Peter Kay's Car Share: The Finale, BBC Two review - happy ever after?

★★★★★ PETER KAY'S CAR SHARE Happy ever after in a wonderful last road trip

Take that! John and Kayleigh get it together in a wonderful last road trip

Would it be happy ever after for John and Kayleigh? Would they or would they not drive off into the sunset? By the end they weren’t driving off anywhere. Thanks to an errant hedgehog, the finale of Peter Kay’s Car Share (BBC One) turned into Peter Kay’s Car Crash and blew the bloody doors off. So they went home holding hands on the bus.

Home From Home, BBC One review - Johnny Vegas as everyman hero

★★★ HOME FROM HOME, BBC ONE Johnny Vegas as everyman hero

Gentle class-divide sitcom

Home From Home, written by newcomers Chris Fewtrell and Simon Crowther, first saw life as a pilot in the BBC’s Landmark Sitcom Season in 2016, the channel's search for new and original content for its schedules. Well, new it may be, but original it ain’t – yet don’t let that put you off. It’s a decent enough run-through of several sitcom tropes, with Johnny Vegas as its everyman hero.

Mum, BBC Two, series 2 finale review - the perfect way to go

★★★★★ MUM, BBC TWO, SERIES 2 FINALE The perfect way to go

Lesley Manville and co should quit their unimprovable sitcom while they're ahead

Should Mum end here? There have been only two series on BBC Two, and it closed the second with all the characters poised for the next step. A third series has been commissioned, so there will be the opportunity to see what happens next for Cathy and Michael now they’ve hugged and, for the second time, held hands. In Spain they might even get round to kissing. But the bitter-sweet comedy of romantic yearning is one thing and fulfilment not the same at all.

Mum, BBC Two, series 2 review - Lesley Manville is a discreet delight

★★★★ MUM, BBC TWO More gentle comedy about imperfect families

Stefan Golaszewski's sitcom returns for more gentle comedy about imperfect families

This week brings a tale of two comedies. Both half-hour sitcoms are about widowed mothers with grown-up sons still at home. Each woman has an unattached admirer. Both shows star fine comic actresses who learned much of their craft in the films of Mike Leigh. And the new series started two days apart. On BBC One was Hold the Sunset. Back for a second series on BBC Two was Mum.

Hold the Sunset, BBC One, review - this is an ex-sitcom

★★ HOLD THE SUNSET, BBC ONE John Cleese, Alison Steadman star in exhumation of sitcom genre

John Cleese and Alison Steadman star in the exhumation of long-lost genre

You need to be of a certain vintage to have any memory of the traditional suburban family sitcom. Like the Raleigh Chopper and the Betamax video, like amateur athletics and glamrock and key parties, it is an extinct cultural artefact. What did for it? The internet, mainly, and the kids not watching scheduled telly any more, and maybe the rise of stand-up.

Derry Girls, Channel 4 review – bring on series two!

★★★★ DERRY GIRLS, CHANNEL 4 Final episode cements this as one of the funniest new shows on television

Final episode cements place as one of the funniest new shows on television

When first announced, Derry Girls seemed a strange prospect. Derry during The Troubles wasn’t an obvious choice for a sitcom; neither was writer Lisa McGee, whose only previous comedy outing London Irish was slammed for negative stereotyping.

John Mahoney: 'I wanted to be like everybody else'

How the Manchester-born star of 'Frasier' became a naturalised Midwesterner

In 11 seasons of Frasier, John Mahoney played Marty Crane, a cussed blue-collar ex-cop who couldn’t quite understand how his loins came to produce two prissily cultured psychiatrists. His ally in straight-talking was his physiotherapist Daphne, whose fish-out-of-water flat-cap vowels were apparently the result of a gap in the scriptwriters’ field of knowledge. “When they wrote that Daphne is a working girl from Manchester," explained Mahoney, "they had no idea what that meant.

W1A, Series 3 Finale, BBC Two review - the satire gets to the end of its joke

★★★ W1A, SERIES 3 FINALE, BBC TWO The satire gets to the end of its joke

Funny but flat, the BBC mockumentary struggled with engagement

Repetition can help clarity. It emphasises significance, and shines a light more directly onto something hidden. It can guide us gently into an area we might have otherwise circumvented, and urge us to stare at something for long enough to see beyond, and transcend previous, long-held opinions. It can also, of course, become very tired very fast and that was, sadly, the case with the third series of John Morton’s BBC mockumentary sitcom.