Ian Wolf

Probably the best comedy drama currently on television, the third series of Getting On is still getting the laughs, although there's been quite a few changes.

For starters, the staff have been transferred to a new, brighter hospital. But this hasn't stopped Nurse Kim Wilde (Jo Brand), Sister Den Flixter (Joanna Scanlan) and Dr. Pippa Moore (Vicki Pepperdine) each - in their own way - trying to cope with their workload and each other. Their former matron, Hilary Loftus (Ricky Grover), has also now taken a consultancy role in the hospital, meaning he's just background noise - though he could have a say in who the hospital keeps as staff...

Most of the laughs come from the relationships between the three lead characters, helped along by solid acting and some cracking writing. Pippa had the best scenes in this opening episode, especially when chatting to some student doctors in the hope that they'd be interested in her latest medical project: an examination of "post-65 vulvas". Wonderfully funny, if slightly icky.

The drama is also coming off well, especially between Den and Hilary. This episode sees the staff going for medical check-ups, which sees Den discovering something shocking. I'll say no more.

Getting On's one of the best shows around, but as it is hidden away on BBC Four it's not given as big a profile as other shows. Maybe it might be time for a move to BBC Two?

Meanwhile on BBC One another family based sitcom had just begun, and while this series should be a hit, for some reason it feels a little... drab.

Me and Mrs Jones revolves around divorced mother of three Gemma Jones (Sarah Alexander), who is trying to raise two daughters, while her son has just returned from China to 'find himself'. Gemma not only work and family issues, but also has to deal with her ex-husband Jason (Neil Morrissey), who's now going out with a younger Swedish lady.

In terms of the cast, it looks great. The writers, Oriane Messina and Fay Rusling, worked with Alexander on Smack the Pony and later on one of my favourite shows, Green Wing. And Alexander as well as Morrissey are both established sitcom actors. But I just didn't find this show very funny.

Don't get me wrong, there are some laughs, such as the scene when Morrissey is at a children's football match and celebrates one of his daughters scoring a goal - unaware his face is covered in lipstick. However, most of it felt flat.

It could the fact that I'm familiar with their past work; I was expecting something more surreal and unusual from the writers. Not only was this not surreal enough, it wasn't as grounded in reality as either Friday Night Dinner, which also features a Green Wing actress in the form of Tamsin Greig, or the forthcoming Hebburn.

The show also featured the two daughters vomiting a lot, which was slightly off-putting. Personally, I feel that vomit and 'sick humour' are best applied under the "Elizabeth Mainwaring" rule - it's much funnier when it isn't shown, because the image in your head is much better than the one on screen.

Then again, it could just be that this episode had to follow perhaps the most awkward and unfunny episode of Have I Got News for You there's been in years. So in hindsight, Me and Mrs Jones probably deserves a second chance. Another viewing after a more joyful atmosphere may improve the output. At least I hope so.

Back for a second series on Channel 4, Friday Night Dinner has retained the comic spark that it had in the first.

As with the previous helping, the series sees the Jewish Goodman family trying to have a dinner on a Friday night, which - as always - ends up with chaos. Brothers Adam and Jonny (Simon Bird and Tom Rosenthal) fight and play pranks, while mother Jackie (Tamsin Greig) tries keep everything in order while cooking the "squirrel" - and father Martin (Paul Ritter) continues with his odd behaviour, refusing to wear a shirt.

In the opening episode, Jackie finds Adam's old diary, which he reveals that he disposed of Jonny's favourite cuddly toy when he was 11. As a result, Jonny tries to capture Adam's beloved "Buggy". In the meantime, Martin is constantly sneezing while trying to fix his lawnmower...

This was a great opening episode, mixing some off-the-wall humour (mainly from Jim, who claims playing the bassoon gave him "reverse hiccups") with some good old fashioned slapstick, which helps to bring around a great ending to the episode itself.

Part of the reason why Friday Night Dinner seems to work is the fact that it's based on something real, namely the actual experiences of such 'Friday night dinners' of the writer Robert Popper. It gives the show an extra footing from which you can get more laughs from, and it does seems to work.

That's right; it's yet another melodramatic BBC Four biopic, exploring the life of a comedian including their darker, personal details - but this one contains some naughty bits.

