Peep Show

DVD: Peep Show - series 8

The greatest TV sitcom ever made - but how long can it go on for?

Peep Show series 8 episode 4 review

While there's still so much fun to be had with Peep Show's script, griping about holey plots and recycled set-ups feels - what's the word? Ungrateful. With only two episodes of the current series left, I plan to savour every remaining minute.

"Come on fate! This can't be right!" pleads Mark as Peep Show's merciless writers find new ways to humiliate him - this time by making Super Hans his boss. Mind you, it's never hard to make Mark (David Mitchell) feel angry and defeated. Dobby manages it just by giving him a couscous salad to take to work - or "My Tupperware box full of tasteless misery sand", as Mark prefers to think of it.

The couple's wildly different priorities are illustrated by the fact that Dobby (Isy Suttie) wants the pair of them to go inter-railing for a few months, while Mark would rather be taking evening classes for an MBA. It's another sharply written, horribly funny episode.

Is Series 8 of Peep Show the best ever?

Any comedy lumbering into its eighth series usually faces accusations of becoming stale and tired, but Peep Show doesn't have to worry about that: it's barely managed to rustle up a single negative review since it initially aired way back in 2003.

Have You Been Watching... Peep Show?

Jez's failure to get a life coaching certificate from a Mickey Mouse accrediting body run by a woman he'd slept with - combined with Mark's equally crushing defeat at the hands of a fake publishing agent - was Peep Show gold, but the third episode somehow managed to be even better.

Peep Show series 8 episode 3: The Love Bunker

Peep Show delivers its take on the paintballing episode, and it's a good'un. Here's Louisa's review...

When Peep Show is on this kind of form it's like a perfect toy you want to play with forever. Tonight, writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong work in so many great lines - mainly for the twisted inner thoughts of Mark and Jez - that you may need to pause the TV to allow for laughing time.

Mark's worries about someone stealing girlfriend Dobby have switched from Gerard (RIP) to her ex, Simon. The latter organises a paintballing day for his birthday, and keeps Dobby suspiciously close. ("Holding hands?!" Mark notes, furiously. "That's not military! I'm pretty sure Rommel never held hands!")

Then Mark gets stranded in a bunker with drug-addled team-mate Superhans and a dog-eared biography of Napoleon. The latter proves more help.

After an ill-fitting touch of role reversal in the opening two episodes, all is once again as it should be with the Peep Show lot. Superhans is back on the drugs, Jez has decided he fancies Mark's girlfriend, and Mark - after a vaguely sinister start to the series - has reverted to his excessively anxious and bitter best. A paintball outing with Simon, Dobby's ex, is the perfect setting for Mark's militaristic introspection, and while he's left cowering in a bunker with Superhans, Jez is smoking weed with Dobby and offering the Ofcom-baiting confession that he's 'been basically bored since 9/11'. But even these moments can't match the highlight of the season so far: Mark attempting to play a party game that involves guessing the names of popular bands ('If it's not Snow Patrol or The Beatles, I am so fucked') in front of Simon, his latest nemesis. One of the series's finest half-hours.

Mark Corrigan: Business secrets of the pharaohs

Following the publication by British London of his first book, GQ revisits an exclusive extract from Mark Corrigan about how the ancient Eygptians can help you manage your team, your time and your "pyramids" more effectively.

I think the best way to start the review of this programme is with the following statement: Peep Show is better than Father Ted.

I know that according to Channel 4's Greatest Comedy Show Father Ted's is better, but it's wrong. It's merely more popular. Peep Show's funnier because of the writing, the plot devices, the innovative camera work, the quality of the performances and the darkness of the humour and characters. Peep Show may never have attracted more than 2 million viewers for a single episode, but the quality of it stands.

Peep Show returned with its usual mix of darkness and desperation, thanks to the struggling lives of flatmates Mark and Jez (David Mitchell and Robert Webb). At the start of this series, Mark is trying to get Jez out of the flat so his love Dobby (Isy Suttie) can move in. Mark's plans are so desperate; he even thinks breaking Dobby's microwave will help. Also, Mark gets a job tip from - of all people - Super Hans (Matt King), Jez decides to undergo therapy, and the health of Mark's love rival Gerrard (Jim Howick) takes a turn for the worse.

There's so much to like in this opening episode, including Jez's somewhat paranoid display when he attends his therapy session, to the horrifying consequences which result when Mark tries to prevent Isy from seeing Gerrard. One interesting plot device which seems to be sprouting is Jeff (Neil Fitzmaurice), now living with Sophie (Olivia Colman), getting a bit too close to Mark's baby son Ian for his liking...