Why I Hate...Never Mind the Buzzcocks

Never Mind the Buzzcocks has been masquerading as comedy for more than ten years, and a brow-furrowing 21 series. They'd be better off sticking Phill Jupitus and Bill Bailey on a sofa with a couple of pints and letting them discuss 30 minutes of archive pop videos. That's where the value of the show is. Everything else is fulfilling some desperate criteria to appeal to the 15-25 demographic, while forgetting about what actually makes good telly.

There was a bad moment in the first episode of this series when it seemed as if Black Books might have lost its footing. It was loud and slapstick and too crude to be funny. But now it is right back on form, and this is one of the funniest episodes yet. Manny (Bill Bailey) places a bet on the Grand National, which turns Bernard (Dylan Moran) into a chronic gambler. Once again, it is the inmates against the world. For all that they torment each other, their pooled inadequacies act as a bulwark against customers, debt collectors - and just about everyone else.

After last week's episode, which worked hard for its laughter, tonight's is a far more relaxed and subtle affair. Bernard (Dylan Moran) and Manny (Bill Bailey) decide to write a children's book. Bernard's first attempt at entertaining four to six-year-olds consists of a 1,300-page saga about the relationship between an academic who survived the Stalinist purges and a daughter whose long and bitter marriage is collapsing. "You should never talk down to children," he says. The episode plays to one of the great strengths of the series - the antagonistic co-dependence that binds the main characters together. It is a wonderful return to form.