Benidorm

ITV's biggest comedy in years returned for a summer special. The Benidorm special tied up all the loose ends of the series two cliffhanger and laid the ground for the upcoming third series.

Benidorm isn't the next big thing in comedy, it won't wow you with its originality, perfectly crafted storylines or even wonderfully observed characters but it is good for a laugh and that's all I really want from something that designed to make me laugh.

The new series will move from a 30 minute slot to an hour and if this special was anything to go by the series will be suit the longer time frame. I was asked to write about Benidorm as no one else at TheCustardTV sees the fun in it and I can see how sometimes it's a bit too cartoonish to enjoy. The humour is often over the top and sometimes silly but I enjoy it when it gets the balance right.

The story surrounding the kidnap was perhaps the silliest plot yet but it delivered some funny moments and maybe it's the continual sunshine and the panoramic views of Spain but there's something about the series that makes you smile regardless. As the series progresses its going to be harder to believe these people would return to the same holiday resort year after year but if its funny enough it won't really matter.

I've been to Nice and the isles of Greece but I've never been to Benidorm. And it seems the purpose of this mystifyingly popular sitcom - last night's special was a precursor to a forthcoming third series - is to ensure no one in their right mind heads for the capital of Costa del Blackpool ever again. The Spanish tourist board should sue.

Though there were some cheeky movie buff nods to No Country For Old Men and Die Hard spliced into the action - a crazy kidnap plot, since you ask - Benidorm left me feeling like it always does: grubby and dizzy, like I've spent too much time in the sun swigging budget sangria and my skin is starting to peel. It's trying to be a package-holiday Shameless but the Benidorm bunch are such a relentlessly charm-free bunch of lame-brained stereotypes it's as nightmarish as a no-frills airline going long-haul: it doesn't bear thinking about.

I've laughed at Benidorm before now, but last night's special was a distinctly laboured affair. "There are no strangers in Benidorm, only friends you haven't met," said the oily Spanish waiter at one point. "What bloody Christmas cracker did you get that out of?" replied another character. The same one where they got the jokes, I take it. There were thudding malapropisms ("The doctor thinks you might have percussion," said to a man who's just had a blow to the head), comic misunderstandings (a man called Wheedon is addressed as Senor Widdle by a doctor) and creaky physical comedy (man rushes to open door to stairs only to find that it's a broom cupboard). Let's go somewhere else next year.

The Brits are abroad in Benidorm, back for this one-off special, though I'm not sure 'special' is a word that can really be used about this unlovable, ill-conceived, banal and embarrassing sitcom. Ouch, it's bad; it actually makes me quite depressed. A nod to the Javier Bardem character in No Country For Old Men amuses for a short while, but what he should have done is turn his gas-cylinder weapon on everyone involved - actors, writers, producers, conceivers, and the inexplicably large number of people who watch this nonsense, and then himself. The really depressing thing is that it's soon to return for another season. Now I'm depressed again.

Benidorm is ITV's biggest sitcom in years. The second series was watched by six million people last year, when the show received a Bafta nomination. Announcing a third, the channel's director of television praised its "fantastic mix of warmth, charm, and fun", which suggests to me he hasn't watched it much. Warm and charming it is not. If he had instead praised its fantastic mix of bile, ugliness and mishap among a gallery of sweaty, hopeless British holidaymakers who engage in screeching poolside rows about thongs, we'd have believed him. The good news is, this special extended one-off pushes the usual boundaries a bit. We pick up where series two ended, with the aftermath of the beach wedding where Madge was to marry her rich fiance Mel, until a paragliding Johnny Vegas dropped from the sky and knocked him flat. From there, a farcical hostage plot evolves with very funny nods to No Country for Old Men and, believe it or not, Die Hard.

In a soul-sapping television tradition of yesteryear, practically every sitcom would do a dire summer special in which the regular characters went to Spain and had unfunny encounters with the locals. Benidorm is like that in every single episode. This mirth-free atrocity about the antics of a gaggle of British oafs staying in the Spanish holiday resort has been running for two series, and returns tonight with an hour-long one-off. Sample japes: Mick (Steve Pemberton) wets himself in a police car, and Madge (Sheila Reid) is kidnapped while hitching a lift to hospital. Strange things, budgets: ITV apparently doesn't have enough money to make more of The South Bank Show, but it does have enough to persist with this twaddle.

It's not the most sophisticated of sitcoms, but this character-based ensemble job surprised many by walking off with last year's National TV Award for Best Comedy. Here the regular cast, including Johnny Vegas and Abigail Cruttenden, return for an hour-long one-off, picking up where series two concluded.

Very nearly as funny as Eldorado, this bubbly, award-winning sitcom about Brits abroad is back for a one-off special. What's more, a third series - in this fresh, hour-long format - has laid down a Union Jack towel in the Spanish resort ready for it's arrival in September. Tonight, though, we pick up where the second series left off, with Mel unconscious after being drop-kicked by Johnny Vegas, Mick in the hands of the local plod, Madge hysterical and Kate pregnant... Farcical fun in the sun.

This hour-long special of the colourfully chaotic comedy series picks up the action in the aftermath of the wedding between Madge and Mel on the beach. Mel is taken to hospital after being knocked unconscious by a paragliding Geoff (Johnny Vegas) - "East Lancashire's indoor paragliding champion" - and Madge and Janice, in their desperation to get to the hospital, get into a car with a man who is the spitting image of Javier Bardem's character in No Country for Old Men, right down to the haircut and limp. So begins an inspired homage to the Coen brothers' movie, as the Bardem character turns out to be violent drug smuggler Enrique "The Rat" Lopez, who kidnaps Madge and Janice at gunpoint. (He does have an air canister and hose but not as a weapon - his car has a slow puncture.) The trio then return to the hotel where all the familiar grotesques become embroiled in the action. Roll on series three.

ITV's comedy big gun, Benidorm, is back for a one off special ahead of the third series. The show is an acquired taste, but thankfully it has more texture and depth than the middle class flummery of Reggie Perrin over on the BBC. The cast play it with gusto, even if some of the material, centring on a bunch of mis-matched holidaymakers, doesn't quite hit the mark. Not dreadful, not great. Perhaps that's a perfect thumbnail of the modern ITV?