Jane Simon

A somewhat surprising second series for the Caroline Quentin vehicle that isn't the one where she solves murders or works in a travel agent.

This is the one where she's married to Neil Dudgeon and they have kids from their previous marriages as well as a baby between them. The step-parent aspect doesn't generate much mileage - it just means the two older kids call her Maddy instead of mum.

Their neighbours, straight out of sitcom central, are still in residence and tonight when the kids from next-door show no inclination to go home, you might think you're just watching a remake of My Family.

Tonight, Maddy and her husband attempt to put the sparkle back in their marriage by going on a date.

Last series they were newlyweds and the spark had gone already. It's not a great sign either that the babysitter gets the best scenes.

Gemma Collinge is 20 years and 10 months old and hell-bent on being famous by the time she's 21. What she's going to be famous for she hasn't figured out yet, although you can already imagine Anna Gilthorpe, who plays her, wobbling gamely about in next year's Dancing On Ice.

This gentle sitcom has a lot in common with BBC2's Beautiful People - not least because Gemma's best friend Jeff is a screamingly gay window dresser. It also helps that the small town in this case is the postcard-worthy West Yorkshire town of Lumb - it's the kind of place many of us dream of escaping to, rather than from.

Claire King from Emmerdale is Jeff's mum and Emma's Nana is played by Gwyneth Powell - aka Grange Hill's Mrs McCluskey.

Like Gemma herself, this is too fluffy, blonde and obvious to qualify as biting satire but to slate it would be like kicking a puppy.

"You're such a girl," Lillie (Lucy Davis) teased her partner Eddie last week. Unwittingly, perhaps, she gave away the secret topsy-turvy formula underpinning this series. All the men are acting like sappy romantic fools, while the women are bored witless by talk of bridal magazines and marriage.

Davis, in particular, whose character faces a tribunal tonight for thumping a violent husband (not hers), continues to turn in a very odd performance. Every line is delivered flippantly through clenched teeth, suggesting she's either had her jaws wired shut, or she's a superior being from another planet and is merely humouring these pathetic humans she's been forced to live with.

But there's one startling change this week, as Abbey's (Miranda Raison) eyes have switched from brown back to blue. Perhaps this is down to the physical effort of resisting Clint (Ralf Little). It's been a month and he's about to be put out of his misery.

The next Cold Feet they're calling this. No new show wants to wither in the shadow of a giant but there are plenty of worse series to be filed alongside.

As another couple-based ensemble, comparisons are unavoidable. But although this is touted as a comedy-drama there's surprisingly little to laugh at in an otherwise promising opener.

Of the three couples we meet tonight, one pair are on the brink of splitting up, another have just met and the third, Lillie (The Office's Lucy Davis) and Eddie (Shaun Dooley), have been together for 16 years without marrying. He keeps proposing, she keeps saying no. Lillie works in a women's shelter and thinks marriage can tear people apart. But if she thinks domestic violence only happens once you've got a ring on your finger, I'm surprised nobody has put her straight by now.

Dean Lennox Kelly plays Dickie, whose laziness and gambling have finally got too much for his partner Babs (Amanda Abbington). And Spooks fans might struggle to recognise Miranda Raison, who played Jo, with new long hair and brown contact lenses. She's a model called Abbey whose job involves wearing jumpsuits and draping herself over motorbikes at car shows.

Clint (Ralf Little) is smitten and decides to prove he's worthy of her. Perhaps he should try Jimmy Nesbitt's stunt of shoving a rose up his backside and walking the streets naked. It certainly did the trick for Cold Feet.

A new topical news format sees celeb panelists locked away in a media-free zone for three days. So far so good. Anything that gets Frank Skinner off the streets, even briefly, gets my vote.

But then, worse luck, they're let out to answer questions from quiz-master David Mitchell. Can they spot real news stories from fakes and should we care?

Other guests this week include the very funny ­Reginald D Hunter and Victoria Coren. Fingers crossed that Katie Price and Peter Andre can both be enticed to enter this media-free bubble and that a junior researcher "accidentally" loses the key.

Not the best of the satirical run but bound to raise a wry smile or two. This week, we find Bellamy (Rhys Thomas) hitting the road to investigate what has happened to the United Kingdom's reputation for good manners.

Interviews with the usual Little Britain-ish characters culminate in a toe-curling ­showdown between Paul Whitehouse's England-shorts wearing painter and decorator Martin Hole - and an aggrieved traffic warden.

As we revisit the Gallaghers and their scallywag cohorts, Frank is turning 50 and has got a job. It's actually community service but the nation's most feckless man never lets the truth get in the way of trying to prove he's not a complete waste of space.

