Fresh Meat

The best new British series of 2011 ends tonight and already we're impatient for series two.

After her riveting critique of Salman Rushdie last week, Vod is now on the brink of being kicked out of uni, which would be unthinkable. Without her, Fresh Meat would just be a rather sad bunch of students.

Vod - a female cross between Peep Show's Super Hans and Fonzie from Happy Days - is the lightning rod radiating coolness over the entire house.

And even if she has learned nothing about English this term, there are signs that she and her housemates have absorbed some other valuable lessons.

This series has been all the better for letting some serious moments trickle into the comedy - like those little flashes of soberness you get when you're drunk - and there's an unexpected outbreak of what can only be described as ­kindness in tonight's episode.

Don't worry, though. As end of term looms, the ­awkwardness of student life is hilariously exposed, never more weirdly so than when Oregon and Professor Shales host a dinner party in their new love nest.

Rejoice and be glad because Fresh Meat is right back on song for its final episode, full of the well-worked plotlines and gorgeous character comedy that make it so lovable. The fling between Profesor Shales and Oregon has kicked up a gear now that his wife has thrown him out, so the two are moving in together. The great Tony Gardner as Shales is always brilliant but he gets bigger laughs than ever when he briefly moves into the student house and has to pour tiny plastic pots of creamer on his home-made muesli. One shot of him in his wonderfully daft dressing-gown speaks volumes.

There follows an awkward dinner party between his poncey friends and the housemates ("So, what else are young people into...?") and of course some great work from Jack Whitehall as JP: his reaction when he realises that he has double-booked on the day of his dad's funeral is priceless. Roll on the second series.

How true to life is Channel 4's Fresh Meat?

Ahead of tonight's final episode of Fresh Meat, Sebastian Payne compares his own university experiences to the Channel 4 comedy.

Fresh Meat: final episode, Channel 4, review

Over eight episodes Fresh Meat has proved itself a worthy successor to The Inbetweeners, and the best programme about students since The Young Ones.

The freshest comedy of the year, this university students sitcom goes out on a high with more boozing, sex and foul language. Tonight Josie (Kimberley Nixon) gets drunk on "schmocoa" - that's schnapps and cocoa - and goes clubbing in a bid to forget her boyfriend woes, while JP (Jack Whitehall) is annoyed that his big club night will clash with his father's funeral. This has proved itself a worthy successor to The Inbetweeners - its depiction of university archetypes is spot-on and the performances excellent. The good news is that a second series has already been ordered. Schmocoas all round!

Final episode in the comedy-drama that managed to live up to sky-scraping expectations. It's the end of the first term and Vod is kicked off her course, Oregon tries to adjust to life as Shales's girlfriend and Kingsley's yearning for Josie reaches its shrill crescendo. Meanwhile, JP has his dad's funeral to attend, giving Jack Whitehall a stab at genuine pathos. It's only the end of term one and that means - one term per series - there could be a potential eight series with the same cast. Great!

Fresh Meat, 1.7, review

I wouldn't go as far to say Fresh Meat's disappointed me recently, after a superb start, but the drama's been eclipsing the comedy since episode 4.

This show can be relied on for great weekly comedy

Fresh Meat's penultimate episode was another excellent offering, with good performances all round, but it's Zawe Ashton as Vod who is beginning to steal the show.

Thank goodness for Fresh Meat, which has steadily been building its credentials as a comedy-drama, rather than straightforward sitcom. Last night, it was Vod's turn to do a presentation for her English seminar group, an assignment she started well (she'd plagiarized an Amazon reader's review of Midnight's Children to get underway) but couldn't quite sustain. "I never read it!" she yelled defiantly about half a minute in. "I got to the bit where the boy with a nose like a cucumber realises he can read people's minds and I thought, 'No, sorry, I'm not having this'." Robert Webb made a excellent cameo appearance as the needy geology lecturer and Oregon thrilled to the fact that Professor Shales's wife was being all sophisticated and soigné about their affair: "It's like something from a Woody Allen movie or something," she told Vod. "Yeah. Dirty old man and pretty young girl. I think I've seen that one." Its best jokes aren't quotable, though, because they come out of that strange amalgam of what the screen delivers and what the audience already knows and feels. Not just for students.

Oregon and Shales's love affair rumbles on as they plan one of their "midweek specials" at the Travelodge. Jack Whitehall's beautifully played irritant JP uses his dad's death and a little light seduction to try to get out of his end-of-term exam. And Kingsley's attempt to oust Josie's fiance from the house isn't going too well until Howard's former friend Brian reveals her to be the taker of Kingsley's "guymen". Yes, it's one of those weeks when the drama outweighs the laugh-out-loud moments.