An army sergeant (Sean Pertwee) arrives at Brownall job centre in the hope of diverting some of their "customers" towards a career in the forces. His presence inflames the desire of boss Trish, and the ire of overzealous security man Paul. The former has an unfortunate run-in with a hand dryer, while the latter takes his jurisdiction a little too far. Despite the talent on show here - Adeel Akhtar, Russell Tovey - this is frequently less funny than spending an actual day at a job centre.

Sean Pertwee guest stars this week as an army sergeant drumming up new recruits from among the jobseekers - and having a hot man in uniform in their midst gets the entire staff in a bit of a tizz.

Manager Trish (Sarah Hadland) is making gooey eyes at him, Karl (Russell Tovey) wants to be his new best friend, security guard Paul (Martin Marquez) is put out that he's no longer the manliest man there, and Angela is doing something suggestive with a breadstick.

In her head this is probably seductive but to everybody else it's just disturbing.

Comedian Jo Enright is wonderful again this week as office oddball Angela, and on the receiving end of her unhelpful behaviour tonight is the boss from C4's PhoneShop.

Actor Martin Trenaman plays an estate agent looking for new employment.

Sadly he doesn't want to work in mobile phone retail, but he does spend an awful lot of time on a landline.

Hard on the heels of ­Vicious's tasselled loafers and completing an ITV comedy double-bill is The Job Lot. 
Don't know about you but that title makes me think of 
The Rag Trade, a sitcom even older than '73. And listen to the theme music - Bring Me Sunshine, the song which Mike and Bernie Winters made their own (just checking you're ­paying attention; it was of course Cheech & Chong). But in fact The Job Lot has a contemporary look (so long as you don't think that jittery Office-esque camerawork is getting quite dated) and an apt setting given these times (a job ­centre).

In the finest ITV traditions, this show has plucked talent from successful comedies (­Sarah Hadland from Miranda, Russell Tovey from Him & Her) and tried to create a new winning team. It's a formula borrowed from football but it doesn't always work at Chelsea and Manchester City and it doesn't always work on telly. The Job Lot isn't bad, just a bit predictable. There's the neurotic boss, the punctilious tyrant, the sweet old bat, the chancer running his own business in work-time and the bright but demotivated lad who perks up when the mini-­skirted temp arrives­. Actually, reminding myself of the characters has made me think I should give this another look. I'd do the same for Vicious but in its case would require some '73-style inducement, such as a year's supply of Creamola Foam (raspberry flavour).

The Job Lot, set in a West Midlands Job Centre, was really rather loveable. Russell Tovey as a beleaguered dole-claim clerk, Sarah Hadland as his anxious boss, plus an ensemble cast featuring an anally retentive toxic pen-pusher (Jo Enright, one of Britain's best character actresses), the long-term professionally idle Sophie McShera (Downton Abbey) plus the glorious Adeel Akhtar (Four Lions and Utopia). Russell Tovey's delightful "stick your job up your arse" strop, followed a mere 10 minutes later by a complete volte-face genuinely made me gleeful. In fact, I could watch Sophie McShera argue with Russell Tovey about why she can't take any of the jobs on offer for the entire episode. Tovey: "Greggs, the bakery, 15 hours a week?" McShera: "I'm wheat-intolerant".

Though I didn't enjoy Vicious, I found that its companion piece The Job Lot had a lot to offer. Set in the West Midlands-based Brownhill Job Centre this focused on the staff and clients neither of whom particularly wanted to work.

Our hero of sorts is Karl (Russell Tovey) a young man who imagined he'd have a successful career after he got his art degree but has found himself working in a job he hates. He is constantly frustrated by trying to find work for people like Bryony (Sophie McShera) who blatantly don't want a job and just turn up so they can keep claiming benefits.

In this first episode Karl briefly quits the Job Centre only to return when he discovers that pretty temp Chloe (Emma Rigby) is due to start working there. However this new incentive is a short-lived one after he finds out that Chloe has a boyfriend and also that she'll be leaving after Danielle (Tamla Kari) returns from maternity leave early. Meanwhile manager Trish (Sarah Hadland) is irked by the return of Angela (Jo Enright) who took Trish to court after she fired her. It now appears as if Angela will be doing as little work as possible while Trish continues to head towards an inevitable breakdown.

While The Job Lot is far from perfect I found it to be well-observed with a couple of clever gags scattered throughout. In my daily life I've encountered people like Angela and Briony both of whom are bought to life perfectly by Enright and McShera. Meanwhile the programme also has a likeable lead in the form of Russell Tovey's Karl who gets through his day with the help of a drawer full of biscuits. Tovey is always an endearing screen presence and here his likeability is put to full use. I also thought Sarah Hadland was perfectly cast as the increasingly stressed Trish who is the perfect personification of the harassed boss.

