Although this sitcom has never quite managed to be as good as the sum of its parts, it's been easy enough to watch.

And in the last episode tonight, it's a mini Smack The Pony reunion as we finally meet Tom's ex-wife, who is played by one of Sarah Alexander's former cast mates, Doon Mackichan.

Not only does the former Mrs Tom Marshall have an ability to get up people's noses (a bit like her annoying daughter), she also turns out to have the skills of a cat burglar as she manages to enter a house without actually being let in.

But before all that, Gemma (Alexander) has to cope with another unwelcome house guest - ex-husband Jason (Neil Morrissey), who has been kipping on her sofa since splitting up with Inca.

While assisting Jason with his love life, Gemma herself is still emotionally torn between soppy Tom (Nathaniel Parker) and toyboy Billy (Robert Sheehan) and as this is the final episode of the series, we should finally find out who she's going to choose.

Will she follow her head or her heart? Go for the yurt or the Scotch egg? Don't worry, that last sentence will make sense.

20 Questions with ... Doon Mackichan

Doon Mackichan stars alongside Tamsin Greig in April De Angelis' midlife crisis comedy Jumpy, which opens at the West End's Duke of York's Theatre tonight (28 August 2012, previews from 16 August).

Doon Mackichan interview

Doon Mackichan tells Nick Curtis about the painful years that have left her fearless and funnier than ever.

Doon Mackichan joins Tamsin Greig in 'Jumpy' play

Doon Mackichan will join Tamsin Greig in cast of April de Angelis' Jumpy which opens at the Royal Court on 19 October (previews from 13 October) and runs until 19 November 2011.

Carpool is a distinctly low-frills, ingeniously penny-pinching chat show, with its cut-price opening credits and host Robert Llewellyn picking up guests in his car and interviewing as he drives them around. This week, it's the turn of Tim Vine, king of the twitter gag, whose puns Llewellyn finds amusing to an alarming degree, and comedian Doon Mackichan, whose latest show draws for its entertainment on the subject matter of recent family events including her father's death, her divorce, and the grave illness of her young son.

My Edinburgh, Doon MacKichan, actress

In 1984, I slept on the floor of the ladies toilet in venue 333 with my university theatre group.

I have seen several episodes of Taking the Flak, the BBC's satire upon their own foreign correspondents, and it has yet to become embedded in my affections.

The characters are in a world in which grieving relatives and photogenic orphans are at a premium, shots to camera must be accompanied by just the right amount of hand wringing and two minutes on Newsnight fully justifies any and every act of misconduct during filming.

The BBC had enough faith in Taking the Flak to bankroll location shooting in Kenya, and they have been rewarded with a self-assured, amusing and original comedy with more than a whiff of authenticity about it. Plus any show with Doon Mackichan among the cast is, by definition, a very good thing.

However, the characters simply fail to engage, or even surprise. Perhaps we have seen too many television comedies recently about the wacky world of television, populated by jaundiced and manipulative self-serving cynics, to care any more.

A cold-hearted sitcom brutally ribbing something close to the Beeb's heart: the producers, stringers and reporters in war zones itching to get their three minutes on News At Ten. The script for this opener, set in a conflict-ridden African backwater, is not quite as zinging as its obvious point of comparison, Drop The Dead Donkey, but there are at least plenty of heroes and villains, including Doon Mackichan's stressed-out producer and Martin Jarvis's lazy, big-shot reporter.

Smack the Pony trio to reunite

Former Smack the Pony stars Doon Mackichan, Sally Phillips and Fiona Allen are reuniting, six years after they last appeared on television together, as the writers and performers of a new comedy drama.

Even with Jonathan Ross as a three hour warm-up man, Buy Me Up TV failed to coax the glimmer of a smile on to my face.

The talents of Doon Mackichan couldn't rescue Justin Edwards' and James Eldred's account of life behind the scenes at a 24-hour shopping channel.

Perhaps, judging that this setting has been the subject of numerous satires, the authors settled for a frenzied facsimile of life at the consumerist cutting edge. Everyone sounded barking, indeed on the verge of a nervous breakdown, perhaps because they had to cope with dialogue that could apparently only be delivered at ear-shattering volume. The audience laughter was strangely disturbing, as if they had been force fed E numbers before being manacled to their seats.