Will Dean

Best of TV 2015: No 4 - Catastrophe

Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan's '49% autobiographical' comedy about the trials and tribulations of parenthood inverts the classic romcom with sexual honesty, a barrage of swearing and a wonderfully dysfunctional support cast.

Crackanory: The Weatherman, TV review

The gleeful menace in his delivery made this a fitting epitaph.

Back for a second series was ITV2 comedy The Job Lot. Starring the excellent Russell Tovey (Him & Her, HBO's Looking) as Karl, an art history graduate working in a Midlands job centre. It could, you suppose provide an interesting conceit. Therein lies the problem. The high jinx contained in the wacky world of a job centre sounds so much like a neat pitch for a sitcom that it makes everything a bit too, well, sitcom-y. Tovey is straight man, longing to escape, Sarah Hadland's Trish Collingwood is a boss who actually says the line "I'm your boss. I also want to be your best friend". Stand-up Jo Enright is the supercilious jobsworth with ambitions for a promotion. It's all a bit assistant to the regional manager in its ambitions.

The opening episode is also littered with sex. And I use that verb literally. We begin with Trish having slept over at Karl's flat, we later saw her having sex behind a bin. She said: "After the drought comes the flood, and I am ready to get soaking wet." Trish also introduces a new member of staff thus: "She's a virgin [long beat] a job-centre virgin!" HAHAHAHA SEX!

Which is a shame because it has the basis of something that could be quite rewarding. If only it had a bit more confidence in its characters, like the deadpan nerdism of Adeel Akhtar's George.

This sitcom sleeper hit still making a good impression

In fact, the best scenes are rarely to do with mimicry. The moment that had me spluttering into my drink last night was a back and forth between Martin and Jean (the wonderful Jo Hartley from This Is England) after Martin, in a brief stint as a caretaker, stumbled upon a homeless man.

Matt LeBlanc needs a little more help from his friends

Regardless, despite the quality cast and the awards, I'm still not quite convinced.

Cardinal Burns, TV review

Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns get tone spot on in second series of sketch show.

GameFace, TV review

Roisin Conaty shoves a series' worth of plot into 22 minutes.

Inside No. 9 looked at life behind closed doors. After last week's silent-movie hijinks, it was back into the darker recesses of its creators' psyches.

It's always trepidatious when Reece Shearsmith dons the clothes of an ordinary man - something wicked this way comes.

Here we started with Tom, a clean-cut primary school teacher, and his girlfriend (Gemma Arterton). Tom rapidly descended into an almighty funk with the help of a homeless man called Migg (Steve Pemberton).

What began as a study into the unspoken horror of Tom letting the filthy Migg into his house, took a turn for the darker as Migg slowly imbibed Tom's spirit. Or did he? The timing of the "twist" that he didn't actually exist suggested early on that there might be more to come and there was.

This third episode wasn't really in the slightest bit funny, but that's no complaint - I found myself moved by its sad brilliance. Its ambiguity about Tom's state of mind a fine - if cartoonish - take on mental illness. It also featured the glorious line: "You're not Charles Bukowski, you're just a primary school teacher who had a nervous breakdown." So that's one laugh, at least.

The Kumars: TV review

Although there were awkward moments (Chevy Chase seemed bemused), the format does allow Sanjeev to ask some of the better chat-show questions.

This Is Jinsy is one of those weird British comedies, like The League of Gentleman and The Mighty Boosh, whereupon a first viewing, it seems inaccessibly strange but, given time, you come to embrace its eccentricities.

It's a learning experience. Here, Stephen Fry joined the cast as a coiffured professor obsessed with fine hair, whose arrival bagan a string of events that culminate in an ancient wig coming to life and terrorising the residents. Of course.

There's a lot to be said for unadulterated, often creepy silliness. Jinsy's best moments are its tiny asides: someone holding a newspaper with the headline "COW DIES"; a TV show (hosted by Greg Davies in drag) called Punishment Roundup; something named The Singing Obituaries. It's very silly, but very worth it.