Peep Show

Things seem to be going pretty well for Mark this week - his relationship with Dobby is back on, and Soph is away, leaving him for the time being without parental responsibilities. Happily, his crippling sexual anxiety is there to fuel much of the comedy in this episode. Having invested in a sexual appliance and named it ("Kenneth"), he now wonders how to introduce it into the relationship. Jeremy is still faking an interest in culture to impress Zahra, but the big news tonight is that Super Hans has decided to give up drugs. "Even crack?" asks Jez. "But it's your favourite!"

Mark and dim Dobby are now an item, though Mark (David Mitchell) is sexually insecure. He's lost his "dirty mojo", according to best mate Jez, whom he unwisely consults for sex tips. Mark also finds a new friend called Kenneth, but the less you know about that, the better. Jez (Robert Webb) has romantic difficulties of his own as he fakes interest in foreign films, the theatre, contemporary dance, magic realism and historical novels to worm his way into his beloved Zahra's heart. He's such an idiot it's almost adorable to hear him trying to get to grips with reading all 372 pages of Wuthering Heights: "I've been on the same four pages for three hours." But possibly even more delicious are Super Hans's (the brilliant Matt King) maniacal displacement activities after he gives up crack. "Cycling, running, cooking, knitting, quilting..." And there's an emergency when he accidentally runs all the way to Windsor.

"I'm knitting like an electric nan!" declares Super Hans tonight. Our favourite saucer-eyed waster is off the crack cocaine and this week he's taken up all kinds of other unlikely hobbies to burn up his new-found energy.

It's an absolutely first class episode that sees everyone out of their comfort zones. Mark is desperate to find ways to keep his new girlfriend Dobby interested in bed and Jeremy is doing his best to keep up with culture-vulture Zahra who likes art and French movies and modern dance and is under the mistaken impression that Jez does too.

Jez, bless him, has evolved only to the point where his prime consideration is making his own life as comfortable as possible with the minimum of effort.

Reading books doesn't really fit into that category so watching him grapple with Wuthering Heights must be one of the few times that Emily Bronte's novel has been the cue for eye-watering laughter.

The writing and performances remain brilliant, the stupidity of Jez agonising, the agony of Mark exquisite. This week, Jeremy joined a band as a sax player ("I can't play the sax but it's basically like a giant kazoo") and got a job with the man who was in a coma last week and whose girlfriend he is planning to steal ("I'll juggle them until it all blows up in my stupid face"), while Mark divided his time between looking after his baby son, pursuing - and at last, it seems, landing - Dobby and playing Cybermen vs Roosevelt with Gerard after a weak moment in a model shop. Jeremy finds them role-playing and mocks. But how is what they're doing any different from Jez's Xboxing, Mark argues. "I'm sorry that, in an infantilised world, I have ended up with the uncool toys." Oh Mark. It is your constant drive to iron out the inconsistencies in this frustrating adventure we call life that makes us love you. Please let it be so with Dobby too, forevermore.

Peep Show 7.2 review

Plenty of amusing moments this week, too, such as Jez using Sophie's breast milk to make cups of tea.

The news that Dobby has got a new boyfriend sees Mark, busy with babysitting duties, sign a Yalta-like pact with his bete noire Gerard as they try to split the two. Meanwhile, Jez gets a job on Zahra's no-longer-comatose boyfriend's website - "This is brilliant, I can do the job, have an affair. Juggle them both till it all blows up in my stupid face." Keep an eye out for Super Hans's new band - Man Feelings - for whom Jeremy is desperate to land a gig as bongo player or "a shit-hot bongista".

The dysfunctional flatshare sitcom, which seems to get stronger with age, settles into its seventh series. Neurotic nerd Mark (David Mitchell) tries to win back dream woman Dobby (the excellent Isy Suttie) when she starts dating a graphic designer. Meanwhile, feckless Jeremy (Robert Webb) lands a cushy job on a music website but soon makes the mistake of signing up his freaky friend Super Hans (the gloriously deadpan Matt King), whose band go under the moniker of Man Feelings.

Mark and Gerard are united in their love for the sweetly dim Dobby who, tragically, has a new boyfriend. The pair's only outlet is her Facebook updates, but their frustrations are sublimated with the purchase of Stalin and Roosevelt action figures. Mark is delighted: "We can get together and model Yalta!" Although history doesn't record the appearance of a Cyberman (with noises, courtesy of Gerard) at this formidable 1945 summit of world leaders. Soon Mark and Gerard are locked in a tussle for Dobby's affections and it looks like Gerard might have the upper hand, to Mark's consternation: "He's made a mockery of our Granita moment! He's Blairing me!" It's lines like this that make life, and Peep Show, worthwhile. Meanwhile Jez (Robert Webb) pursues the lovely Zahra now that her boyfriend Ben has emerged from his coma. Ben, it turns out, is an insufferable dweeb who employs Jez on his internet music portal. Which means, for lovers of the scrofulous Super Hans - the most disreputable character ever to appear in a television comedy - a chance to hear his idiotic band, Man Feelings. Sample lyric: "I am in loco parentis/I am the last remaining contestant on The Apprentice". Bliss.

Give it up now, everybody, for Man Feelings! Jeremy's disreputable druggy mate Super Hans (played by Whites sitcom writer Matt King) takes to the stage with his band tonight and its a gig destined to go down in musical history.

You might not have seen The Beatles at The Cavern or The Sex Pistols at the 100 Club, but now you can say you were there on the night that Man Feelings finally provided the answer to the musical question: What rhymes with The Apprentice?

Elsewhere in episode two, we find Mark pushing a pram and Jeremy playing the saxophone two activities for which they're totally, joyfully, unqualified. But weirdly, lots of other things do seem to be going rather brilliantly for Mark and Jeremy.

After making friends with last weeks boyfriend-in-a-coma, Jeremy (Robert Webb) has landed the coolest job in the world, heading up a music website, and Mark (David Mitchell) goes on a date with Dobby (Isy Suttie).

As Mark observes, things going well is very worrying because it just means they're about to screw them up. But along the way there are lots of wonderfully dumb one-liners on the subject of infant care (Can babies go by shredders?) and Mark and geeky mate Gerard getting very excited about their Stalin and FD Roosevelt action figures, which are obviously not toys.

Were not playing, Mark huffs. Were just arranging our models. With some noises.

Amazingly, Peep Show is now into its seventh series which makes it Channel 4's longest-running comedy show if you don't count Hollyoaks (who does?).

Never knew there was so much mileage in a sitcom about a feckless layabout and his uptight flatmate? Think again. Still, as they say in TV land, if it ain't broke, keep recommissioning it until it is.

Last week, Mark (David Mitchell) became a father and Jez (Robert Webb) met bookish hottie Zahra in the hospital waiting room. She was visiting her boyfriend, Ben, who was in a coma in intensive care. He awoke as Jez was moving in on Sara and now Jez has a problem.

This week he finds he also has a job - helping a grateful Ben run his web company. Meanwhile Mark learns from Gerrard that Dobby (Isy Suttie) has a new boyfriend. "He's younger, slimmer, better looking and more fashionable than us," says Gerrard. Their response? To form the Dobby Club and set out to wreck the relationship.

As usual, all the best lines go to Super Hans (Matt King) - "That's not jam, that's just total ******* marmalade," he tells Jez during band practice - and all the best gross-out moments go to Jez. Anyone fancy chilled breast milk in their tea?

"It's one step away from cannibalism," moans Mark when he finds out what he's been drinking. "It's luxury milk," Jez counters. "From a human cow".