There are still ideas that don't really have legs, and still they are finding their way past the green light. Take Cockroaches, a new offering from ITV2. The idea of Freddy Syborn's script is that a nuclear holocaust has wiped out most of humanity, leaving teen couple Tom and Suze (Daniel Lawrence Taylor and Esther Smith) to roam the rural wastelands with their small child, conceived in haste on the night the bomb changed everything.

Essentially, it's the classic Seventies drama Survivors with jokes. That's the theory anyway, but alas the laughs are few and far between. The first few minutes, before disaster strikes, promised much. A newscaster warned of impending Armageddon, adding that no one had bothered to tell Africa and South America. The British Prime Minister (Robert Bathurst, not his first time as a comic PM: see also Hislop and Newman's comedy My Dad's the Prime Minister) was happier answering questions in Latin, a bit like You Know Who.

Spool forward a decade, and the future looked very like the past: jokes about not getting any sex, about in-laws, about cultural reference points (Suze reminisced about a blessed yesteryear in which "we had music, we had literature, we had Ant and Dec"). Suze supplied precious breast milk to both father and daughter, a joke much more creepily explored in Little Britain. The cast enlarged when they encountered a tribe of wood-dwelling dropouts led by Oscar (the ubiquitous Jack Whitehall), a Jafaican-spouting trustafarian ("Who talks like that?" wondered Tom). By the end of the first episode, attempting to enact the climactic immolation from The Wicker Man, he had been defeated. Tom accidentally hacked off his wanking finger.

A kind of Weird Science for the internet generation, 30 And Counting kicks off the promising Love Matters series of six original one-off comedies covering all facets of the relationship game. The first double bill opens tonight with mates Matt (Dan Clark) and Jason (Brett Goldstein) constructing a computer-generated perfect woman with the goal of cheering up unlucky-in-love buddy George (Daniel Lawrence Taylor). Cue amorous carnage. The second tale, "Officially Special", stars The IT Crowd's marvellous Katherine Parkinson as a bored records adjudicator fearful that life is passing her by. She's somewhat nonplussed when her boyfriend takes her up the London Eye. And no, that's not a euphemism...

Sky continues to champion the short comedy with three sweet-and-sour double bills on the awkward business of modern romance. First up at 9pm is 30 and Counting, a romcom examining online dating through the eyes of hapless singleton George (Daniel Lawrence Taylor, aka Geoff from Hunderby). It's a little broad and uneven, but a couple of virtuoso set-pieces really impress, as George's mates create his ideal virtual girlfriend, and then reluctantly kill her off while the outro from Layla plays.

The formidably funny Katherine Parkinson then takes the lead in Officially Special at 9.30pm, playing Jo, a judge of world record attempts, whose work problems take her eye off her partner, busily planning a surprise. Said surprise is realised in excruciating fashion, and the show has enough smart observations to make about Jo's commitmentphobia to override a few clunkers (gags about a girl called 'Fanny'?).

With a bit more polish to the scripts, we could see either making a series. And no other broadcaster has shown such consistent willingness (or, probably, budgetary capability) to take a chance on under appreciated talent. This, more than anything, makes Love Matters, well, matter.

The pick of the closing double-bill in Sky Atlantic's hit-and-miss comedy shorts is Nell, Ted And Marlon, which takes a tongue-in-cheek swipe at the petty jealousies and grandiose ambitions in a community centre singing group. Choir members are delighted when rapper Marlon (Daniel Lawrence Taylor) spices up their repertoire - but he strikes all the wrong chords with choir-master Ted (Danny Morgan), particularly when fiery-locked Nell (Eri Jackson) gets hands-on instruction from the charismatic stranger.

The Common Ground comedy series, for which all episodes are set in the same stretch of south London, draws to a close with two more short films. In the main it's been a success with the majority of the stories working well. Tonight's double bill opens with the amusing Nell, Ted and Marlon in which Marlon (Daniel Lawrence Taylor), who claims to be a former member of garage and hip-hop group So Solid Crew, arrives to give guest lessons at a local singing class and becomes infatuated with Nell (Eri Jackson) and her oddly protective brother Ted (Danny Morgan). The wry Barry stars Alex Lowe as an old man who decides to live out a long forgotten bucket list when his wife dumps him - leaving his daughter (Linda Robson) a little perplexed.