That Mitchell And Webb Look

That Mitchell and Webb Look, BBC2

We've always been big fans of Mitchell and Webb whether it be in Peep Show, David popping up on panel shows or Robert skiving in The Smoking Room, but for some reason their sketch show has never really hit the mark. However, on the whole this first episode of series three had a higher hit rate than the less memorable second series.

On Thursday, the return of That Mitchell and Webb Look served up a clinical assassination of The Apprentice, and its viewers. Mitchell and Webb are BBC producers, in the process of inventing The Apprentice. Webb is asking Mitchell why anyone would want to watch a show where, every week, a bunch of idiots screw things up. "Everyone will think that they're the only person to have noticed that all the contestants are idiots," Mitchell beams. "I've got a hunch that, for some reason, people feel this never stops being worth commenting on." "And remind me," Webb asks, "how do these ironic viewers show up in the ratings?" "They show up the same, my friend. They show up just the same."

The culturally incisive nature of Mitchell and Webb's sketch comedy is one thing. Increasingly, however, the news that many will want to know about the third series of That Mitchell and Webb Look is this: currently, just how scorching do Mitchell and Webb look? Has it become any easier to work out which one you'd have sex with first? As a diligent correspondent I can report that the important facts, viz the first episode, are:

Mitchell in full Victorian rig, shouting "Have you got any idea how hot I am?" Mitchell lounging on a sofa reading a newspaper, just like he would if he were your husband, and you lived together. Webb as Santa's evil brother, Russ, singing an absolutely filthy, 18-certificate version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town - and then kissing a woman with his sensual, endless man-mouth.

Insane man-hotness aside, this third series of Look has an unexpected, and profoundly thrilling, sense of going up a gear. In the first episode, at least, Mitchell and Webb seem to have chucked out all the old stalwarts - no Numberwang, no tramps with head-cams - and, instead, turned in the tightest, brightest half-hour of sketch comedy since A Bit of Fry and Laurie.

If the rest of the series is as effortlessly superior as the first episode, Mitchell and Webb will probably be credited with reviving the long-dormant TV sketch show. And making a long, hot summer borderline unbearable for a lot of women.

Ah. Another prime-time comedy from the BBC. Brace yourselves, fun-lovers. Actually, this one isn't bad. It may not be Peep Show, but give me That Mitchell and Webb Look over Kröd and his (not-so)-merry men any day. The problem I've always had with sketch shows is the transparency of the thought process. The really great ones are either so extremely astute as to poke fun at something everyone can recognise but no one's noticed, or they're so left-field as to be absurd.

Not too worry. Last night delivered, on the whole. It wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible, either, and it was a considerable improvement on the rather mediocre first two series. We could, probably, have done without the door-bell replacing, dog-firing cannon, but the hopeless spooks with their floating duck disguises and newspaper peepholes were laugh-out-loud funny, as was the competitive dinner-party chat between rocket scientist and brain surgeon, though I think my favourite would have to be the poor community-support policeman who's ridiculed for being unable to commit police brutality, only, you guessed it, "community support brutality". I wonder if that happens? Probably.

Review: That Mitchell and Webb Look 3x1

Despite David Mitchell's understandable dislike of football, I'm going to describe the first episode of the new series as 'a game of two halves'.

That Mitchell & Webb Look 3.1 Review

With the proviso that first episodes of sketch shows are intentionally the strongest to lure audiences in, I found this opener solidly written and very funny for the most part. There were only a few obvious duds, with most of the sketches hitting their marks and a handful eliciting big laughs.

The third series of That Mitchell and Webb Look revealed that David Mitchell and Robert Webb can flit more deftly than Matt Lucas between comedy series (Peep Show) and sketch show. The first of the sketches encapsulated Mitchell and Webb's grasp of comic brevity: it gently satirised the conventions of a Poirot mystery. As their unmasking approached, the killer suddenly acquired a villainous voice and cigarette holder. The duo also made a very funny joke out of that thing we do when looking around the house for something, patting both our pockets as we rock on our knees.

Best of all was a satire of The Apprentice, which had the duo as TV executives watching a tape of a show featuring a relatively meek CEO - a Sugar-lite - dismissing a contestant politely and apologetically. But it didn't quite work, the executives thought, and so rethought the concept. "We deliberately pick 16 idiots - real idiots, arseholes as well," one of the men said, "and then we watch them screw everything up." But honestly, who would want to watch that?

Mitchell and Webb: third time unlucky

In the field of artistic endeavour, you can always tell when someone or something is on the wane when works become retrospective, parodic and self-referential.

David Mitchell and Robert Webb are probably more famous for the work that they do apart than for their shows as a comedy duo, now that Mitchell is the brilliantly witty guest of choice for edgily satirical panel shows, and Webb became a YouTube darling with his winning turn on Let's Dance for Comic Relief. They are terrific in Peep Show, but That Mitchell and Webb Look just doesn't hit the mark, probably because it's not very funny. Don't get me wrong, there are a few mild chortles - I liked Webb's filthy Queen Victoria at a tree planting - but there's nothing here that will have anyone gasping for oxygen as they fall, laughing helplessly, from the sofa.

The third series of That Mitchell and Webb Look promises to be the funniest and most accomplished to date. Many of the sketches rely on television for their inspiration, a medium with which they are obviously familiar. Alongside a send-up of Poirot and an incredibly silly version of Spooks, there is a long-overdue sketch in which two television executives mull over the idea for The Apprentice. "We deliberately pick 16 idiots - real idiots, arseholes as well," one says to the other, "and then we watch them screw everything up. It's idiots behaving idiotically for an audience of idiots - and for people who think they are watching ironically." There is also a very rude and funny sketch about Queen Victoria's reaction to the smell of the linden tree, in which she undermines the values of the era she helped to create. This is a rare sketch show - one with more hits than misses.

If Krod Mandoon had been written by the same small army of writers who came up with this, it'd be really on to a winner. Much has been said about the death of the sketch show, but this first episode of the boys' third series made me laugh out loud so many times I was unable to make proper notes. Their deconstruction of The Apprentice is absolutely spot on. And after Robert Webb wowed us with his Flashdance for Comic Relief, it's extraordinary to discover how perfectly suited he is to the role of Queen Victoria. A stand-out sketch involving the gift of a tree is pure, rude genius and allows David Mitchell as her Prime Minister (I'm guessing from the beard it's the Marquess of Salisbury) to go off on a rant that plays brilliantly to his pompous strengths. It could almost be Peep Show in Victorian dress. Now there's an idea...

Other than prancing around to Flashdance or firing out droll gags on panel shows, these two have a particular genius for spoofing the nuances of gameshows. With Numberwang, they captured the sensation of tuning in to a daytime quiz halfway through and not knowing the show's baffling rules, and the third series of their BAFTA-winning comedy features an all too plausible scenario - the first post-apocalypse game show, where fuel is a top prize...