Tom Sutcliffe

Last night's TV: Fresh Meat

What really holds the thing together is an underlying sympathy, the sense that these characters might be comically foolish but they aren't contemptible.

Happiness isn't the central attraction of Doc Martin, which has a hero so socially dysfunctional that you can't help but think about the autism spectrum. In fact, if you came to the drama unprepared you would surely be mystified as to why Louisa, who has just had Doc Martin's baby, isn't breathing a sigh of relief at his intention to leave the village for a better job in London. He's not even nice to her when they're in private, when it couldn't possibly ruin his reputation for characterful curmudgeonliness. With the villagers, it's a bit clearer why they wouldn't want him to go, because unlike his new replacement he didn't actually put them in danger by his incompetence. But then as soon as you clock the alliteration cloud hovering over the new doctor (she's called Diana Dibbs and appears to be diabetic, depressive and dermatologically challenged), it's pretty clear that she isn't going to last more than an episode or two, before Doc Martin reluctantly accepts his destiny. And - as escapism goes - it's almost bearable, the sweetness of the essential fantasy about village life cut by the lead character's tart refusal to obey the social niceties. In this episode, Louisa found the exact state of her post-natal perineum being discussed in a crowded grocery and the teaser suggests that next week Doc Martin will take advantage of the eulogy at his aunt's funeral to deliver a testy lecture about the villagers' poor diets. We haven't yet got to have a really good look at the baby, incidentally, but I can provisionally report that it appears to have been spared his father's ears.

Shameless is back and - I read somewhere - approaching its 100th episode. I hadn't watched for quite a while, having tired of its slightly callow celebration of amorality, and at first glance it looked in good spirits, as jubilant about misrule and fecklessness as it was in the first series. After a while, though, the misbehaviour began to seem a little strained again. And in the aftermath of the riots, you can't help wondering just a little bit about its approving relish for social delinquency. I know that's what's supposed to be on offer here - a tantalising glimpse of the happy bacchanal that lies just on the other side of the door marked Conscience. But even so it can grate. Last night's jolly escapades included the sale of ex-IRA guns to local gangsters ("See you love... take care," said Mimi cheerily, as a customer walks away with an AK47), disability-benefit fraud, murder, the near-rape of two strippers by a boozed-up stag party (only averted when the lairiest of the stags is shot in the leg), and, the cherry on top, two gangsters threatening a child until he weeps with fear. Pervasive throughout, and effectively endorsed by the narrative, is the idea that any contact with the police is "grassing". What's more, kindly sentiment is almost as rare as a sense of civic duty. Characters occasionally clamp together in desperate congress, but a far more typical exchange would be Frank's groggy riposte to his ex-wife's mother: "You lying, twisted, piss-stained old fraud." There's a difference between a fiction about people who never think about consequences and a fiction that pretends those consequences don't exist, and I wonder whether Shameless hasn't crossed over to the lesser of the two.

Epic Win is a new pointless talent show hosted by Alexander Armstrong, the talents being pointless rather than the show, which is actually quite entertaining in a silly way. This week one contestant triumphantly demonstrated that he could identify historic lawnmowers based only on the strip of grass they'd cut in a lawn. Dolphins can't do that - though I think it may be to their credit as a species.

Last night's TV: Beaver Falls/E4

The cruelty of the jock faction is also so overblown and nasty that it is simultaneously unpleasant and unbelievable - a definite lose-lose. Flynn and A-Rab both have back stories that may allow for something a little less coarse and cocky, but I won't be holding my breath.

I cannot for the life of me work out why BBC1 are transmitting a children's programme at 10.25pm on a Sunday, though it's hard to see Sugartown as anything else, so guileless is its plotting and so jauntily empty of threat are its characterisations. It's the kind of big ensemble drama where comic pizzicato is in heavy demand on the soundtrack and the challenges of life are framed as a kind of gang-show, with everyone pulling together to triumph over adversity. It isn't a terrible children's programme, incidentally, if that's what you want to watch. It's set in a run-down Yorkshire seaside town named in honour of its biggest local employer, a rock and confectionery factory that has seen better days. One brother (the good boy) struggles to keep the factory going; another (the sexy bad one) plans to sell it off to finance a casino. There's also a rivalry over a pretty girl, a long-lost orphan, and an attempt to relaunch a dance academy, which will allow for the occasional disco-backed chorus-line number. If you think that ageing hippies say things like "Let me stir-fry something into your think-wok, Ken", then you may find it an acute and heartwarming study of community solidarity under pressure. If you're not convinced by that line you might want to steer clear, because there are quite a lot of others like it, as well as boilerplate stuff such as "Everything's just a game to you isn't it? Who cares whether you break a heart or two along the way?" Cocoa for the mind, I think.

