Review: TRACEY ULLMAN'S SHOW

Tracey Ullman is a British success story most Britons haven't heard of, or at best have long forgotten about. Once part of 1980s shows like A Kick Up the Eighties and Three of a Kind, Ullman famously emigrated to America and found huge success with The Tracey Ullman Show (1987-90) and Tracey Takes On... (1996-99), and is now ranked as the UK's wealthiest female comedian. She definitely lived the American Dream, but now in her late-50s she's returned to her homeland for Tracey Ullman's Show on BBC1.

TOAST OF LONDON and PEEP SHOW DVD winner!

Thanks if you entered my DVD competitions last week, to win copies of TOAST OF LONDON Series 3 and PEEP SHOW Series 9 on DVD. The winner is below:

Win TOAST OF LONDON Series 3 on DVD for Christmas!

The seasonal cheer just keeps on spreading! After giving away a DVD of Peep Show yesterday, I'm now giving away a DVD of TOAST OF LONDON Series 3 for one lucky reader, too!

Win PEEP SHOW Series 9 on DVD for Christmas!

If you're struggling for a last-minute Christmas gift idea, now's your chance to pickup a copy of an iconic Channel 4 comedy, absolutely free. I have a copy of PEEP SHOW Series 9 to give away to one lucky reader! It probably won't arrive for Christmas Day, but it'll make a nice addition over the festive period.

Review: Sky1's YOU, ME AND THE APOCALYPSE

★★☆☆☆

What's the premise? This is a ten-episode comedy-drama taking place during the 34 weeks before a five-mile wide comet crashes into the earth and destroys mankind. HA-HA-HA? The story focuses on a variety of people from around the world (well—the UK, the U.S, and Italy), dealing with a literal countdown to doom...

COMMUNITY: school's out... forever?

Season 6 of Community's over and I loved the finale ("Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television"), which was a hilarious meta-commentary on the show's existence and ability to resist cancellation. For half its lifetime, the show's good luck mantra's been #sixseasonsandamovie, and it's now within touching distance of achieving that once-unlikely aim, but I'm not sure if there's as much hunger for a feature-film.

CAR SHARE - Series 1

★★☆☆

There was an episode of One Foot in the Grave that took place entirely within the confines of a car stuck in a traffic jam on a hot summer's day, and it's one of my favourites. I remember being impressed by how David Renwick managed to write thirty-minutes of comedy from just three people sweating inside a stationery vehicle, but experimental episodes like that are fairly common nowadays. A rite of passage for sitcom writers, in some respects. Peter Kay's new six-part comedy Car Share uses that One Foot gimmick as its entire concept, although the claustrophobia's leavened by brief outdoor jaunts and day-dreams to shake things up. And it's an enjoyable comedy that has charm and obvious heart, but the number of laugh-out-loud moments is quite thin—certainly compared to Kay's last sitcom hit, Phoenix Nights.

INSIDE NO. 9, 2.6 – 'Séance Time'

★★★☆

The last Inside No.9 of series 2 ended with a horror-tinged instalment, rather like last year's climax "The Harrowing", but "Séance Time" had a great deal more humour. Here, we visited the abode of Hives (Reece Shearsmith), bespectacled assistant to clairvoyant Madam Talbot (Alison Steadman—not coincidental casting, given last week's Abigail's Party influence?) It began with a very eerie tone, as Hives dealt with house guest Tina (Sophie McShera), whose sister had arranged for her to have a reading with a spiritualist, and quickly became a surprisingly frightening mix of genre clichés—telekinetic tamborines, flickering lights, animated dolls—ending with a terrifying appearance from a blue-skinned demon (Dan Starkey) that reminded me of a similar jump-scare from Insidious...

INSIDE NO. 9, 2.5 – 'Nana's Party'

★★★☆

This week, series 2's penultimate Inside No.9 paid homage to farcical one-act plays, and in particular the trope of an important birthday going awry thanks to invited guests clashing spectacularly. It's Nana's (Elsie Kelly) 79th birthday, and her daughter Angela (Claire Skinner) and son-in-law Jim (Steve Pemberton) are putting on a delicious spread in their immaculate suburban home, where Angela's alcoholic sister Carol (Lorraine Ashbourne) and her practical joker husband Pat (Reece Shearsmith) are also in attendance. What could possibly go wrong?

INSIDE NO. 9, 2.4 – 'Cold Comfort'

★★★☆

"Cold Comfort" appears to be series 2's "experimental" instalment, following series 1's near-silent comedy "A Quiet Night In"—which has become an Inside No.9 tradition; seemingly inspired by the success of Psychoville's fourth episode, which was filmed in (seemingly) one uninterrupted take. The gimmick for this half-hour was about the difficulty of crafting a compelling story with a camera placed in a static position—looking down the lens of CCTV camera 9, at Comfort Support Line telephonist Andy (Steve Pemberton). Although a bit of narrative flexibility was available, by virtue of the fact there were three other camera angles visible in camera 9's feed.

INSIDE NO. 9, 2.3 – 'The Trial of Elizabeth Gadge'

★★☆☆

Entertaining fare, but too predictable and clichéd to prove genuinely memorable. This week's Inside No.9 began promisingly, with notorious 17th-centry witchfinders Warren (Reece Shearsmith) and Clarke (Steve Pemberton) arriving at the hamlet of Little Happens to put old crone Elizabeth Gadge (Ruth Sheen) on trial for witchcraft and consorting with The Devil. The presence of genre legend David Warner as village nobleman Sir Andrew Pike was a pleasant accompaniment, too, last seen working with the duo on The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse. It's just a shame that the storyline and various creative decisions were amusing but didn't do much to subvert my preconceptions; including a double-twist ending that held little surprise.

