“Watch-through-your-fingers-make-it-stop stuff.” Read on for the verdict on last night’s TV.

Peep Show, Channel 4

“It was, as usual, watch-through-your-fingers-make-it-stop stuff and sadistically enjoyable it was too…As usual, the cringe-factor ratcheted up until Pompous and Punchable had each delivered a tour de force of squirm…Both were exquisitely performed by David Mitchell and Robert Webb but I still hope that this series might be their last. I’m not sure there’s much more the writers can put them, and us, through.”
Alice Jones, The Guardian

“Peep Show has been one of the great comedy shows of recent times. Brilliantly written, bold, imaginative, original. But it hasn’t moved on much in its eight series. Even the point-of-view and the listen-to-my thoughts things feel a bit tired. I did laugh, at Gerrard’s death mainly, but also at Jez’s brilliant plan to sell the headline Three-O Walcott to a tabloid when Theo Walcott turns 30. And not an awful lot else.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“I initially thought Sam Baines and Jesse Armstrong’s internal monologues for Mark strained a little under their own weight yesterday… But the plot soon freed things up.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“If Peep Show has a shelf-life it’s longer than the oldest tortoise on the Galapagos islands. This sitcom survives not just on the quality of its lines but on its ability to move without changing.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

Him and Her, BBC3

“A little bit Royle Family, a little bit Gavin & Stacey, with a hefty dollop of toilet humour, it maintains just the right balance between scuzzy and warm and fuzzy.”
Alice Jones, The Guardian

“This is only series three of Him and Her and there’s still a freshness about it and a humanness. I laughed more, too. And for that reason, it wins overall.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

4Funnies, Channel 4

“This was less a conventional set-up/punchline sketch show than a ramble through a lightly disturbed mind… It was also hypnotic, rather beautiful and one of the most refreshingly odd half hours of pure comedy I’ve seen in some time.”
Alice Jones, The Guardian

Return to Forgotten Britain, BBC2

“Strip away all the Fergalising, and what remained in this documentary was a bracing insight into some real lives not so much forgotten as ignored by most television.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“Our presenter ended by saying he’d had enough of the depressing stories in the original series, it was time for some hopeful views of British life. I’m not sure his first episode provided them.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

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