Not Safe For Work

A vocal Twitter audience aside, scarcely anyone's been watching Channel 4's office saga. A shame, because they would have seen a mordantly funny dissection of post-uni existence, anchored by fine performances from Zawe Ashton, as beleaguered civil servant Katherine, and Sacha Dhawan, as her permanently mashed-up "boss" Danny. Still, this age of timeshifted viewing means that no show is truly "dead', and there's a chance Not Safe For Work will find a second life online.

Cataloguing the messy and frequently disappointing existence of civil servant Katherine, there were moments when playwright DC Moore's comedy-drama seemed to thrillingly stare down the jumble of anxiety and emptiness that plagues twentysomething life. Yet ultimately it chose not to offer its audience much in the way of insight, plying them with the exploits of reductive supporting characters instead of focusing on Katherine's identity crisis. It concludes this week, with the future of the immigration pathway hanging in the balance.

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This Zawe Ashton-starring dramedy is mounting in momentum as the various members of the team (even wild card Danyak) continue their journey from Northampton to London to present to the minister. Along the way, backstories previously hinted at are fleshed out, past ghosts confronted and so forth. It's often said that travel is all about the journey, not the getting there, but it's fair to say that the arrival at the ministry is pretty magnificent, too. Such a good series: warm and absurd, serious and moving.

Now that Danny's off-the-cuff immigration policy has got some unexpected traction with Martine, the minister's devious emissary from London, he's all invigorated. He's even off the ketamine, which can only be a bonus. But is the Northampton office being set up for a fall? And can Danny stay focused on the job at hand with a make-or-break presentation to the minister in the offing? Meanwhile, Katherine and Anthony call a truce of sorts. The best vision of ennui and simmering despair on telly for years.

Not Safe for Work, Channel 4 - TV review

A portrait of a generation of youngish professionals who stay out too late on work nights.

Funny and scathing in equal measure, NSFW is a hybrid of This Life, Fresh Meat and The Thick Of It, only possibly better than that sounds. Tonight, Katherine's short-term solution to Danny's incompetence comes home to roost, when "London" sends a waspish troubleshooter called Martine to see what's going on. Meanwhile, a rough night leaves Danny hungover in shorts and with some unexpected childcare responsibilities - which, uncharacteristically, works out very well for him.

Against her better judgment, Katherine (the excellent Zawe Ashton) helps department head Danny out of a pickle after he emerges from a sturdy and comprehensive bender with Angela to a looming grilling from the minister about what he's been up to, work-wise, for the past year. Meanwhile, a drinks do welcoming Katherine and Nat to the department turns out to be ill-timed, particularly after she reveals a shocking secret to Anthony. A series straddling comedy and drama that is better than anything else around at the moment.

Comparisons have been drawn between Not Safe For Work and The Office, and W1A, even The Thick Of It. But I tend to think the roots of this workplace comedy-drama extend even Britishly further, to Lucky Jim, and to Billy Liar. It is deeply, slowly, funny. Zawe Ashton (Fresh Meat) is rightly the star, but may be show-stolen by her old nemesis Danny, the fake Muslim, and perhaps the least appealing fictional character to have hit our screens since they had to make up George Osborne. It's triffic.

Not Safe For Work, Channel 4 - TV review

The script sometimes felt not just glum, but underpowered.