Spy

The comedy pedal is still on the floor in episode two, as ignored loser Tim starts his MI5 training. His first exercise somehow earns him an unstable lodger - bad timing, because a mad family therapist has asked his evil son to monitor his every move.

A parent and child who hate each other is one of the many refreshingly brutal comic situations Spy exploits. Never mind that it makes Tim's struggle to retain custody implausible. And never mind that everyone's crazy and nothing is real, so that - like a lot of US sitcoms - you wouldn't mind missing an episode. When you're in front of it, Spy keeps doling out quick, cheap, satisfying laughs.

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According to this rather daft comedy, getting a job as a spy at MI5 is actually pretty easy. Even if your work experience to date has been serving in a computer shop and you're an idiot they'll still give you a gun. Of course, being a comedy, the set-up isn't really important, it's the jokes and performances that make it. Unfortunately, this is decidedly low-brow comedy that probably won't raise more than a smirk. We're now in episode two and Tim (Darren Boyd), our hapless new recruit, begins his first day on the job. Robert Lindsay - moving from one mediocre sitcom to another - is his boss.

New sitcom Spy, Sky TV

Licence to be likeable.

Review: Spy, Sky1

Darren Boyd stars as nice-but-dim Tom, who accidentally becomes a member of Her Majesty's Secret Service. But will it impress his hard-to-please son?

Spy - a classic comedy in the making

Originally airing on Friday, this new sitcom is certainly the best Sky comedy so far and even Episode 1 shows superb promise. Unlike a lot of comedy recently, this one is a great family show that manages to bring something entirely new to the table.

I really loved it. I know, a Sky One comedy! (It's fine, we're all telly snobs here.) Darren Boyd has been around for years - you'll know his face, if not the name, from Green Wing and Whites - but I have to say I've never taken much notice of him before. But I'm happy to say that he's genuinely brilliant here as an under-achieving divorcee dad Tim who stumbls into a job with MI5. His pious, genius son is a great character, and Horrible Histories' Matthew Baynton is really funny and very well cast as Tim's weird best friend.

It has to be said that elements of this felt familiar - I suspect writer/creator Simeon Goulden is a big Spaced fan, and the scene in which Tim disrupts the entrance exam is pure Men In Black. But none of that lessened my enjoyment - Goulden is borrowing from the best there, after all - and I was chuckling throughout. Give it a go.

Spy, a new sitcom on Sky1, is very promising. "How was school?" a dad asks his son. "Torpid," replies his witheringly precocious nine-year-old. Thirty seconds in and already more laughs than Comic Strip managed in an hour.

Spy episode 1.1 review

Imagine a dreadfully lazy merger of Chuck and Johnny English, then throw in the world's most slappable child character since Bonnie Langford "scweamed and scweamed", and you have something approaching Sky's newest sitcom Spy; a worn-out entry into the hackneyed spy-comedy genre, that continues to find favour despite the fact the Austin Powers movies are almost a decade behind us (and only the first one was worth a damn).

Sky is certainly stepping up its comedy offering, with This Is Jinsy recently joining the likes of Trollied and Mount Pleasant on Sky Atlantic and Sky 1. Spy is another hopeful offering. It stars Darren Boyd as single dad Tim, a hapless buffoon working in a high street computer shop who accidentally gets a job in MI5. There's a US comedy called Chuck with a vaguely similar premise, but Spy parachutes in British flourishes, like Robert Lindsay and the obligatory verbose child in the shape of Tim's deeply patronising son. It will need considerably more laughs in future episodes to stand repeat viewing.