In Roger and Val Have Just Got In, Val came back from work with three noodle bakes, two more than she could fit into her refrigerator, which is what passes for a plot highlight in Beth and Emma Kilcoyne's daringly understated comedy. It's something of a noodle bake itself, this series: looping strands of domestic wittering and bickering in a sauce of beautifully cooked blandness, not exactly a showy dish, but reassuring and comforting in its ordinariness. I could quote lines at you all day without being able to make a convincing case for it, because it's all about context and the recognisability of the moment. As Roger and Val, Alfred Molina and Dawn French underplay it beautifully, commiserating with each other about the day's minor setbacks (11 dead rice plants for Roger, who works as a botanist at the Winter Gardens, and feels about exotic flora as Martin Clunes does about Chester) and never talking about the big drama in their life - the death of a child, the illness of a parent - things that you glimpse as if out of the corner of your eye in passing. The programme takes half an hour to go nowhere, but it's those unmentioned griefs that make it work. It's just how life goes on, quite substantial portions of it sustained by gentle self-deception and the magnification of stuff that doesn't really matter.

Martin Clunes interview

Martin Clunes has transformed himself from beer-swilling man behaving badly to proud Pony Club father.

Jonathan Ross's old slot is taken up this week by the fourth series of this jovial comedy panel show - a safe play by the BBC, as they figure out how best to plug the gap left by Ross. It's hosted by Rob Brydon, and tonight features Fern Britton, Richard E Grant, Martin Clunes and Sanjeev Bhaskar alongside regular captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack, as the two teams attempt to fool each other into believing a series of plausible lies.

On the face of it, the formula for Would I Lie to You? is almost insultingly simple - celebs and comedians revealing daft things about themselves that may or may not be true. As formats go, it's a feather duster, an airy nothing. Yet there's no other panel game on TV that so reliably creases you up. It helps when the chemistry between the guests comes together, as it does in tonight's opener for the fourth series. When guest Martin Clunes teases Richard E Grant over the latter's not-very-plausible claim to have recorded a dance version of a Shakespeare soliloquy, it feels like old friends sharing a joke. Even when nobody really believes a given tale - such as that Fern Britton briefly worked in the Post Office or that Sanjeev Bhaskar once crashed into Michael Winner's car - the fusillades of good-natured mockery are great fun. And to add to the fun tonight, there's a little hint of aggro between Clunes and host Rob Brydon.

The panel game it is acceptable to like returns with another amusing episode. The guests are mainly people who think that they're funnier than they are - Martin Clunes, Richard E Grant and Sanjeev Bhaskar - but nonetheless there's some amusing banter and a bit of a frost between Rob Brydon and Clunes, which is entertaining.

The best factoid in this show is that when he appeared in an episode of Inspector Morse, Martin Clunes deliberately called him "Cheese Inspector". That's not even one of the fibs in this week's show - it's just one of the inbetween bits of banter that gets chucked in for free. And the return of this series ratchets up the laughter quotient of Friday nights on the BBC (and Martin Clunes' career, come to that) by roughly four million per cent.

It makes you realise that all those years Clunes has spent stomping around ­Cornwall as the grumpy Doc Martin, pretending to be Reggie Perrin or making ­documentaries about dogs have been a waste of his talents. What he should really have been doing is spending his time larking about with his mates on comedy panel shows because I've never seen him enjoy himself as much as he does here.

It all adds up to a brilliant start to the series with team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack conjuring perfect comebacks out of thin air. Host Rob Brydon's impromptu impersonations add an extra coat of comedy emulsion to an already ­sparkling format. Tonight's other guests, Richard E Grant and Sanjeev Bhaskar put on their best butter-wouldn't-melt faces as they swear blind that they once rear-ended Michael Winner and made a hip-hop Hamlet. And is Fern Britton really a secret Morris Dancer?

Doc Martin returns to ITV

ITV has commissioned a fifth series of Martin Clunes drama Doc Martin.

Martin Clunes recreates Reginald Perrin's fake suicide

Thirty-four years after Leonard Rossiter stripped off and ran naked into the water on a Dorset beach in The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin, Martin Clunes is doing it again.

Clunes confirms fifth 'Doc Martin' series

Martin Clunes has confirmed that Doc Martin will return for a fifth series.

The Beeb's latest sitcom is hewn from the same rock as The IT Crowd: it's big, bold, colourful and obvious. The setting this time is a hapless advertising agency - waters charted much better in the recent Martin Clunes remake of The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin. Still, it might be a grower, in the same sledgehammer way that Miranda was - and fans of Iain Lee and Adam Buxton will appreciate their putting in an appearance.