Liam (Will Mellor) is pretty fed up with his humdrum lifestyle, while his younger brother Kevin (Alex Carter) seems to have it all. Meanwhile, Jim (Warren Clarke) has found his inner Picasso and has started churning out lamentable portraits of the family. The humour seems to have picked up in tonight's episode, although it's still heavily propped up by canned laughter.

Sky has thrown down the gauntlet to the BBC lately. Daring dramas, comedies that actually raise a chuckle and even the annexation of one of the Beeb's comedy crown jewels in Alan Partridge. How will Auntie respond? With a second series of piss-weak sitcom In With The Flynns, that's how. The Flynns are a family of rough diamond Mancs: think the Royles, if they spruced themselves up for a visit from the Queen. Tonight, Liam and Caroline (Will Mellor and Niky Wardley) turn vigilante, Jim catches a big fish and Chloe introduces an obnoxious new friend. But the dialogue is flat, the jokes telegraphed and the characterisation superficial. Sure, it's gentle family entertainment. But nothing about this cardboard cut-out family feels recognisable or real enough to succeed on even those limited terms.

BBC continues unabated with its ungodly pact with Will Mellor, cruelly ignoring public demand or opinion. With a Beady Eye song serving as both theme tune and warning to quickly change channel, the Flynn family return for another series of non-jokes and situations that only work if all the characters are stupid. Here, we get supposedly hilarious mix-ups over a poached cod and a bungling burglar. It's written by Men Behaving Badly's Simon Nye, who used to knock out decent ribald comedy with a hand tied behind his back. Here, he attempts to do it with both hands tied.

The performances from the support cast are as brash and as spirited as ever as this Will Mellor-led sitcom returns for a new series. Builder Ollie reluctantly comes over all Anneka Rice in this opener, trying to rustle up charitable support as he builds a kitchen for child orphans.

Will Mellor: 'I want to go on I'm a Celebrity'

Two Pints of Lager actor Will Mellor has declared his interest in joining a future series of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!.

Three episodes in and we've reached the old sitcom standby of dad having the snip, albeit with Tommy and Jim adding some refreshing "wingmen" humour to the situation.

Yes, if there are two men you don't want around when a doctor is approaching your nether regions with a knife, it's grandad and uncle Tommy.

But after Caroline has a pregnancy scare, Liam turns to his dad and brother for moral support.

And thank God he does because the waiting room scenes are the highlight of what's turning out to be a rather watchable series, despite its frequent habit of raiding the Comedy Cliche Cupboard.

And for once, the Krameresque Tommy doesn't steal the show. No, that honour goes to Liam's bum-cheeks. If you've ever wondered how a pre-watershed sitcom would handle naked star jumps, Will Mellor provides a surprising demonstration.

That gym membership was certainly a good investment.

If reality television has taught us anything, it's that the stuff people say in real life is funnier than anything script writers can dream up. This new entry to the family sitcom stable nods briefly in the direction of real life, but then takes all its dialogue from 'The Big Sitcom Book Of Unlikely Conversation'.

It's a pity - despite that niggle this is shaping up to be a decent half-hour, with Caroline and Liam (Niky Wardley and Will Mellor) competing this week to see who's the best parent.

In with the Flynns (BBC1) is bland, smooth and unremarkable. You would call it a sitcom designed by a committee, were it not for the fact that programmes with a lot of writers tend to be quite good. There's a family, without much money: the kids say the darndest things and the teenager gets a piercing. The father's adult brother lives among them, I think in an attempt to splice the eternal humour of the family unit with some of the classic larks of Men Behaving Badly.

The acting is not great. The kids are not great. Are you even allowed to slag off child actors? Is that like saying you don't think Pippa Middleton's all that? Will Mellor's long-suffering but chirpy dad has a portfolio of exaggerated hand-gestures that he borrowed off the 1970s: the "what's he like?" backward thumb point; the "I don't know why I bother" flap. Somebody on the set should be poking him with a stick, saying: "Have you ever seen anybody do that? Anybody in real life?"

It is unfair to single any of them out, though, since the problem is the set-up: if they want us to fall in love with the Flynns, as one might a regular family, beset by tribulations but battling through, yik yak yik yak, then they need to be a bit more like actual people. And if they want us to fall about, like we're watching Miranda, only without the hassle of getting the actual Miranda, then it has to be funny.

So, take this snatch of dialogue: "Your perfume is exquisite." "Actually, that might be Brasso". No two people in the history of enlarged frontal lobes have ever had that exchange: yet where's the thrill, the intoxication, the certain something that makes up for how unlikely it is? I think there should be a litmus test for all sitcoms; is it as funny as a kitten falling down the back of a sofa? Nope? Well, then, back to the drawing board, or we need to start paying more for home videos. It would save so much human endeavour. And the kittens would be doing that stuff anyway.

Dull, tired and completely edge-less

In With The Flynns has been described as edgy by lead star Will Mellor, but the truth is that this sitcom is about as tired and old as a brand new TV programme can get.