The Thick of It, BBC2

Much like the life of man or woman, brilliant comedies have three distinct stages: the astonishing, witty and original first series, which gleefully burns comedic stale tropes at the stake and dances round them laughing and naked; the second/third series in which the humorous zenith is scaled and it stands aloft a blustery peak, emanating a guttural roar of feral triumphalism; and the inapposite decline, in which the comedy palls, only a little but it does pall, and it starts to resemble the slothful, moribund antiquities it so once jubilantly usurped.

Often the change is imperceptible like the vague twitch that heralds the irremediable wane into Parkinson’s, but it’s still apparent, and this new series of The Thick of It bears all the pitiable signs of irreversible infirmity. It’s still very, very good but is absent of the peerless excellence of the first couple of series.

Some comedies terminate after two or three series – The Office, Fawlty Towers, Father Ted (which was due to finish anyway) – some even bail out after one – The Day Today, which starred the brilliant Rebecca Front who joins the Thick of It as Hugh Abbot’s (Chris Langham, a career now less likely to be revived than the late Dermot Morgan’s) replacement Nicola Murray in the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship.

The promotion of Murray to the cabinet at least offered some hope that the cascading bile of Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) could be repelled, especially as she repudiated his rancorous bullying with a stark wit, sarcastically answering his concerns over her 16-year-old daughter who has left school that she did so because of her heroin habit, a Nigerian boyfriend and dalliances with prostitution.

But by the end of the episode Murray had crumbled under the onslaught of Tucker’s tongue that performs the same role in fictional politics as a battering ram breaching the gates of Jerusalem during the Crusades. But in the intervening period between her defiance and capitulation, Murray was seen to be just another manipulative cog in the political machinery.

Hugh Abbot, for all his faults, offered the viewer a lifeline into this alien world of honed amorality; Murray doesn’t achieve that, she’s just another parasite sucking the life out of the reciprocating parasites that surround her. She pits the underlings left over from Hugh’s tenure (we call him by his Christian name because we liked him) against one another, hinting that some, but not all of them will be kept on. This means that Ollie (Chris Addison) and Glenn (James Smith) bicker tiresomely as they fight for their jobs, while under Hugh there was a depth to their antipathy, as if rooted in a genuine rivalry rather than shoulder-charging each other out the way in a desperate rush for the lifeboats. But Glenn’s pining for his £600 desk chair that was appropriated by Murray and then consigned to the skip by Tucker was funny.

Murray seems to be cruel and astute because it is in her nature to be so, but it’s these traits that estrange her from the viewer. Hugh was a feebler, more junior facsimile of Jim Hacker from Yes Minister. Over the course of the half-hour episode, Hugh’s principles to do the right thing (i.e. what the public would expect of public servants) were slowly corrupted by the diabolical vulgarity of Tucker and he would eventually meekly succumb, but do so hilariously.

With Murray locking horns with Tucker, and Ollie and Glenn duelling with backstabbing daggers, the repetitive street-by-street warfare is concentrated into a single, inanimate frame common to the Beano where a big scrap is illustrated by a big cloud of dust with the only visible human presence protruding fists pummelling the adversaries.

This isn’t to say that Tucker’s diatribes have lost any of their inventive extrapolation of Anglo-Saxon oaths, but merely that they now serve less of a purpose; degraded into a Soviet-style parade in Red Square, casting eyes-right to the half-dead dictators glumly watching on from the frozen Kremlin balcony whenever there’s a brilliant quip such as: “The only other candidate [than Murray] is my left bullock with a smiley face drawn on it!” Or: “Are you saying all the schools this government has improved are knife-addled rape sheds?”

Perhaps the problem lies in the exposure of MPs as even more corrupt and inhumane than was previously imagined, and that in trying to keep pace with the surreality of Parliament the narrative has become detached from the besieged pathos exhibited by the characters in the previous series. The plummet isn’t yet terminal, but we would savour someone in the show with whom we could identify, someone we could actually like.

