Lab Rats

This bonkers and self-proclaimedly stupid comedy, co-written by and starring Chris Addison, is odd: not very funny yet vaguely appealing none the less.

Even with the best will in the world, this is still a painfully unfunny episode. There is nothing wrong with the characters or with the acting - the weak link is the script, which starts off by relying (deliberately) on daft jokes and farcical plots. And although there is no reason why daft jokes shouldn't be funny, they cannot be clumsy and laboured as well as daft. One of the central jokes of tonight's episode is a former professor - taken out of a deep freeze and brought back to life - who proceeds to drive everyone round the bend. Alas, he is so tiresome that he will drive viewers round the bend as well.

What a brilliant sitcom to get young children interested in the wacky world of science.

Sadly, the show - starring Selina Cadell - ended up being scheduled at 9.30pm, way past the bedtime of anyone who'd find anything to laugh about.

I didn't want to write this off after its debut last week. I hoped the stupid jokes, stupid science and even stupider scientists might have been a one-off, but this week it turns out it was just getting into its stride and was preparing to get even stupider.

Tonight we're subjected to a stream of verbal diarrhoea from guest star Robin Ince, who's been defrosted out of his cryogenic freezing unit. The joke is he's not even dead! But this show is. Time to pull the plug and walk away. Or else shunt it over to CBeebies.

There are nicely worked scenes in Chris Addison's sciencey sitcom this week as an officious inspector comes to visit the lab - another great turn by Kim Wall (last seen in Five's sitcom Angelo's). As luck would have it, he calls on the day Cara has accidentally defrosted the wealthy benefactor who was being kept cryogenically frozen in the lab, despite not being dead. It's more complicated than that but the details hardly matter; it's all about well-observed comedy moments, for instance when Alex (Addison) distracts the inspector by nudging the pictures on the wall crooked, knowing his adversary will feel compelled to put them right. I'm not convinced the characters or tone have quite gelled yet, but there are sparkles of something good.