The Marriage Ref - based on an idea by Jerry Seinfeld - was a disaster in the States and doesn't look as if it will do much better here. The idea is that bickering couples bring their disputes for resolution to a panel of celebrities, though since there's absolutely nothing at stake for anyone involved and the disputes are cutely trivial anyway (a husband's obsession with pickles, a wife's addiction to to-do lists), it's really just an excuse for yet another comedy panel show. Dermot O'Leary presents, with tiresome ebullience, and the audience goes "aaahhh" whenever a couple turn up who are over 60. Sarah Millican and Jimmy both had their moments in the first episode, but I'm not sure that there's a lot to keep you watching other than a long unresolved row with your partner over whose turn it is to find the remote control.

Sitcom Punchlines R Us. Product 17 "You say that like it's a bad thing". Usable in a wide range of situations in which one character is being criticised by another (e.g. in response to... "You've never done a hard day's work in your life"). Ten per cent discount if purchased with "No need to thank me" or "As the bishop said to the actress". The presence of Product 17, in In with the Flynns, BBC1's new family sitcom, was a little bit depressing. But the honest truth is that if you're looking for another Life of Riley or My Family this will do the job perfectly well. I don't know why you would be engaged in that search when Outnumbered and Lead Balloon are available to give a far sharper account of family life, but some like to travel down the middle of the road and In with the Flynns has its moments if you're in an indulgent mood. There was a painfully good sight gag involving an eyebrow piercing and a bead curtain, and I also liked the wife's dismissive description of the challenges of driving a fork-lift truck: "It's basically go-karting with a bit of Tetris thrown in." If you find that joke crosses the line, complain to the BBC, not me.

Rick Spleen is exactly the kind of comedian who would jockey for a good position at an Amnesty gig, the good cause foremost in his mind being the promotion of his own career. And then, of course, it would all go horribly wrong, since the essential dynamic of Lead Balloon, back for a fourth series, is that Rick should end up horribly humiliated by his own incontinent ambition. Or - as in last night's episode - by an incontinent pig, which anointed Rick with liquid manure while he was in the middle of trying to impress a Sunday Times journalist who'd turned up to write an "At Home With" feature.

Cruelly, the subject wasn't Rick at all but his long-suffering wife, Mel, who didn't really want to say yes in the first place but had been talked round by Rick. "It's probably not a bad time for me to put myself back in the public eye," he explained to his writing partner, Marty. "Any year now would be fine," replied Marty, whose drily unimpressed comments are an enjoyable grace note in the scripts. Planning to set-dress his life a little, Rick borrowed a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. "I honestly think it's the kind of thing a couple like us would have," he told Mel. "It's not," she replied testily, "because otherwise we'd have one." The pig turned in a fine performance. As did everybody else, actually, in a comedy that has a lot of small supporting roles but no negligible ones.

I think some enterprising media student should do some work on the centrality of the live-in kitchen in the contemporary sitcom. Think how often you see them in domestic comedies (My Family, Outnumbered, Absolutely Fabulous, Lead Balloon), in part, I guess, because they provide a reasonably plausible intersection for every generation of a family. The sitting room, intriguingly, is more frequently used for quieter scenes between just a couple of characters, suggesting that it has taken on the role of an Elizabethan "withdrawing room" (which, as Dr Worsley explained, was the origin of the drawing room). Beyond that, I'm not sure I have a lot to say about Life of Riley, a blended-family comedy that stars Caroline Quentin and Neil Dudgeon. It offers some funny moments and a masterclass in comic acting from Marcia Warren, but it too often goes for retreads of over-familiar jokes, such as a daughter-mother reversal in respect of sexual censoriousness. It's the opposite of Marmite. If you like it I reckon you're going to like it in a take-it-or-leave-it kind of way. And if you don't, you're going to find it tricky to get heated about the fact. It does include a rather sweet baby, though, greeted with a collective crooning "Aahhh!" by the studio audience every time she appears. Which tells you quite a lot about the programme, actually.