TV review: Breeders, Sky One

The first episode positively zips by. It lasts about 25 minutes, though I guess if you took the fucks out of it, it would be around a quarter of an hour.

TV review: Breeders, series one, episode one

Breeders may just have been the bleakest comedy drama I've ever seen, where two parents have to put up with the insanity of bringing up two children under seven years old, and boy are they struggling with it.

TV: Semi-Detached, BBC2

After his foray into live sitcom with Not Going Out just before Christmas Lee Mack is back in sitcomland with this all-star fast-paced one-off pilot in which the twist is that everything happens in real time.

Semi-Detached review

The first sitcom pilot of the year stars Lee Mack in this real-time story set over one man's terrible half-hour (although the pilot's only 20 minutes long).

Semi-Detached review

There may be questions over whether the furious pace can be sustained for the extra 50 per cent running time required for the traditional BBC sitcom half-hour. Or indeed whether such maelstroms of mayhem can be conjured up week after week. But this is a promising germ for that holy grail of comedy commissioners everywhere: a mainstream suburban sitcom that doesn't suck.

The Office - where are they now?

What has happened to the actors who helped to make The Office? We never did hear much from that man Gervais again...

Radio Times review

Ruth Jones, here on writing duty, moves things along big time in an episode of ructions and revelations. Her title character is in London on a work trip and pays a surprise visit to Michael (Patrick Baladi). A big decision beckons, until a bolt from the blue scuppers everything.

Elsewhere, the Pontyberry mayor (Hi-de-Hi!'s Ruth Madoc!) pegs out in a council meeting, with ambitious Aunty Brenda waiting in the wings; Bobby has a drunken fling that has professional repercussions; and Jag makes a surprising discovery about his cleaner. In common with the best instalments, it's a delicious mix of sad and funny.

Radio Times review

If Stella's episodes had titles, this one would be Time Bomb. The ticking before the explosion (a fling being discovered) becomes almost deafening. "Midlife Crisis" Michael (Patrick Baladi) is the culprit, playing away with barmaid Beyoncé. His live-in lover Stella is oblivious - though hospital consultant Mr Honey seems to be making a play for her.

The escalating chaos of a party for Michael's daughter Katie takes our mind off things - and the karaoke turn of the birthday girl herself (take a bow, Martha Mackintosh) provides the kind of show-stoppingly sweet moment that Stella does so well. We could do with more of them. Former Welsh rugby star Scott Quinnell puts in another brief but caustic cameo.

Radio Times review

Ruth Jones's smile of a show returns for a well-won fourth series. As we catch up with the people of Pontyberry, Stella and Michael and their merged families are living in domestic bliss/chaos. So, while a contented Stella (Ruth Jones) heads off to her nursing job, Michael (Patrick Baladi) has to contend with drum 'n' bass and crying infants while practising as a solicitor from home.

Meanwhile, relations are fraught between Big Alan (wonderful Steve Speirs) and his son before the opening night of their risky new venture, Le Café de Les Alans, with Little Alan hurling pans about like a junior Gordon Ramsay.

Stella has survived the exit of key characters by sticking to its golden formula: conveying a real but comically heightened sense of community. Glad to see sweary Mother Hubbard Rhian and Welsh tornado Aunty Brenda still in the thick of the action and stealing many of the best lines.