An almost Frank-free zone this week, presumably because actor David Threlfall was too busy directing the episode to be in it. Instead the focus is on Paddy (Sean Gilder) and his personal credit crunch. Struggling to pay his share of the christening costs (an event that will only go ahead if Karen remembers where she's left baby Connor), he comes up with a plan for the family business. Unfortunately, the rest of the family aren't keen. But there's one thing everyone on the Chatsworth Estate is keen on - and that's sex. Preferably wild, abandoned sex involving a trapeze, a nurse's uniform, adult toys and an audience. It's not called Shameless for nothing.

Karen's baby was born on the pub floor of the returning Shameless, delivered by the scoundrel Joe, who lovingly wrapped him in a beer mat. So he's not all mad. Frank Gallagher celebrated his 50th with a romance with a librarian (Pauline McLynn, Mrs Doyle from Father Ted) who mistook herself for Cathy from Wuthering Heights and Frank for someone worth bothering with. Seven series on, I doubted whether Shameless would be worth bothering about either, but somehow it is. I'll maintain to the end that its take on the underclass is a kind of lie, but it's a darkly funny one, like this thought from last night's beery discussion of sex after too many pregnancies: "It's like chucking a chipolata up the Mersey Tunnel." I bloody well hope not.

Shameless return watched by more than 3 million

First episode in seventh series of Gallagher family drama is Channel 4's most popular show of the day.

No ending in sight for Shameless

David Threlfall has said that he doesn't see Shameless ending any time soon.

Lock your doors and hide your fivers. The seventh series of Channel 4's popular comedy drama series about life on the fictional Chatsworth Estate in Manchester sees the return of Broken Britain's irrepressible, straggly-haired poster boy - the effing, blinding, boozing, stealing, philandering and yet strangely huggable scourge of society, Frank Gallagher (David Threlfall). Or, in the words of his long-suffering son Liam (Johnny Bennett), a "job-shy, sponging waste of space". It's not hard to understand the success of this ribald, foul-mouthed series. In an admirable tradition that Channel 4 has appeared to make all its own, Shameless glories in the graphic social meltdown of its down-at-heel characters. This first episode alone features a burst colostomy bag, a breezily shocking murder, and the delivery of a baby on the carpet of the pub's floor. Celebrating his 50th birthday, Frank has reached the pinnacle of his professional life - community service as a lollipop man. As he helps children to cross the road with his high-visibility jacket and a fag in his mouth, Frank meets an alluring, Byron-quoting librarian, Libby Croker (Pauline McLynn), and thinks he's fallen in love. "For all I know you're a charlatan," she protests. "Heaven forfend," grins Frank. And yet, even with the writing still sparkling, the drama often staggers about like its brandy-swigging protagonist. One minute it's as gritty as The Street, the next it's as pedestrian as Hollyoaks. But are we glad to have Frank back? Absolutely.

This is the seventh series of Shameless and an eighth is already in the works. Sadly, it is not a cause for celebration. The only way to enjoy it nowadays is to stay focused on David Threlfall's performance and try not to remember how good the first series was all those years ago. Tonight, on the eve of his 50th birthday, Threlfall's character Frank Gallagher has met the new love of his life. She's a librarian who lights a flame in his soul, don't you know, and makes him feel as though he would like to become someone other than the job-shy, sponging waste of space that everyone knows him to be. She, for her part, is a Byron-spouting narcoleptic in search of adrenalin and excitement, who wants to wake up not knowing what the day has to offer. Like a soap opera straining after flamboyance, not a word of it rings true.

Three cheers for the return of the Chatsworth Buccaneers. Frank is now 50, doing community service and still seriously lacking the basic parenting skills, Liam's decided he needs a hero and everyone else is thinking about sex (or stealing stuff) as per usual. Some promising new plot threads emerge, though, chief among them Frank's love-at-first sight encounter with a librarian called Libby.

What is it that signals the death knell of a series? Is it when the Yanks take an interest? (William H Macy is on board to play Frank). Is it when the search for storylines gets so desperate that the characters are compromised? Or is it just when the best cast members leave? It's probably the latter, isn't it? Which explains why Shameless has been on the slide for about four years.

The injection of new characters - Pauline McLynn will (will, will) strip off as Frank's librarian girlfriend - helps, but it all feels a bit forced. Always keen to show off the heart of gold after a shock, there's a bit of a strained feel to an ep about Frank's 50th. To sum up the zany nature, check out the following three facts: Frank is doing community service, there's a birth on the pub floor and a murder over a plate of chips.

Stop it, Shameless, we've had enough

Paul Abbot's once-brilliant characters have outstayed their welcome and lost their charm.

Nothing's really changed on the Chatsworth Estate as the seventh series begins. Glasgow kisses are two-a-penny, as are drunkenness, rampant sex and four-letter words that would make Gordon Ramsay blush. But this time there's also a birth (on the pub floor) and a homicide (over what looks like a plate of pie and chips). It's Frank's (David Threlfall) 50th birthday but, most unlike him, he doesn't join the party organised for him down the Jockey, preferring to neck whisky in his bedroom and brood about his life. It doesn't stay loveless for long, though. While he's doing his community service as a lollipop man, Libby the librarian (Father Ted's Pauline McLynn) literally falls into his arms. Unfortunately, Libby has a passion for romantic literature and tends to drone on "Byronically", while Frank's mind is focused on much earthier topics. But no one's perfect, and certainly not on the Chatsworth Estate.