Simon Bird (I)

This new panel comedy presented by The Inbetweeners' Simon Bird is based around the theme of a recruitment drive. Each week, three C-listers jostle to be promoted to a fictional role in the community. In this first run, ex-CBBC presenter Kirsten O'Brien, model Caprice, and The Bill's Graham Cole fight it out to be named fictional chief of police. Their tasks involve drawing a self-portrait while handcuffed to a brass band and treading a vat full of meat. Co-presenter Nick Mohammed, wades in with a few good one-liners but overall it's more Chucklevision than Shooting Stars.

On paper this new comedy series - which styles itself as a spoof job interview - promised much. Each week, host Simon Bird imagines that an important figure (e.g., US President or Father Christmas) has been bumped off; various celebrities then state their suitability for the role. But, oh dear, this plumbs the depths of stupidity.

Simon Bird is brilliant in E4 sitcom The Inbetweeners, and the first scene of his new series suggests more of the same - except Bird plays a geeky, gaffe-prone office worker rather than a geeky, gaffe-prone sixth-former. Then the opening titles roll and, confusingly, we're suddenly in a TV studio, where Apprentice runner-up Kate Walsh, Eamonn Holmes and Mollie King from the Saturdays are perched apprehensively on stools. The King Is Dead is a spoof panel game, it transpires, where second-rate celebs are "interviewed" for the job of Assistant Regional Head of Sales. Bird dishes out stationery-themed gags, dubious stats and silly tests. Holmes gets the worst of it - the highlight of a poor show.

Brand new comedy The King is Dead

Let me introduce you to our anarchic new comedy panel show, The King is Dead, presented by Simon Bird with co-presenters and comedians Katy Wix and Nick Mohammed.

A quick chat with Simon Bird

The Inbetweeners star Simon Bird conducts celebrity job interviews in his new panel show...

The King Is Dead interview

Inbetweeners favourite Simon Bird joins forces with fellow comics Nick Mohammed and Katy Wix to host a new celebrity panel show The King Is Dead...

In what can only be described as an editorial oversight, The Inbetweeners was absent from our Best of 2008 lineup. However, thanks to much hilarity from Simon Bird and co (who can forget the night out in London?), the E4 comedy has rocketed into our chart this year at a respectable No.4. Impressive ratings and a more realistic take on teenage life (Skins, we're looking at you) have secured the show a third series... and potential movie.

We Need Answers is now in its second series. This is an excruciatingly student-y comedy quiz hosted by Mark Watson, Tim Key and Alex Horne, which was transferred to television after proving a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe. Two celebrities (in this week's case, Vanessa Feltz and The Inbetweeners' Simon Bird) are quizzed on themed questions originally sent by members of the public to the text message answering service. Watson is the host and link to the audience, Key is the quizmaster (who is spat out into the studio on a railed leather armchair through a concealed door), and Horne provides supportive music cues, sound effects, action-replays, and homespun graphics from a laptop.

It's incredibly cheap, very silly, and not particularly funny. I suspect that by crossing over into my 30s, this kind of comedy has stopped looking hilariously anarchic and intellectual-but-daft, to just become annoying and puerile. That said, the trio behind it are aged 29-33, so maybe it's just me who's stonily bored by Shooting Stars-esque absurdity, particularly when it's in the guise of a cheapo '70s series. We Need Answers ran at the Fringe for two successful years, but I'm guessing it helps if you're a half-drunk festivalgoer attending the show in a live format. On television, it's another matter. There's a distance that Watson, Key and Horne can't bridge.

The smutty, fitfully funny, schoolboy comedy moves over from E4 in the same week as series three of Skins, sparking inevitable discussion about which offers the more realistic depiction of teenage life.

But this makes about as much sense as asking which paints a more accurate picture of adult life: EastEnders or Emmerdale. Correct answer? Neither.

But as Will, Simon, Jay and Neil set off on a geography trip to Swanage, Dorset, it will prompt coach-scented memories for viewers. While Jay is convinced that there's a middle-aged woman in Swanage eagerly awaiting the arrival of a bus-load of hormonal adolescent boys, Simon Bird's character Will still comes off like David Mitchell's geekier, more annoying little brother - the kid who has yet to learn that Yoda impressions will never get the prettiest girl on the bus to fancy you. A boat-load of trouble awaits.