The Best Possible Taste concerns the life of Kenny Everett, played here by Oliver Lansley. Lansley also plays most of Everett's comic characters, including Sid Snot, Cupid Stunt, Brother Lee Love and Marcel Wave, who commentate on the habits of their creator and his complicated love-life: namely being married to his wife Lee (Katherine Kelly), despite being gay...

Like Everett's own style of humour, the show itself was completely bonkers, with lots of quirky editing. There are several instances of scenes which display Everett's true feelings, only for the characters to stop the film and rewind it to show what really happened. For example, there's the scene at the 1983 Young Conservatives conference, in which in Everett's mind he wants to tell the world he's gay, but is stopped by Cupid Stunt, who then shows us that Everett actually blurted, "Let's bomb Russia!"

While The Best Possible Taste is worth a watch, it's not really one for the comedy anoraks. There's no mention of how his characters were formed, and several of his TV outings were not mentioned at all. Instead, the show mostly covers his private relationships and his DJ work. So, while this documentary may have been produced in the best possible taste, I can't say it was as funny as it could have been.

This is the second time that digital channel Dave has brought back the crew of a certain Jupiter Mining Corporation space ship that's three million light years away from Earth.

The first return of Red Dwarf (the three-part Back to Earth broadcast in 2009) had its moments, yet was considered a slight anticlimax. But now Red Dwarf's returned with Series X, it's gone back to basics. Shot in a studio and in front of a studio audience (that's not canned laughter, despite what some people will tell you), has the gambit paid off? Well, I'm proud to say that it smegging has!

The characters really are just as great as they were before. In this first episode, the despicable hologram Arnold Judas Rimmer (Chris Barrie) becomes so resentful that he crashes - due to self-created malware. He becomes even more frustrated when he encounters the crew of another spaceship, which is supposedly lead by his brother Howard. Meanwhile, the slobbish last-human-alive Dave Lister (Craig Charles) is trying desperately to order some rubbish product over the phone.

The 'situations' were expertly delivered and gags landed too. Even the more subtle visual humour - Cat (Danny John-Jules) walking behind a shot holding a huge map of the ship they are on, for example - doesn't fail to tickle your funny bone.

I do miss some things, though. I miss both Kochanski and Holly, and I miss the fact that there used to be no ad-breaks in the middle of the show. But other than a few picky issues, it's great to see Red Dwarf back.

Gigglebox weekly #60: Best Possible Taste; Red Dwarf

This week Ian Wolf meets Kenny Everett and encounters a bunch of smegheads.

Another series of music-based panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks began this week. It's the 26th series, and it has to be said it's starting to show...

Although they still have Phill Jupitus and Noel Fielding onside, producers are still sticking with guest hosts. This week's host was Katy Burke - who did an OK job - but the panellists are, like always, a mixed bunch. Sarah Millican is usually always reliable, but then you had Fazer from N-Dubz, who I think was only called on because he was the only member of the band who had not appeared on the show before...

Another guest on this episode was Olympian long jumper Greg Rutherford, whose contribution was somewhat dubious. While Burke managed to get some good one-liners from him, I thought that the round entitled "Name that Ginger" was slightly tasteless.

The "Identity Parade". was also problematic. Usually the round features band members - but they must be struggling to find anyone new because instead the line-ups consisted of the now grown-up baby on Nirvana's Nevermind album, and someone's super-fan...

Hopefully this was just a blip, but I can't help but feel that it's time to for Never Mind the Buzzcocks to either shape up or stop.

Channel 4 has acreated a band new panel game, hosted by former Doctor Who star David Tennant.

The idea of Comedy World Cup is an interesting one, as the theme of the show is comedy itself. It's a team game, with different teams each episode, consisting of one current comedy star as captain, with a younger comic and a veteran. This week, Captain Jo Brand with Dave Spikey and Shappi Khorsandi, played against Jason Manford, who lead alongside Paul Chowdhry and Nicholas Parsons.

