Inoffensiveness was like being smothered by cushions

Starring Caroline Quentin the BBC1 sitcom Life Of Riley was like a cereal advert that has been spun out into a full-length TV comedy.

To the near-universal bewilderment and depression of TV critics who must feel that their job is a futile one, Life of Riley returns for a third series and a run of eight episodes. The sort of sitcom you'd rather hoped they'd ceased to produce in this more naturalistic age, it sees Caroline Quentin and Neil Dudgeon preside over their combined brood of sons and daughters of varying ages and do battle with their neighbours, with substantially less than hilarious consequences. Tonight, Maddy braces herself to meet her mother's new boyfriend.

The BBC might have axed My Family, but it's still hanging grimly on to My Step-Family - aka Life Of Riley - to satisfy its government quota for safe, middle-class, domestic nonsense.

At the start of the third series our harassed mum Maddy (Caroline Quentin) is horrified to find out her mother (Marcia Warren) has a boyfriend.

It's the set-up for some shameless over-acting as well as a bit of comedy-by-numbers where staples like a puffy bridesmaid's dress and putting a pair of red pants in with a white wash can be expected to get big laughs.

There are some flashes of originality too - like when Maddy tries to persuade her mother not to go through with her wedding and then has to back-track several times.

There's also a lovely scene where Maddy and her husband (Neil Dudgeon) imagine how their lives would be without each other.

BBC1's controller recently announced he was axing middle-of-the-road sitcom My Family "to make room for new comedies". Yet here we have Caroline Quentin and Neil Dudgeon as harrassed mum Maddy and stoical dad Jim in a third series of the comfortable, middle-of-the-road, extended family-based sitcom. Like My Family the gags are heavily signposted yet gently delivered, and it's to the credit of the cast if you find yourself chortling. Quentin in a flouncy pink bridesmaid outfit is a vision I'll long remember. But while this has its wittier moments, it's fundamentally designed to appeal to everyone and offend no-one. Sounds familiar.

The Caroline Quentin comedy vehicle returns for a third run. She stars as a middle-aged, multi-tasking mother struggling to cope with her dysfunctional brood. Her stoical husband is played by Neil Dudgeon - aka the new Inspector Barnaby on Midsomer Murders. Perhaps he can investigate the dying jokes here and how this My Family-style sitcom got recommissioned. Tonight, Maddy (Quentin) meets her mother's new boyfriend. But her attempts to talk her out of the relationship lead to wedding plans and Maddy in a big, pink, puffy dress. My Family, incidentally, will air its final series later this year.

Interview: Caroline Quentin, actress

She ticks the boxes as the perfect TV mum, but Caroline Quentin is no stereotype - negotiating her own way through the demands of her career and home life.

Caroline Quentin interview

Actress Caroline Quentin has criticised the gender balance of lead TV roles for older stars - claiming men far outweigh women.

Caroline Quentin interview

Caroline Quentin has her hands full again as multi-tasking mum, stepmum and wife, Maddy Riley in the comedy, Life Of Riley. Here, the 51-year-old mum-of-two reveals more about filming the third series, and her passion for Mad Men...

Sex and the Sitcom looked at the history of the sexual revolution through the lens of British sitcoms. The history is really rather tragic.

Because the most successful British characters in sitcoms are failures - like Hancock, Mainwaring, Steptoe, Fawlty and so on - you knew that there was no way that they were going to find someone to love, and those characters who were married never had it off.

Amongst the pieces of information was how 'the pill' revolutionised sitcoms. Before the invention of the pill, sitcoms were male dominated, but post-pill women had more freedom, and therefore could have more time on screen. It's a bit of a loose analysis but still interesting. Also mentioned was that during the 1970s ITV was more adventurous in covering sex and the permissive society than the BBC, with programmes like On the Buses being much more rowdy. To quote David Quantick (who was featured on the documentary), you could only have sex on ITV, 'If you had chips.'

In terms of the 1990s, perhaps the most annoying thing was the fact that the Americans were much better at covering sex in sitcoms than the British, with things such as "The Contest" episode of Seinfeld - probably the greatest single episode in American sitcom history - being shown, while in the UK one of the most complained about sitcom episodes was Christmas special of Men Behaving Badly when Caroline Quentin gets a tissue stuck to her face.

In conclusion, the series claimed that the biggest enemy against sex in sitcom is the jokes are simply not funny enough, which may explain why neither Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps nor Coming of Age were mentioned in the programme.

The legendary lost Men Behaving Badly pilot

Whilst working on this week's Britain In A Box, I had a rare treat when we managed to obtain a copy of the original, never-broadcast pilot of Men Behaving Badly. The pilot was made for Thames TV, directed by their then Head of Comedy, John Howard Davies and starred the eventual cast of the first series, Harry Enfield, Martin Clunes, Caroline Quentin and Lesley Ash.