A third series for the scalpel-sharp comedy set in a geriatric ward. Co-written by its stars Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine, it manages to veer between the truthful and the ridiculous in capturing life in an efficiency-driven NHS hospital. Stoic Nurse Kim Wilde (Brand), fraught Sister Den Flixter (Scanlan) and officious Doctor Pippa Moore (Pepperdine) are now working out of a new ward, K2, at a hospital, St Jude's, close to their old one. The equipment might be better but the familiar issues remain among their sick, dying and occasionally hypochondriac patients.

Return of the dry medical comedy starring and written by Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan, and set in the geriatric ward of an NHS hospital. Kim, Den and Pippa move to ward K2 in St Jude's while their own hospital closes for a possible (but in no way guaranteed) refurb. Meanwhile, Pippa is causing her usual brand of chaos/inconvenience (inchaosvenience?) - dumping her baggage, figuratively and literally, all over her colleagues. Perfectly judged performances and great writing.

In case you hadn't noticed, we've dipped under 100 days to go to the Olympics - so here's hoping this thoroughly amusing satire set in the office of the Olympics Deliverance Team isn't too close to the truth. Once again Jessica Hynes's horrifyingly stupid PR woman Siobhan Sharpe steals the show: in this final episode her efforts to look cool in front of a rapper has echoes of Ab Fab's Eddie, but the highlight is when she's flummoxed by guest star Vicki Pepperdine (Getting On), who turns about to be a hilariously forthright adviser for Sharpe's Olympics village sexual health campaign.

Phil Whelan's new comedy imagines an exploration in space, the colonisation of a new planet, the making of a new and better society. What makes it funny is that its characters are (and remain) all too recognisably human. So when the leader of the expedition dies on the journey and his second-in-command takes over, there's bound to be a bit of jostling for precedence, especially as Brian, the notional new leader, thinks a nice meeting can sort most things out. He's about to learn a lot. Nicholas Lyndhurst, Vicki Pepperdine and Tom Goodman-Hill star.

The second series of the sitcom set in an NHS geriatric ward opened up even darker, richer seams of black comedy than the first. Written by and starring Jo Brand (world-weary Nurse Kim Wilde), Vicki Pepperdine (tactless Dr Pippa Moore) and Joanna Scanlan (Sister Den Flixter), it was directed by The Thick of It's Peter Capaldi - and the influence of the political comedy was evident in every frame. The posturings of hierarchy and bureaucratic idiocy were skewered relentlessly, scatological humour was allied to brutal deadpan, and the timing was perfect. Getting On also hid a beating heart at its centre that gave it surprising emotional power.

It's a girls' night out at London's Theatre Royal as Victoria Wood is joined on stage by some very funny ladies in aid of The British Heart Foundation.

While raising awareness about heart disease in women (see, the show's title makes sense now), the Queen of Comedy and her cohorts will tickle our funny bones with stand-up, sketches and music.

The line-up includes Nighty Night's Julia Davis; Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine from BBC Four's Getting On; Jessica Hynes of Spaced fame; rising star Andi Oshi; and the two Brands, Jo and Katy. Not Russell Brand's new pop star wife - the other one. The one with the Big Ass.

Getting On: my triumvirate of heroines

Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Jo Scanlan have gifted us a TV classic with their touchingly comic window on the NHS.

It may have escaped your notice, but the current series of one of 2010's best comedies quietly came to an end last night. Set in a careworn NHS geriatric ward, Getting On has drawn critical acclaim, but negligible viewing figures.

While I appreciate that a rawly naturalistic tragicomedy suffused with the stench of sickness and mortality will never be a ratings blockbuster, it would be nice to see more love for this overlooked gem.

Written by and starring Joanna Scanlan, Vicki Pepperdine and former psychiatric nurse Jo Brand, Getting On is the antithesis of your average mainstream medical confection: a defiantly unglamorous depiction of Britain's healthcare system, staffed not by selfless angels, but by flawed human beings muddling through as best they can under thankless circumstances. Skating deftly on a hairpin between comedy and pathos, it depicts a profession in which the abiding concerns are bureaucracy, people management and death.

This was never more strikingly illustrated than in the scenes in which the elderly Scottish woman who had been slowly dying throughout the series, finally, inevitably expired. Her poor daughter, unable to accept what had happened, tearfully and tetchily instructed her to wake up, as if it was all just a sick joke: a heartbreaking sketch of grief, emblematic of the programme's understatement.

Sister Den (Scanlan) and Nurse Kim (Brand) went through the practiced motions of comforting the bereaved and dealing with the deceased. But they also argued over what to do with the dead woman's untouched lunch.

Keen to vacate another much-needed bed, Den told the bewildered daughter that the body had to be moved immediately. She was bundled from the hospital to deal with her pain elsewhere, while her mother was abruptly wheeled away in full view of the other patients. As a blunt, desperately sad illustration of Getting On's core themes of life's cyclical grind and the pragmatic demands of NHS medical care, it couldn't have been bettered.

Director Peter Capaldi - Scanlan's co-star from The Thick of It, of which this is a spiritual relative - is to be commended for his sensitive handling of this material. His appropriately sickly, washed-out colour palette and the authentic performances from his excellent cast combine to create a bleakly enthralling atmosphere unlike any other British sitcom.

Doesn't sound like a laugh riot? Well no, it isn't, but nor is it trying to be. The humour arises naturally from character, the situations rooted in reality. Getting On is poignant, funny, profound even. Here's hoping for a speedy return.

The relentlessly deadpan comedy about life on a geriatric ward continues and as ever there are some uneasy and touching moments amid the scatological humour. In tonight's penultimate episode of the series, a graduate nurse causes friction between Den (Joanna Scanlan) and Kim (Jo Brand), and Beedy Fyvie (Lindy Whiteford), who has been travelling from Scotland to visit her dying mother, is once again pushed aside by the dismissive management staff. Elsewhere, Pippa (Vicki Pepperdine) suffers the humiliation of having to reapply for her own job.