And he has to put on the mother of all acts this week when he sees the new woman of his dreams, Libby (Father Ted's Pauline McLynn), a bonkers Byron-obsessed librarian who steps out in front of a car while he's being a lollipop lady (and no, that's not a typo. I know he's male but his hair certainly isn't).

If almost getting run over wasn't enough of a sign that Libby should have gone to Specsavers, she soon falls for Frank.

It's widely accepted that Giles from Buffy The Vampire Slayer boosted the street-cred of librarians but this character may single-handedly destroy all that good work and give them the image of strange nymphos with bad glasses.

Not only do we get a disturbing scene involving Libby using a book to flirt with Frank, there's a sex scene so funny it rivals any of the comical horizontal aerobics randy Samantha got up to in Sex And The City.

Elsewhere, we have Glasgow kisses galore, Mimi talking about her lady bits (you'll have nightmares for weeks) and Frank Butcher's mum from EastEnders turning up as this Frank's grandmother Nin. It's a scene-stealing performance by actress Edna Dore but make the most of it because it's her only episode.

Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson have reunited for a new comedy about life in modern Britain - and this is one TV comeback I'm delighted to see.

Self-regarding Gary Bellamy (Star Stories' Rhys Thomas) is an award-winning journalist with an award-winning radio show. Now he's been released from his cosy studio and given a TV series in which he'll travel across the country to meet his listeners and find out what makes them tick.

Although headed by stalwarts of The Fast Show, the humour is more in the vein of People Like Us, that genius series featuring the now disgraced Chris Langham. It spoofs genuine "celebrity meets the public" shows brilliantly, using ridiculous links such as: "Cirencester in Gloucestershire couldn't be more different from Harlesden".

The characters Gary meets are wonderfully eccentric, with some lovely performances by the likes of Simon Day, Lucy Montgomery and Felix Dexter. And, of course Charlie and Paul - although I can't help but watch Paul's performances and be reminded of his recent spate of insurance ads.

Characters range from a 23-stone man who lives in his bed to a deluded community leader who can't quite tell Gary what a community leader does. There's the screechy Trisha Webb, who runs Gary's 'Bellamy's Babes' fan club, and lovely old boy Humphrey Milner, a self-confessed silver surfer. But my favourites are a pair of posh old biddies, who made me laugh so suddenly and hard I almost snorted tea out of my nose.

Remember last year when the BBC revealed it was making a sister show to Hotel Babylon, based on author Imogen Edwards-Jones book Fashion Babylon? This is the result, although the channel has wisely renamed the show.

Because while Hotel Babylon was a guilty pleasure - and tackier than melted tar - the first episode of this sparky comedy drama is something for the cast and crew to be proud of.

It centres on fashion designer Ali Redcliffe (Being Human's Lenora Crichlow) who when we meet her is working for the fabulously ghastly diva designer, Davina Bailey (Dervla Kirwan) - imagine a British sister of Ugly Betty's manipulative Wilhelmina crossed with Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada.

Fed up when Davina stabs her in the back yet again Ali quits and, with the help of a Mr Moneybags, starts up her own label.

Ali is an instantly likeable character so you wish her well. But she's soon caught between doing the right thing and being a success.

Helping - or hindering - her along the way are a string of wonderful characters, including her unscrupulous business partner, Marco (Love Soup's Michael Landes), a light-fingered, gum-chewing receptionist and a trio of friends. And, of course, her former boss - who is incredibly peeved by her protege going it alone.

We're talking Prada handbags at dawn, darlings.

When American scriptwriters decided to put the advertising world on telly, they gave us the perfectly scripted and critically acclaimed Mad Men. This side of the pond we end up with The Persuasionists, which follows the more traditional vein of Brit sitcoms.

It's often said advertising execs have no idea what they're doing and the five idiots in this certainly live up to that image. They work for HHH&H and have to come up with a clever campaign for Cockney Cheese, a bizarre brown cheese that smells of something incredibly unpleasant (I won't spoil the revelation - it's almost certain to give you a chuckle). Creative Billy (Iain Lee, in his first acting role) has come up with a slogan and it's up to uncertain Greg (Adam Buxton) to sell it to the client, Cockney Jim.

Trouble is, he's terrified of Jim, a caricature of an EastEnders baddie... played by former EastEnders baddie Lee Ross (he was Owen Turner). And unlike one colleague, Greg doesn't have a giant pencil to save the day (that's not a euphemism - one of them really has a giant pencil).

The series is written by former ad man Jonathan Thake, who was responsible for Pot Noodle's "the slag of all snacks" campaign, one of the most complained-about TV ads of all time. I'd love to have seen how he managed to sell this little show to the Beeb.