don't check to see if it really exists if you're at work, as I did - I'm expecting the tribunal any minute). And Simon's mum's new fella, Clive, who, as Simon says, is a prick.

Grandma's House is sharply written, with some nice lines and a bit of edge to it. And every now and then it will throw a little surprise at you - like grandpa's cancer (well, it may not be; last time he had cancer it turned out to be a raisin); the fact that Clive once ran over and killed a tramp; and Simon's cousin Adam disappearing upstairs to shave his head. Worth pursuing, I think.

TV review: Grandma's House and Inn Mates

Simon Amstell is funny and likable in his new sitcom Grandma's House. But can you really call it acting, asks Sam Wollaston.

Pete, played by Rafe Spall, is a laddish lad making a right bollocks of his 20s. Commentating on his life - everything, including what happens when he uses a made-up concern for the environment to lure young women back to his bedroom - are a couple of very unreconstructed middle-aged sports pundits: "The hand wrapped round the old bald-headed giggle stick, it's always a magic moment."

They pause the action, interpret Pete's life with stats and graphics. They can even see into his mind; know that he thinks about Wayne Rooney when he's about to reach the finishing line sooner than he'd hoped, in the bedroom, like. I don't know why they're commentating on Pete's life - maybe it's because he is trying to become a sports journalist himself. It's just one of those things you have to run with - like that documentary that was being made in The Office.

Some of this doesn't quite come off; a lot does. It's certainly ambitious, and original. The characters are great: hapless Pete; the nightmare fiancee of Pete's best mate who's coming on the stag weekend in Amsterdam because they're not just lovers, they're best friends, too; the inappropriate commentators. And at times, in an awkward kind of way, it's very funny.

Television at this time of year is a bit like my lawn at this time of year - patchy, barren, brown, cracked; you get the idea. Weekends are especially desperate. If you don't like sport, you're screwed - lost in a parched desert of nothingness (as opposed to one of those deserts that are full of stuff). Hell, you may even have to drag your fat arse off the sofa and do something different - go and water the garden, perhaps. Sprinkler - it's a nice word isn't it? It has some lovely consonant clusters.

What's this, then? Odd One In (ITV1, Saturday): yet another new gameshow. I see, so of these four nuns, only one is a real nun, and the teams - Peter Andre and Jason Manford v Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and Katherine Kelly off Corrie - have to guess which one. Same with the guys with the beard; three are real beards, one is a fake. Which one, though?

So it's basically the odd one out round from Never Mind the Buzzcocks stretched into a whole programme. Hmmm. Oh, and made a lot more rubbish, because Bradley Walsh is no Simon Amstell; and Pete, Laurence etc are nothing like the funny people they have on NMTB. I predict a short life.

It's a quite funny idea - a spoof documentary with Stephen Mangan and Rhys Thomas as a pair of hapless British buddies walking to the north pole, carbon neutrally, to save the planet (and my lawn?). It's marginally more entertaining than watching Ben Fogle and the rowing dude doing this kind of thing for real. I like the rival team, a pair of gay Norwegians who split up as lovers but remain together as a polar exploring team, somewhere around 85 degrees north. And the shooting of a polar bear is fun. But there's too much filling between the laughs - it's really a sketch idea, dragged out to movie length.

Last night's TV: Rev

Rev looks quite promising, in a gentle kind of way. Tom Hollander's is an attractive character - beset by troubles and doubts, weak, but a good guy at heart.

He's funny, is Jason Manford. He sometimes pushes it a little bit, but he's actually quite an old-fashioned gentle kind of comedian. He comes on, tells funny stories; quite often you can see where they're going before they get there. There's not an enormous amount of edge to Jason. But he's very likable, and he has a nice way with words: "Kids are well thick... early doors they'll believe anything," he says before telling us that his dad used to tell him the ice cream van did the tune when they'd run out of ice cream.

Maybe standup can be reassuring, and make you laugh, and quite like the person standing up, rather than make you squirm and feel uncomfortable. Or maybe I'm just an old git.

I've never really seen the point in Ricky Gervais's podcasts: him and his mates Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington rambling on about nothing in particular. Well, mainly Pilkington, who just gets hold of an idea and runs off with it, like a naughty puppy.

But I get this even less: it's just the same podcasts, animated. So you've got Ricky, Stephen and Karl, turned into what look like characters from the Flintstones, rambling on about nothing in particular. Occasionally one of Pilkington's wayward thoughts - babies being born to dying 78-year-old women, for example - is animated, too. That's very lazy TV, isn't it? Radio with pictures. Maybe they should animate The Today Programme. I'd like to see John Humphrys turned into a Flintstone.

I guess it only works if you're amused by Karl's idiotic thought-streams. Ricky and Stephen clearly are: they spend most of it giggling hysterics. It leaves me cold.