Shooting Stars

This series of the madcap quiz show may not have struck the same irreverent chords as it did in its Nineties heyday, but it's been entertaining all the same. Concluding the current run, this episode sees The Mighty Boosh's Noel Fielding, DJ Tony Blackburn and presenter Zoe Salmon join team captains Jack Dee and Ulrika Jonsson and regular guest Angelos Epithemiou - the curmudgeonly alter-ego of comedian Dan Skinner - for more surreal tomfoolery.

Funny peculiar: The curious world of Vic Reeves

Never in the field of light entertainment has one man spawned such a collection of nonsensical catchphrases as Vic Reeves.

Shooting Stars: George's Song

"Hello, I'm Super George, a super hero and I can slightly fly."

Tonight's guests, Mutya Buena, Lenny Henry and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, are squired through the surrealist miasma by Vic in an RAF uniform and Bob with an inflated head. Treats include a dolly production of the Elephant Man, Angelos Epithemiou's rendition of The Cat Crept In (brilliant) and Mutya touching a pie through a wall. You won't get that anywhere else. Curious in that it's exactly as great as it was 16 (aieee!) years ago. No worse and no better.

Another splendidly silly foray into Vic and Bob's playpen, featuring a 'jazz fight', more moaning from Angelos the burger van owner, Jack Dee trying not to laugh and Kim from How Clean Is Your House? offering up some priceless facial expressions when Vic turns on the charm and turns a Marigold glove into a fish. Who says TV doesn't teach you anything?

Shooting Stars: Lady Antics

"As most people know I'm a ladies man," says Vic Reeves, "and it's always nice to have a lady seated to my right on the night."

Vic 'n Bob get a few bob less

Comics Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer have taken a pay cut worth tens of thousands of pounds to help the BBC slash costs.

What the returning Shooting Stars lacks in novelty, it makes up for in undiminished surrealism. Tonight's guests include Ricky Wilson from the Kaiser Chiefs and Jack Dee ("Your face is like an abandoned walnut. Like a doomed horse"), but it's the enduring madness of the hosts that entertains. Within mere moments, Vic has arrested a jazz pancake and shot it with a clarinet. Even regulars Ulrika Jonsson and drumming baby George Dawes (Matt Lucas) look surprised.

Even if you don't happen to enjoy the surreal exuberance of this wacky game show, there are consolations. Principal among them is the mournful presence of Jack Dee. With a face like a doomed horse he does nothing other than pretend to look miserable. It's a classic example of "less is more" - whenever the camera focuses on his gloom, it's like an ice-pack applied to a migraine. Matt Lucas continues to give a magnificent panto performance as the drum-playing baby. But once again, the show stopper is the new regular guest Dan Skinner as a burger-bar owner. You can almost smell the rancid fat clinging to his clothes.

Lots of things we can't decide about Shooting Stars. Was it actually better than this, or did it have the same funny only fresher? Is Vic ill or just much older than he claims? Is the bullying of Ulrika just misogyny? Is anyone actually going to be converted to liking it or is it like going to one of those Jesus And Mary Chain reunion gigs, solely for the benefit of their own generation? Is there really nothing new that could have been better? Why isn't David Mitchell on it? Why are we complaining when it could have been Horne And Corden?