Bugsplat!

There are surprises, though less charm, in new comedy from Channel 4's Bugsplat!, from Drop the Dead Donkey and Outnumbered writer Guy Jenkin. Bugsplat! is set on an English RAF base, where drone pilots coordinate attacks on far-away targets. The press of one big red button in a converted shipping container in a field annihilates enemies and any number of innocent "collaterals". This brutal premise forms the basis of George Brant's fierce monologue Grounded, which is currently running off-Broadway with Anne Hathaway as its drone pilot. But the treatment here is more daft than harrowing, reaching for dark humour in the fundamental absurdity of the situation. That is not, in itself, offensive, though the jokes never quite land, hovering uncomfortably between trying to be both cautious and outrageous.

In its opening scene, a target vehicle is tracked by a drone as it moves from wilderness to town to marketplace to an orphanage for blind children, the collateral damage of any attack becoming increasingly unacceptable. "It'd kill 50 children!" one observer objects. "Health and safety gone mad," grumbles splat-hungry pilot Lexi (a caustic Lauren O'Neil), as she hovers over the button. Eventually, she gets to press it. She celebrates with a drink - they've taken out the bad guy. Only they haven't, and the real bad guy tricked them, and WikiLeaks is all over it and what appeared to be an operational triumph quickly turns into a PR disaster, particularly since someone filmed them dithering over the approach.

Vincent Franklin, last seen in Russell T Davies's Cucumber, plays exasperated Wing Commander Barry, who tries his best to manage this messy cross between a bureaucratic nightmare and "Xbox shit". But for a modern sitcom dealing with such current subjects, it feels strangely old-fashioned. Were it not for the subject matter, it is easy to imagine it airing on ITV's 9pm Friday-night spot. There are touches of wit - I enjoyed the use of "to decease" as a verb - but the obvious problem is that the real situation is so tragic and absurd that it requires razor-sharp satire to slice it open. The Thick of It, which is a clear point of comparison, worked because its writing was ruthless. This doesn't go far enough. When Fiona Button's PR manager Gina attempts to take control of the disaster - "What's a cock-up but a triumph that hasn't been spun right?" - you're left wishing Malcolm Tucker would come and show them how it's all done.

Bugsplat!, TV review

The cast and crew sound promising but this black comedy lacks chemistry.

Bugsplat!, Channel 4, review: 'current'

This pilot episode has an intriguing premise and shows potential, says Michael Hogan.

Bugsplat!, review

Overall, though, the tone of Bugsplat! was more wry than savage.

A strange solo outing for Guy Jenkin, co-writer of Ballot Monkeys. On an RAF base in the British countryside, a squadron who used to fly bombers in Afghanistan now sit controlling drones. In this, er, pilot episode, a hit on a high-profile jihadi turns bad, and it all goes a bit Thick of It as the details leak out. Can comedy flow from such a dark and airless subject? Vincent Franklin, Rufus Jones and a particularly fine Hugh Skinner - a dashing toff here, instead of his dim one in W1A - lead what proves to be a hopeless mission.

Radio Times review

A great cast - Vincent Franklin from Cucumber, Hugh Skinner (dumb Will in W1A), and Rufus Jones (camp David, also in W1A) do their best in this queasy sitcom about drone pilots.

The bored little group are closeted in a cabin on a bleak airfield, their days characterised by long stretches of yawning boredom punctuated by administering sudden death in the Middle East, and sometimes they get it wrong.

It's a black comedy (there's a very off-colour gag about social services) but it's not black enough and consequently not funny enough. It's the kind of thing Charlie Brooker would do ruthlessly well, yet writer Guy Jenkin (Ballot Monkeys and Drop the Dead Donkey) lets it drift into farce.

TV review: Bugsplat!

I love jokes in bad taste, but even I flinched at some of the one-liners in Bugsplat!, the new military sitcom from Channel 4.