The glorious return of the BBC's self-flagellating sitcom, whose second series begins with a one-hour special. Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) and co prepare for the impending royal visit of the Prince of Wales. Elsewhere, Jessica Hynes's viciously stupid Head of BBC Brand, Siobhan Sharpe, attempts to mash-up the Beeb and Wimbledon, Entertainment Format Producer David Wilkes (Rufus Jones) has a title but not a show, and lovable doofus Will the intern might just have solved everyone's problems by possessing a sister.

The spirit of W1A comes to the real BBC

It is a problem that would have Hugh Bonneville's bungling BBC executive Ian Fletcher reaching for his Blackberry: the real-life BBC has run out of paper.

John Morton's affectionate satire of the inner workings of the BBC makes a welcome return. It has been accused of failing to go for the jugular, but that was never the intention. It's not about attacking the BBC, just as Twenty Twelve wasn't about attacking the Olympics.

According to Hugh Bonneville, it could just easily be about the NHS or Whitehall. "It's about satirising management structure and management speak," he says. W1A has two obvious and outstanding qualities. The first are the characters, all of whom are hideously recognisable and superbly performed.

Jessica Hynes steals the show as the grotesque PR supremo Siobhan Sharpe, but nobody in the ensemble cast puts a foot wrong. My personal favourite is Neil Reid's Controller of News & Current Affairs played by David Westhead, but there's a gem of a performance in tonight's hour-long episode from Andrew Brooke as the BBC's incompetent head of security.

It's other great quality is the dialogue, which sounds so natural that it feels improvised. Not so. "Every um and er - every odd word you hear - is there intentionally," says Bonneville. Because of this, the cast have to rehearse like an orchestra to get the rhythm right. "You spend your entire day running lines, running lines, running lines," says Bonneville.

TV review: W1A Series Two, BBC Two

Hugh Bonneville stars in scarily plausible BBC mockumentary.

Radio Times review

The trailer for the new film about Paddington, the duffel-coat-wearing bear from darkest Peru with a love of marmalade sandwiches, has already irked purists who fear Michael Bond's much-loved children's book character has been "Harry Pottered".

But the film's starry cast have no such worries, and three of them - Nicole Kidman, Julie Walters and Hugh Bonneville - cosy up on Graham Norton's sofa tonight to explain why they were keen to take part and how they believe "the spirit of the books has been preserved, while embracing some of the issues of the present day". Quite how a villainous Cruella de Vil-style taxidermist who wants the bear to be stuffed and mounted fits into that description remains to be seen. There's also music from Take That, who've slimmed down to a three-piece.

Some may have been put off by what could be perceived as media in-jokes, but the follow-up to Olympic committee mockumentary Twenty Twelve was as sharply satirical as its predecessor, resurrecting the grotesque PR Siobhan (Jessica Hynes) and baffled "head of values" Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) and transplanting them to the BBC. In poking fun at ridiculous bureaucratic tangles, W1A found a quietly subversive voice. Plus, it made it impossible to take a folding bike seriously ever again.

Radio Times review

It's barely begun, and it's all over. Four measly episodes! Well, four quietly brilliant episodes, full of flim-flam and farce and staccato dialogue, but really, it's not enough.

The tone sails closer to comedy drama as some real feeling creeps in, both for dozy intern Will ("Yeah, cool, yeah, no worries..."), who may be my favourite character, and executive punchbag Ian (Hugh Bonneville). The latter's salary scandal is all over the papers, though another minor controversy, involving a Newsnight presenter in a short skirt, provides distraction on Twitter (#kneesnight).

Luckily, as we keep hearing, "Tony's pretty perky about this", but can Ian make it up to his one-time admirer Sally, last seen in Twenty Twelve? A cameo from Olivia Colman brings the answer.

Traditional as its set-up may seem, in practice, Rev. manages to maintain a light level of satire alongside its gentle comedy. Tonight, with St Saviour's under financial scrutiny, Adam is forced to attend a course with the self-important Roland (Hugh Bonneville) about how to rescue his parish. As if he needed the extra drama, he also seems to have agreed to perform a gay marriage, more or less, for his friends Rob and Jeremy. The lightly delivered sermon being: you can't always do what people expect of you.

Radio Times review

An approach from Archdeacon Robert is like being addressed by an urbane python, but the black-gloved cleric has a sensitive side. Yes, he delivers another dire warning to vicar Adam Smallbone about St Saviour's lack of funds. (Hugh Bonneville is back briefly as Roland Wise, the Dale Carnegie-like motivational cleric.) But when rumour spreads that Adam has conducted a gay wedding, maybe the Archdeacon (Simon McBurney) will exercise a little understanding.

With same-sex weddings now legal it's a timely story handled with humour (of course), compassion and without preachiness. Adam (Tom Hollander) is torn when two friends want a [forbidden] church ceremony. He agrees to say prayers for their union as long as there are no rings, confetti or any walking down the aisle...

There's a ripped-from-the-headlines quality about tonight's episode. Same-sex marriages became legal in England and Wales on Saturday, but the Church of England has stipulated that it won't be carrying them out, although it will stretch to prayers for newlywed couples.

And tonight, we see the dilemma that could typically pose for vicars when two gay friends of Adam's announce that they're getting married and want him to do the honours ("No confetti!"). St Saviours has never seen such a turnout, but Archdeacon Robert (the fabulous Simon McBurney) doesn't reckon this is any cause to celebrate. He does, however, have some good advice for Adam who wants to take his wife Alex (Olivia Colman) on a mini-break. He says, mystifyingly: "You can always tell a good pub hotel by whether the bedrooms have got logs in them."

And you can always tell a good non-wedding by the hangovers the next day. A drunken Alex, who is working her way through the Smallbones' drinks cabinet, is a real highlight.

And so is Hugh Bonneville, who pops in again as Roland, the media-friendly cleric who's now running training courses to save churches all over the world.