The episode lasted an hour, which some might seem as being excessive for a panel game - but I disagree. For starters, it still isn't the longest panel show in terms of episode length, as that title goes to The Big Fat Quiz of the Year (not counting David Walliams and his 24-hour long panel show marathon for Comic Relief). You also have the ad breaks too, so the show is broken down a bit. Put it this way; an extended repeat of HIGNFY or QI is between 40-45 minutes long. Comedy World Cup is 45 minutes long, plus 15 minutes of advertising during which you can make a cup of tea. So it's nothing new. Some might say it's an improvement to have a break in the middle.

The show consisted of seven rounds, many of them reminding me of other panel shows and game shows. For example there a "What happens next?" round (see A Question of Sport), and one where children act out stand-up routines (see The Big Fat Quiz where they get kids to act out news stories).

Now, I admit that this show wasnt 'the funniest panel show I've seen. But to me, this isn't the point. For someone like me who is really into their comedy, it's like a pub quiz themed especially for me - and if you're a comedy buff then this is the show for you. But it's best watched with other like-minded people to see who really is more knowledgeable on these matters...

QI, the cleverest comedy on television, is back on our screens this week. It's now in double figures series-wise, (tenth series and not eleventh, as has been advertised in some quarters); although in terms of the alphabet it's only up to "J".

This first episode of this series covers the subject of "Jargon" - and words beginning with "J" - and featured Jimmy Carr, Bill Bailey and newcomer Victoria Coren on the panel alongside regulars Stephen Fry and Alan Davies. Topics included dictators and their hatred of jazz, the first use of "OMG", and a lot of jizz.

In fact, the opening episode was rather smutty. Following on from a question about jizz (a bird-watching term for recognising a bird from a long distance by its shape), the panel, mostly Carr, performed quite a lot of rude material. I know that some people on the QI forums hated this, saying it was too rude for such a programme. But these critics should bear in mind that only a little while ago QI tried to be less rude when it was pre-watershed on BBC One and it failed miserably. People didn't like it, so now it's back in its old post-watershed slot on BBC Two - and now people are complaining about the show being too rude. Whenever the questions are lewd someone suggests it's 'dumbing down'. Yet whenever the questions are clever someone says it's not 'being funny enough'. I wish some people would make their minds up...

Series J is becoming notable for reasons other than perceived rudeness. For starters the "General Ignorance" round has been scrapped, because the panel were getting too wise to it and not going for the klaxon answers. Now the General Ignorance questions are spread out more to catch people out. I'm a bit worried about that, to be honest. It's a bit like Have I Got News for You getting rid of "Missing Words", Mock the Week scrapping "Scenes We'd Like to See", or Celebrity Juice getting rid off... well, whatever they have on Celebrity Juice (I can never bring myself to watch). However, it's best to wait and see after a few episodes if the re-shuffle works.

The other notable thing about this series is the guests. There are more women appearing on it. Next week's episode will be the first in which all the guests are women, which I can't remember happening on another panel show...ever. And some of the new guests are pretty experimental; they haven't even appeared on British TV yet. New Zealander Cal Wilson appears in a fortnight's time. She was on The News Quiz this week and seemed to cope alright, so hopefully she will put in a good performance.

I know some people will complain it's too rude, or it's dumbed down, or the guests are not good enough, but you can't please everyone. In the end, so long as it keeps being interesting and surprising QI will be good enough for me.

So, last week the BBC broadcast The Revolution Will Be Televised and Channel 4 went with I'm Spazticus. Now ITV has hit back with its own hidden camera show, and brought in the genre's most famous name: Dom Joly.

However, Fool Britannia is a much tamer programme. It's being broadcast in a pre-watershed slot, for starters, in another attempt to make-up for the shortfall caused by the end of TV Burp. While it's a nice idea to try and make a more family-friendly prank show, the show appears to be suffering a bit in its slot.

You can tell that Fool Britannia goes out after You've Been Framed - and they share two key traits. A voice over, which for a prank show doesn't really work, and a laughter track. To make it worse, I happen to know that this is canned laughter. Genuine canned laughter, in this day and age! Shocking.

Admittedly, there are some genuine laughs to be gotten out of the show. My personal favourite was Joly's health and safety officer character Ian Yard trying to prevent coffee from being too hot by using a mini electric fan. It has some potential, but it needs to cast aside some of the more troublesome features of the programme.