In time for the low-hanging comedic fruit of England's World Cup campaign, a return for the standard mix of mock-incredulity at everyday minutiae, repeated plunges into well-thumbed stand-up routines and hefty helpings of "epic" banter. This second episode of this new series has series mainstays Dara O'Briain, Hugh Dennis and Andy Parsons being joined by Rob Beckett, Gary Delaney, Josh Widdicombe and Sara Pascoe, the last possibly pressured to prove she's there on merit rather than due to a dictum from the BBC Trust.

Radio Times review

We're now a mighty 13 series into the topical panel show, and Dara O'Briain remains adept at shepherding his guests' reactions to the news - part effective quickfire puns, part Radio 4-friendly cleverness and, yes, part borderline offensive nonsense - into a cohesive whole.

For the comedians who stand in front of Mock the Week's lonely microphone, this isn't a bad summer in which to start a new series. As expectant silence falls around them, the World Cup, immigration rows and the build-up to the Commonwealth Games and Scottish referendum are all there to be clutched at. Tonight, regulars Andy Parsons, Hugh Dennis and our cerebral host are joined by Milton Jones, Ed Byrne and Romesh Ranganathan. Katherine Ryan is the solitary woman.

Interview: Hugh Dennis

The Outnumbered star on life as a school swot, being mistaken for a flasher, and parenting lessons from his fictional family.

Based on its initial airing this week, I hope to God that Over to Bill doesn't return as it was completely flawed from start to finish. The premise sounded promising enough as weatherman Bill Onion (Hugh Dennis) was fired from his job at the BBC and had to look for work elsewhere. His mate Jez (Neil Morrissey) promised to arrange a meeting with a powerful acquaintance but this meant that Bill had to keep his friend's horrible fiancée Selina (Helen George) on side. This wasn't easy as Selina was portrayed as a high-maintenance gold-digger who was only marrying Jez for the money he made selling his dog chewing gum idea.

I was surprised that Over to Bill was written and directed by such an experienced comedy hand as Red Dwarf's Doug Naylor because to me it felt like the work of a first-time writer. Every cliché was trotted out here from Bill accidentally drinking breast milk to him forgetting to bring a wedding gift to Jez's nuptials and having to stop at a petrol station to purchase a replacement.

In addition to the old-fashioned script, the characters were on the whole fairly unlikeable. The only exception to this rule was Bill's wife, played by the lovely Tracy-Ann Oberman, who I felt was far too good for this fool of a man. The fact that the final gag involved Bill and his wife donating bone marrow tells you all you need to know about a programme that more than suited the slot that was recently occupied by such duds as Father Figure and The Wright Way.

What do you get when you cross Hugh Dennis and Neil Morrissey with an unremarkable script about a weatherman and his woes? This one-off comedy from Doug Naylor, co-creator of Red Dwarf. Dennis stars as Bill Onion, a middle-aged TV weatherman fired from the BBC and trying to claw his way back with the help of his best friend Jez (Morrissey), Jez's hostile wife (Helen George) and his own wife (Tracy-Ann Oberman). It's the first of three new pilot episodes in a revamp of the BBC's Comedy Playhouse strand.

Radio Times review

Hugh Dennis is Bill, a hangdog weatherman who is sacked from the BBC and replaced by a stunning young woman. Infuriated, bitter Bill sets out to find another job, this time with C4. It's not much of a premise for a comedy, but then Over to Bill isn't much of a comedy.

It's supposed to be a comedy (written by Red Dwarf's Doug Naylor) because it's part of a brief revival of the much-loved Comedy Playhouse strand, which produced abiding hits Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part and The Liver Birds.

But Over to Bill won't trouble the comedy stratosphere like those classics. There are jokes about the accidental drinking of breast-milk, emergency present-buying from a garage and a particularly tasteless routine about bone marrow transplants. Neil Morrissey and Call the Midwife's Helen George co-star as Bill's shallow friends.

Radio Times review

Television loves birthdays and anniversaries, so how much more exciting can it get than actually having an excuse to celebrate one of its own milestones with a special season of programmes? BBC Two is 50 years old this year (surely not, doesn't she look young?) and the festivities will be sprinkled across the schedules throughout the year.

Here Dara O'Briain and Pointless's Richard Osman hosts a 50th birthday quiz where celebrities are asked questions about BBC Two stars and programmes across the years. Guests include Hugh Dennis, Hairy Biker Dave Myers and Professor Brian Cox.

So after seven years and five series we must say farewell to Outnumbered (BBC One), which has at last been outmanoeuvred by Mother Nature and the pulsating endocrine systems of its now only semi-juvenile leads. Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey), Ben (Daniel Roche) and Karen (Ramona Marquez) were 11, eight and six respectively when the sitcom about life in the overscheduled, underdisciplined Brockman household began in 2007. Now Karen looks like a 25-year-old model, Jake is a tangle of gangling limbs and Ben - well, Ben still looks like Ben, but galumphs stolidly now rather than pinballs round the house, more usually mortified these days than gratified by the havoc he creates.

In the beginning, most of the art and all of the craft went into assembling the children's semi-improvised performances into workable narrative wholes. As the exhausted parents, Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis gave lovely, understated and endlessly, beautifully generous performances that left the children room to perform while gently trammelling them in the right direction. It was all very ... parental, really, and doubtless almost as exhausting as the real thing.

But now the kids have minds, scripts and marks of their own. They manage them all very well. To say that the magic is gone is not to do them a disservice but simply to recognise that Outnumbered was a series built round the unfakeable pre-adolescent world-weariness of the 11-year-old oldest child, the irreproducible childish ebullience of Ben and - words almost fail me. What was it about Karen? The sense of nascent megalomania within? The slow, styptic blink when she spotted an inconsistency in an adult's story or an incompatibility with her world view? The moral sense of a snake coupled with the unforgiving judgment of a Puritan preacher? The sociopathic detachment with which she scanned for personal weakness and the elegance with which she struck? ("So you've been a bridesmaid? But never a bride.") The composure remains, but she has grown into it now. The preternatural element of her gifts-slash-unnameable threat has lessened. The family and viewer are less tense. It's a relief, but the laughs are fewer and our time together is over. It was great while it lasted though.

For a show based on sarcastic back-chat, this last-ever episode turns the tables with a Disney-style finale. Karen's even offering tea and biscuits when dodgy Auntie Angela (Samantha Bond) turns up with her latest toy boy. But how will Spartacus: The Musical go for Ben? And what about the search for Tommy the hamster? Claire Skinner, Hugh Dennis and the kids - Tyger Drew-Honey, Daniel Roche, Ramona Marquez - make a surprisingly sentimental exit.