INSIDE NO. 9, 2.2 – 'The 12 Days of Christine'

★★★☆

This episode kept its space the same—a No. 9 flat belonging to feisty Christine Clarke (Sheridan Smith)—but time itself was more pliable; as we zipped through twelve holidays of a calendar year (Christmas, Mothers Day, Easter, Halloween, etc), but not in strict chronological order. "The 12 Days of Christine" was one of Inside No.9's more experimental and stimulating experiences, but one which wisely kept focus on Sheridan Smith's nuanced performance as a woman starting to feel like she's losing her mind.

Review: INSIDE NO. 9, 2.1 – 'La Couchette'

★★★☆

They'll perhaps never again create anything with the impact of The League of Gentlemen, which changed the television landscape back in 1999 (inspiring a wave of twisted comedies like Nighty Night, while challenging the very idea of what a BBC comedy could look like), but INSIDE NO.9 is nevertheless a brilliant anthology show that sees former-League members Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton channel their gift for the macabre into fresh weekly stories. The format allows for great ingenuity in often claustrophobic settings; bringing in famous guest-stars (undoubted fans of the creative pair), and ensuring nothing ever outstays its welcome—which I'd argue happened to their previous venture Psychoville.

UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT - The Complete First Season

★★★☆

'Kimmy Goes Outside' • 'Kimmy Gets a Job' • 'Kimmy Goes on a Date' • 'Kimmy Goes to the Doctor' • 'Kimmy Kisses a Boy' • 'Kimmy Goes to School' • 'Kimmy Goes to a Party' • 'Kimmy is Bad at Math' • 'Kimmy Has a Birthday' • 'Kimmy's in a Love Triangle' • 'Kimmy Rides a Bike' • 'Kimmy Goes to Court' • 'Kimmy Makes Waffles'

The Office's Ellie Kemper is utterly fantastic in Netflix's UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT, playing the eponymous heroine rescued from a doomsday cult, having spent fifteen years living in an underground bunker with three other ladies, later dubbed 'The Indiana Mole Women' by the media. Kimmy's an incredibly naïve but optimistic woman, with a persistently upbeat attitude and desire to break free of her sudden "victim"-status and make something of her 'second life', in the wake of this subterranean rebirth. The entire show's geared towards the notion of positivity overcoming obstacles, as Kimmy's cheerful demeanour and beaming exudes a plucky radiance that sweeps people along to mostly positive ends.

Trailer: Showtime's HAPPYISH

A.K.A 'the TV drama Phillip Seymour Hoffman was going to do before he died'. The UK's own Steve Coogan has replaced Hoffman in this Showtime comedy-drama, HAPPYISH, about a middle-aged man whose life is thrown into disarray when his much younger boss arrives spouting lingo like "digital", "social" and "viral". The embedded trailer didn't make me laugh very much, as I personally don't think there are many 44-year-olds who truly grapple with modern life's idioms, although there's comedy value in a bitter man rallying against the infantilisation of modern man, I suppose. Not sure about this one, to be honest, but as a fan of Coogan I'll be watching when it premieres 26 April.

Trailer: COMMUNITY – Season 6 ('Age of Yahoo')

It's the long-awaited trailer for COMMUNITY season 6, which has moved from NBC to Yahoo after being unexpectedly saved by the online giant. Taking stylistic cues from the Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer, it's three minutes that give us a nice idea of what to expect—including our first look at newcomers Keith David and Paget Brewster. The Dean gets to grips with a VR headset, Abed references The Big Bang Theory, and Chang pulls a Mr Miyagi, what's not to like?

Community returns 17 March on Yahoo. For UK fans, Sony Entertainment Television will be broadcasting episodes less than 24-hours later, starting 18 March @10:05pm. (Uh, scroll deep on your EPG, people...)

Review: BBC2's POMPIDOU

★☆☆☆

Matt Lucas has been off-screens for quite a few years now, perhaps chastened by the mixed reaction to his Little Britain follow-up, Come Fly With Me. Now he's back, sans double-act partner David Walliams, in BBC2's "silent comedy" POMPIDOU—a sort of upper-class Mr Bean, with Lucas as the eponymous aristocrat, who's fallen on hard times and now lives in a caravan on the grounds of his estate, with his befuddled butler Hove (Alex Macqueen) and an Afghan Hound.

Brief thoughts on Channel 4's relationship comedy CATASTROPHE

Despite adhering to an overused setup (two lovers cope with an unwanted pregnancy), Channel 4 comedy CATASTROPHE overcame its hoariness because, frankly, it was funny and well-performed by writer-stars Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney. They played, um, Sharon and Rob—middle-aged, transatlantic lovers who become expectant parents following a crazy week of passionate sex after meeting in a London bar.

Trailer: Netflix's THE UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT

It's the first trailer for Netflix's new sitcom THE UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT, created by Tina Fey (30 Rock). It concerns the eponymous woman (Ellie Kemper) who's rescued from a doomsday cult, after spending 15-years in an underground bunker. Adjusting to the modern world, Kimmy gets a job as a nanny for an Upper East Side socialite (Jane Krakowski), and laughs ensue.

Finale reviews: THE AFFAIR (Season 1) • DEREK: THE SPECIAL • THE WRONG MANS

It's the time of year when U.S shows have their mid-season or seasonal finales, and UK shows have Christmas specials that occasionally act as series-enders. So I just thought I would briefly cover three shows I've been watching, that ended very recently...