The TV Week - Saturday Oct 31st - Friday Nov 6th

Saturday
9.45pm The Impressions Show with Culshaw and Stephenson BBC1 - Sketch show featuring the impressions of Jon Culshaw and Debra Stephenson.
9.45pm Life Stories with Piers Morgan ITV - Piers chats with Dannii Minogue.
Sunday
9.00pm Garrow's Law: Tales from The Old Bailey BBC1 - Four-part legal drama set in the late 18th century which follows young idealistic barrister William Garrow who given his first criminal defence case at the Old Bailey. Starring Andrew Buchanan and Alun Armstrong.
Monday
2.00pm Dickinson's Real Deal ITV
7.00pm Michael Jackson's Private Home Sky1 - Four-part documentary featuring footage of the late singer's home and personal home movies.
8.30pm Into the Storm BBC2 - Drama-documentary sequel to the Emmy award-winning The Gathering Storm, charting Winston Churchill's rise to power, his determination to lead the country to victory in World War II, and his devastating loss of power in the 1945 general election
9.00pm The Great Escape: The Reckoning Channel 4 - Documentary looking back at the people involved in the iconic WW2 film.
9.00pm Naked Britain Sky1 - 3-part documentary series exploring Britain's perceptions of nudity.
Tuesday
9.00pm The F Word Channel 4 - 12-part new series of Gordon Ramsay's food magazine series. Janet Street-Porter tries to rear not one but three different meats for the chefs to cook. Katie Price takes on Gordon in the Recipe challenge.
9.30pm Ross Kemp Remembers Gangs Sky1 - Ross Kemp returns to Kenya.
Wednesday
9.00pm Spooks BBC1 - Eighth series of the spy drama. Section D discovers that Harry thwarted a clandestine operation to smuggle weapons-grade uranium into Iraq to justify the war.
9.00pm The Family Channel 4 - Second series of the landmark documentary series which puts cameras in a normal family's home. A British Indian family opens its doors to viewers in a new observational series, documenting the universal themes of family life. The Grewals are a fun-loving and lively family with three generations all living under one roof. For two months they were filmed by cameras placed in every part of their house during the most dramatic and exciting months of their lives.
9.00pm The Noughties Was That It? BBC3 - The opener of a two-part journey through arguably the most influential time of historical change since the Renaissance, ten years of social upheaval, celebrity, art, sex, politics and new technology that has set the template for the next hundred years.
10.35pm Black Widow Granny? BBC1
Thursday
9.00pm Cutting Edge: The Boy Who Sailed the World Channel 4 - Documenting the extraordinary journey of 14yr old Michael Perham, who in 2006 became the youngest person ever to cross the atlantic solo.
9.00pm The History of Christianity BBC4 - First of a six-part series in which professor Diarmaid MacCulloch goes in search of Christianity's forgotten origins.
9.45pm Wonderland: I Won Univerity Challlenge BBC2 - Quirky documentary catching up with winners of the popular gameshow
Friday
9.00pm Peter Kay: Raider of the Pop Charts Channel 4 - Repeat of the documentary charting the comedians success in music.
10.00pm Comedy Showcase Channel 4 - Second series of comedy pilots which could lead to a full series. Campus set in the fictitious Kirke University and explores the lives and souls of a handful of people that work there: some as academics and others involved in the general running of the place. Made by the team behind Green Wing and Smack the Pony.
10.00pm Michael Jackson: The Live Seance Sky1 - Hosted by Derek Acorah

Modern Family, Sky1

Apparently the traditional sitcom is dead but hopefully it won’t be long before the irritable, shaky one handed filming technique (just use a sodding tripod!) pioneered by shows such as ‘The Office’ and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ follows suit and it’s hideous amounts of grotesque box sets is banished to the dark hellish realms of the Tesco bargain bin.

So it’s time to step forward for your day of reckoning ‘Modern Family’, the new ‘hit US show,’ a statement that is slapped on American imports far too casually nowadays. This sitcom follows the lives of three interlinked families in the style of a mockumentary. Therefore, it consists of a huge ensemble cast where naturally no one gets just the right amount of screen time. It’s nice to see Ed O’Neil back on our screens as Jay Pritchett , a man who could challenge Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson for the title of ‘Worst Father of the year,’ his Columbian trophy wife Gloria and her son Manny. Also along for the ride is Jay’s daughter, paranoid house wife Claire, her husband Phil and their brats Haley and Alex. Finally is Mitchell, Jay’s son and his flamboyant partner Eric. The pilot episode begins with their return journey from Vietnam after adopting Madonna style.

However, ‘Modern Family’ is riddled with flaws;

1. The mockumentary, rogue camera style accompanied by dead pan humour has now became so stale it’s difficult to even decipher where the joke was meant to be, let alone find it funny. At times I thought I was watching a poor drama or genuine documentary the laughs were that flat.
2. Following on from this, although writers Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd probably think that the mockumentary element sets this show apart, it’s actually its biggest downfall. The slow and monotonous pace doesn’t allow for any real story progression. Nor, does it have a relatable narrative that we can genuinely care about. All in all it just seems like it’s trying too hard.
3. The heavy focus on such two-dimensional stereotypical characters is bound to set the fight against xenophobia back at least a decade.
4. Sky One has scheduled it so that it proceeds brand spanking new episodes of unarguably the world’s most treasured and celebrated modern family; ‘The Simpsons.’ The comparisons are inevitable and it’s obvious who will triumph

Perhaps, I’ve given ‘Modern Family’ too rough a ride, after all this was only the pilot episode, which on a first watch always feels like a marathon and isn’t always the best indicator in setting the standard for the remainder of a season. But still, things need to improve quickly if this particular ‘hit US show’ is to accomplish the holy grail of my Sky Plus series link.