The Trip

Never take a TV hit for granted. I'd raved about The Trip and for five weeks it was brilliant, but am I allowed to say I thought the final episode was the weakest, that it teetered on the edge of sentimentality much like Steve Coogan teetered on those stepping stones over the river at Bolton Abbey?

No show is absolutely note-perfect and it's only because Coogan and Rob Brydon set such a high standard for themselves that I raise this minor grump. Real or pretend, Coogan went into The Trip mildly haunted by Alan Partridge, then laid down his best post-Partridge work. Who won the battle of the impressions? I loved Coogan's submarine noises and his Liam Neeson ("I WILL hunt you down"). The Michael Caine, Roger Moore and Woody Allen face-offs probably ended in draws but I think I'd have to give it to Brydon for his Al Pacino, his Ronnie Corbett and his generic Bond villain.

Come, come, Mr Bond, you like food-based comedy love-in travelogues just as much as I do.

The last in the series proved as unmoving and unfunny as the rest, as the pair reviewed The Angel at Hetton. Lines like, "behind every vaguely amusing one-liner is a cry for help," are clearly supposed to be part of a post-post-modern joint self-portrait, but The Trip was always too self-conscious to really make a point.

Coogan's expression of biting misery as Brydon shouted poetry at him in the manner of Ian McKellen by the ruins of Bolton Abbey was a standout moment. But superbly funny as it was, the scene was an anomaly in this programme, which was as unamusing as the preceding episodes.

Broadcast relatively late on Monday evenings, the show has been a little too subtle to keep the viewer's urge to fall asleep at bay and a little too lacking in punchlines to warrant fighting that urge.

With their endless flood of impressions, cynicism and one-upmanship, the pair were trying to convey to us what a nightmare it is to be in the company of show-off comedians, with all their demons of self-doubt.

It worked; it was indeed something of a nightmare to be in this pair's company for half an hour each week. The nightmare of an uncomical comedy cannot be understated.

Finally, we were subjected to a plodding, maudlin finish as Brydon returned home to the eager embrace of his wife and child, while Coogan entered his minimalist apartment alone and had a drink. Whatever could they be trying to tell us?

The end of the episode - and the end, therefore, of the series - left nothing but disappointment in its wake. Like the morning after a particularly drunken evening, the only reason you knew something had happened was because time had passed and while it wasn't clear exactly what had been going on, it definitely wasn't as good as you were hoping it would be.

Why I Love...The Trip

Yes, it's self-indulgent. The Trip is a misshapen, semi-improvised series in which two comics, playing themselves, tour the North's most expensive rural restaurants... But only the great Larry Sanders Show can compete with The Trip's dissection of its stars' vanity and inadequacy. The Trip is as funny as hell.

The Trip 1.6 review

The final part of The Trip's study of middle-age loneliness and alienating ambition (told between mouthfuls of luxury food), wasn't the impressive conclusion I was hoping for, but it was a worthwhile ending and one of the more entertaining episodes from a storytelling perspective.

The competitive comedians are up early to visit Bolton Abbey: "I liked Bolton Abbey before you liked Bolton Abbey," carps Steve Coogan to Rob Brydon, before they launch into a scene, standing in the graveyard, where they imagine Brydon's funeral and what Coogan might say at it. This is the prelude to a delicious pratfall, a sunlit breakfast and a lot of singing (about the only thing the pair agree on is a love for Abba's The Winner Takes It All.) It's all enjoyable and, as a muted meditation on celebrity and friendship, less insubstantial than it looks.

The Trip gives tourists a taste for the Lakes

The Trip, starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, has given a huge boost to visitor numbers in the Lake District, Lancashire and the Dales.

We've loved every minute, even the boring ones, thanks to Michael Winterbottom's eye for a shot. It's been accused of being a self-indulgent exercise in comedy of embarrassment. But, well, it just isn't. It's suprising how many ideas there are in what seems like a formulaic show. Tonight, they head to meet Coogan's parents, which is a worthy denouement.

On paper, The Trip sounds bloody awful: a cosy, luvvie giant in-joke for Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, showing off their impressions and them eating ridiculously fancy meals. So why is it so completely brilliant? "It's not about the destination, it's the journey," as 'Steve' described his refusal to use satnav, but referring also, surely, to the incidental banter and bickering between them which is gradually revealing their true selves. Or 'true selves'.

And it's also hilarious: their Michael Caine-off, "we rise at dawn-ish" and last night's ABBA duet may soon replace Alan Partridge's most quotable lines as the things fans greet Steve Coogan with. Which will be some small compensation for him still not being able to do Rob's "I'm a small man in a box" voice.

Filling me with feelings of inadequacy for the comparative dullness of my banter, the relative poverty of my impressions - are Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, regrettably coming towards the end of The Trip. There's been precious little else on the box these last few years that has got my wife and me shedding big fat tears of laughter, but The Trip never fails to oblige. I love it for its originality and its daring. And hats off to Coogan in particular for allowing himself to seem so obsessed with his place in the entertainment firmament. Last night, he compared his own three Baftas to Brydon's none, which wouldn't have been quite so funny without the suspicion that he meant it.

The Trip 1.5 review

I'll admit, The Trip's beginning to outstay its welcome with me. It's starting to repeat itself too much, really.