TV review: Two Weeks To Live series 1 episode 1

Whether or not the series works as a whole is going to depend on how they manage the juggling act of keeping it feeling realistic despite clearly being a very unusual creation, but despite the odd flawed moment the majority of it is beguiling and amusing material, and I'm definitely intrigued as to how it will play out.

TV review: Two Weeks To Live, Sky One

Plenty of suprises, plenty of thrills and spills and Williams is excellent as misfit Kim who goes on a literal as well as an emotional journey.

In a break from tradition (ooh, get me) I'm going to revisit a show I spoke about last week. I did mention that I thought that The Job Lot would probably need at least another episode to warm up. So here we are.

The second episode of The Job Lot was a more promising offering than the last. I did chuckle a bit which is a good start. Not having to faff about with character setup and backstory, the show was able to bring us a proper episode.

Guest starring Sean Pertwee playing an Army recruiter, it focuses on the job centre's drive to get people off their books and into service. As well as their drive to get jiggy and/or justify and uphold their masculinity. As episodes go it was okay. You know. Okay. It is watchable, most of the characters aren't entirely hate-able and it pokes fun at the job centre system and its signer-onners in a gentle and non-discriminatory way.

This is probably never going to be revered as a classic sitcom, but if you have half an hour to kill and you've exhausted everything on Netflix, then you might as well give it a go. Or not. I don't really mind.

Oh, but bad news: Hannah off of Hollyoaks was only in last week's show. I am very disappointed about this.

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.

Everyone's dander is up in week two of this finely observed character piece. To boost figures at Brownall Job Centre, frazzled manager Trish calls in the Army. Sgt Steve Fox (Sean Pertwee) sets up a recruitment stand but only attracts the attention of the staff. Alarming Angela wants to bed him, Karl thinks he'll be a cool new mate, while Trish's ardour leads to an embarrassing entanglement in the ladies.

Now in his late 40s, Pertwee commands the screen like his dad Jon once did, and should be on TV more often (I'm not counting his wall-to-wall voice-work on adverts and docs).

Considerably less impressive [than Toast Of London] is C4 Comedy Presents: Them From That Thing an almost entirely mirthless sketch show that wastes 
a core cast of able comic performers such as Sally Phillips and Fonejacker's Kayvan Novak on weak, strained material (some of which was apparently written by the usually reliable Charlie Brooker).

Its gimmick, such as it is, is casting straight actors such as Bill Paterson and Sean Pertwee in comic roles, but that just comes across as a desperate attempt to give it some identity. This is committee-formed comedy, lacking in 
singular vision.