Bonus material: Out of The Thick of It

How much time has Nicola Murray wasted walking up and down the stairs? Just what is going on between Glen and Robyn? And what exactly are journalists for?

Den Of Geek review of episode 3.2

One of the astounding things about The Thick Of It is how quickly you get to know characters. This is only her second episode, and already we've watched a faux-perky Murray declare she is "actually quite a fun person", before descending to have "a face like Dot Cotton licking piss off a nettle" as her department's ineptitude is discovered by Malcolm.

The new series continues of the fizzing, potty-mouthed political comedy created by Armando Iannucci. A week into her new job as secretary of state for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship, Nicola Murray MP (Rebecca Front) sends the government's communications team into a spin. Her department's computer system has wiped the immigration records of 170,672 people, presenting her with two daunting tasks: keeping the fact from the press, and breaking the news to the irascible Tucker (Peter Capaldi). Handling these duties of office, Murray has to sit through lunch with the staff of The Guardian without letting her department's mishap slip.

The Thick of It: a whirlwind of swearing and satire

What can one reasonably expect to achieve in three minutes? It's nothing. You could get a pot of tea half-brewed, maybe, or go from 47th to 46th in the call-centre queue for O2. Clean a grill pan. Dice a kilo of lamb. Shave one leg. It's not an inspiring list.

Compare this dawdling, Neanderthal sclerosis, then, to the first three minutes of The Thick of It. The opening episode of the third series landed last Saturday night, like one of those mysterious glowing objects that crash in Oklahoma in sci-fi films, humming with advanced technology from a superior civilisation. The first three minutes went at such a pace that it was like someone sticking a whisk in your head and revving it until you had brain-meringue coming out of your eyes.

If you want an antidote to the cross-channel razzmatazz of Saturday-night TV, you can hardly improve on The Thick of It. With its grey look, its cynicism and its torrent of profanities, it's about as far from a grinning Tess Daly as you could get. It's also horribly funny, in a nasty, mean way. "Get over here now," bawls Malcolm Tucker at hapless minister Nicola Murray after her latest gaffe, "and it might be advisable to wear brown trousers and a shirt the colour of blood..." His raw temper and sulphurous turn of phrase are at the heart of the programme but the bumbling of the civil servants is always a source of joy, too. This week they've wiped all the details of UK immigrants by mistake. Whoops. To be brutal, the characterisation isn't quite as assured as in previous series and there isn't the same streamlined brilliance to the plotting, but it's still essentially wonderful.

The Thick of It: series three, episode two

A trip to the Guardian for an interview sees The Thick of It recover some of its verve.

Armando Iannucci found life imitating art last week when the media scrum surrounding BNP leader Nick Griffin became the backdrop to an edit of The Thick of It at Television Centre. Writing in the Observer, Iannucci noted that the episode in question centred on a government department going into lock-down because of... the media outside. Suddenly, the edit - usually "about as glamorous as old trousers" - became a little more exciting; so much so, in fact, that he had to down tools and fight his way through the angry mob outside.

Out of the Loop

This once-biting political satire now feels strangely dated.

Series 3 Review

The character of Hugh Abbot, for all his faults, offered the viewer a lifeline into this alien world of honed amorality; Nicola Murray doesn't achieve that, she's just another parasite sucking the life out of the reciprocating parasites that surround her.

Nicola Murray is the new Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship in The Thick Of It (BBC2, Saturday). Sounds important; it isn't. If she'd said no, the only other candidate was Malcolm Tucker's left bollock with a smiley face drawn on it.

It's really just a job title, not a job, but Nicola doesn't know that yet, and has ideas about things like social mobility. She's like the new girl at school - trying to work out who to make friends with, where to fit in. The other kids - Ollie and Glenn and Terri - circle suspiciously. They sneak on each other, and lie, and gang up.

Then Malcolm, the big playground bully, shows up. He opens his enormous mouth as wide as it will go and vomits out a seemingly never-ending torrent of verbal abuse. If you're reading pre-watershed, or you're a child, you must stop reading right now, because I've put some of Malcolm's bad words in. It's hard not to - they're such a big part of The Thick Of It. "You're a fucking human dart board, and Eric fucking Bristow's on the oche throwing a million darts made of shit right at you," he splutters to Nicola. "Jesus Christ, you're a fucking omni-shambles, that's what you are . . . "

And so it goes. It's filthy, and yet it's so beautifully crafted and so perfectly delivered, it's almost as if Malcolm's actually turned swearing into art. And omni-shambles - isn't that lovely?

Nicola (played by the funny and brilliant Rebecca Front, a welcome addition) has a brave attempt at taking Malcolm on at his own game. She tells him her daughter is on heroin, "although she has cut down since getting pregnant by that Nigerian people smuggler, cos the track marks would have affected her porn career". But it's futile, like taking on Lionel Messi - Lionel fucking Messi - at football. And she ends up sacrificing her daughter's future for Malcom's party line.

I want to work at the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship. I mean, it's lovely here at the Guardian - looking around, I'm surrounded by intelligent and mostly reasonable people, tapping away on their keyboards. There's some good-natured banter, a few jokes, a bit of gentle back-stabbing. But nothing like what goes on in The Thick Of It. I want the blistering bickering and the bullying, the full-on playground experience, I want to be bollocked by Malcolm Tucker.

It is a brilliant performance by Peter Capaldi, and by Front, by all of them. But the real genius is in the writing. It's so out there and yet totally believable, so polished, so well observed, right down to the smallest details. That Nicola Murray stands in front of a campaign poster for Liam Bentley so that it reads IAM BENT right by her head is funny; that it immediately appears on YouTube is funnier still, and that the YouTube footage is intercut with random bits from Family Guy is best of all. "Why do people fucking do that on YouTube, it's not even funny," says the hapless Nicola. Yes it is. At least she's learning the language.

The movie - In The Loop - was good, but this is better. The Thick Of It works best like this, in short, rude blasts. What's going to happen when the Tories get in, I'm wondering (and worrying). Does The Thick Of It work in opposition?