Though The Job Lot does have some clunky moments, I found it to be a likeable sitcom with plenty to offer. Still I don't think it deserves its place on primetime television just yet and should've maybe been placed on ITV2 instead. I'm also not sure why it's been grouped with Vicious as the two have very little in common and will attract very different audiences.

Vicious was followed at 9.30pm by a quiet, likeable new sitcom called The Job Lot. Set in a job centre, it starred Russell Tovey in the "Tim from The Office" role (ordinary bloke doing a job he hates, surrounded by halfwits). A regular character is a woman who refuses any job going. He suggested one at Upper Crust. "I'm wheat intolerant," she protested, as if the job were not selling the goods but eating them.

The Job Lot got off to a very strong start.

Sarah Hadland stars as Trish, the manager of a West Midlands job centre, recently returned from stress-related sickness leave. Ostensibly sunny and positive - "turn the unemployed into the fun employed" is her motto - Trish struggles to maintain the facade in a work environment beset by resentment, hostility, despair, defeatism and bureaucracy. And that's before they open up to the public.

The show is essentially an ensemble piece - a uniformly excellent cast includes Russell Tovey, Jo Enright and Emma Rigby - but it is Hadland's understated, poignant portrayal of brittle optimism under unbearable stress that holds it all together. It is good to see Hadland, best known as Miranda Hart's sidekick Stevie in the former's eponymous sitcom, emerging from Hart's shadow as a fine comic actor in her own right.

The Job Lot is a more interesting sitcom than Vicious. If Vicious feels pre-The Office, then this Midlands job centre-based comedy is more like Office copy. The mundane work environment, the juddery camera work ... it's not actually in mockumentary style, but it does look and sound a bit similar. Still, better to make something that feels like comedy from 10 years ago than 20, I suppose.

Ooooh, nas-tee. No, it really is better, because it's not just about the delivery of one-liners, it's about characters and situations that are nicely observed and recognisable. I love Jo Enright's Angela, a walking tribunal (almost certainly against you) who sucks the life and joy from the workplace. Every office has one, even this one. You know who you are, XXXXXXX XXXXXXX. Or maybe you don't ...

Nice performances from untitled Russell Tovey and Sarah Hadland too, acting with a lowercase a, which is sometimes preferable and a relief after the other. There's no audience laughter either, which is a certainly a relief. I could have done without the comedy plinky plonky music, though. I know when I find something funny; I don't need to be told by the music.

If Vicious and The Job Lot are ITV's big, triumphant, we're-back-to-prime-time-comedy fanfare, I'm wobbling a flat palm-down hand from side to side. Mmm, mixed. A bit safe and unadventurous, as you'd probably expect. Lower on LOLs than The Inbetweeners, or Peep Show, or Hunderby, or Him & Her, or lots of other funny recent shows not on ITV.

Nobody laughs for you in The Job Lot, which is full of those poised silences that are a feature of modern sitcom style, as non sequiturs falter to a stop or a character is left to silently absorb the absurdity of someone else's behaviour. But there is plenty for you to laugh at yourself. Sarah Hadland plays Trish, the job centre manager, in a way that makes you completely forget her more cartoonish performance as Stevie in Miranda, and Russell Tovey appears as Karl, a disenchanted employee who walks out after dealing with a particularly reluctant job seeker, and then walks straight back in again when he catches sight of the beautiful new temp.

There's a nice turn by Jo Enright too as Angela, a surly bureaucratic jobsworth. Most importantly, the comedy lies not in the lines as such but somewhere between what's said and how it's said. "I'd go mad if he wasn't here... I really would," says Trish brightly, commending Karl to the new girl. "I'd self-harm." And then, instead of the grating coercion of mass guffawing you get an awkward silence, as Trish realises she's said too much and the other characters try to think how to fill the gap. In my case, it was filled with a laugh.

The Job Lot is a new sitcom that is bang-up-to-date, being set in a West Midlands job centre. It's written by Claire Downs, Ian Jarvis and Stuart Lane, and direct by Martin Dennis.

Sarah Hadland is Trish, the neurotic and passive-aggressive office manager, and Russell Tovey is her shy assistant Karl - like her, unlucky in love. Trish, a great fan of both the clipboard and the white board, tries to gee up her staff with feelgood workshops ("Turn the unemployed into the funemployed," she writes on the latter) and has to deal with the recalcitrant Angela - "I'll contact the union" - whom she once sacked but has been reinstated after a tribunal. Karl is bored out of his mind, dealing with clients such as Bryony (Sophie McShera from Downton Abbey doing a nice turn) who last night "caught" MS in her determination never to find work.

The quiet first episode of The Job Lot was overpopulated by misfits - a clean-freak, a moonlighting security guard, a dimwit jobseeker - but both the sit and the com have promise.