Fresh Meat

After a shaky second episode, Fresh Meat was more or less back on form tonight, as the gang tried out the classic student past times of going on blind dates and changing their courses.

Once again, the characters could have been more subtly drawn. Jack Whitehall's character in particular is a posh-boy parody that needs never have been created, since Whitehall's own accent and persona would be enough for the perfect private-school kid anyway.

And it's not just the characters who are over the top at times. The storylines - which this week included Oregon getting down and dirty with Professor Shayles - have also been a little far-fetched at times.

But while Fresh Meat can be broad and brash when it wants to be, it also has its sublimely low-key, awkward moments, stuffed full of pauses and brilliant dialogue.

This week's standout scene was a shining example of this, as Professor Shayles offered Oregon employment cleaning his kitchen. 'We can talk, too...the oven, in particular, is very dirty... about literature,' he said, delivering the best line of the series so far.

With material like this up its writers' sleeves, Fresh Meat looks set to go from strength to strength.

Fresh Meat, now that it's moved on to writers other than Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, occasionally lapses into Yoof callow, a form of comic writing that privileges the brutally scatological over anything more nuanced. There was a nasty exchange in last night's episode, which stuck out like a... well, let's say a besmirched appendage. But there's also much better stuff, whether it was the silly comedy of Howard talking through his all-you-can-eat buffet tactics (which include a concealed bin-liner) or a lovely line from Tony Gardner's Professor Shales, who at first looked like a cocky sexual predator but has now revealed himself to be overshadowed by his more successful wife: "Jean thinks I'm Plath," he whined to Oregon as he attempted to seduce her. "But I'm not Plath, I'm Hughes." Cut the self-conscious filth from some comedies and there wouldn't be a lot left. Cut it from Fresh Meat and you'd be left with the best stuff.

Fresh Meat: How close to student life does it get?

Stereotypes or finely observed details? My household of recent graduates assess the Peep Show writers' new sitcom.

Review: Fresh Meat, 1.3

The weakest episode of the three that have aired, but in some ways the most interesting because of where it took some of the characters.

Greg McHugh: filming first scene was worst day of life

Fresh Meat's Greg McHugh has revealed that the show's opening scene was the worst day of his filming life.

Radio Times review

Fresh Meat definitely feels more comedy drama than sitcom in this episode: less frenetic, more ambling, but with big belly-laughs later on. The freshers are still finding their feet in the shifting sands of university life. The character who sums this up best is sweet, foolish Josie: Kimberley Nixon's facial expressions change, often several times a second, between confidence, uncertainty and panic, as she tries, usually too hard, to make friends and influence people.

It's an amazing performance, adding layers of comedy to the bare bones in the script, but it's still upstaged by Jack Whitehall as would-be womaniser JP, who makes hay with a brilliantly tasteless sex-related storyline.

Meanwhile, Oregon's flirtation with her tutor reaches new levels as he pays her to clean his fridge and grumbles about his wife, neatly nicknamed "the selfish Jean".

It's all about the excruciating lecturers tonight as the housemates struggle to shake Dan the Geology Man and Oregon has her first tutorial with the dastardly Shales. Their tutor/student relationship vastly improves but the boundaries are unclear, like a cricket match on a very worn playing field. Meanwhile, Josie runs a charity online blind-dating service that sees one unlikely couple mounting a military assault on the nearest Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet. Like all the best uni anecdotes you've heard, scripted by Woody Allen. Consistently ace.

The new campus comedy got almost universally rave notices for its first outing last week, but some of the novelty seemed to have worn off by the second episode. There were still a few great gags but it all felt slightly laboured, in particular the usually wonderful Robert Webb as the needy, seedy geology lecturer - a character racing headlong into bad caricature. Most of all, at an hour, it just felt too long for the random emptiness of student life. Cut it in half and there's a potentially great comedy.

Then, maybe I'm not the best judge, as I'm scarcely the target audience. From what I've seen so far, the show was either written for the under-25s or for the completely stoned. Which rules me out on both counts.

Review: A well observed look at the life of a fresher

Fresh Meat may lack some of the grim charm of Peep Show, but Bain and Armstrong have created another inch-perfect portrayal of a very British experience.

Fresh Meat 1.2 review

I'm glad last week's premiere was almost universally praised. I thought the first episode was a fantastic introduction that effortlessly introduced its six characters and delivered some memorable gags. This second episode, written by Tony Roche (The Thick Of It), was generally as good as last week's-if slightly less funny but with a better story to compensate.