PEEP SHOW 6.1

[SPOILERS] A welcome return for the BAFTA-winning sitcom, now in its sixth year and still feeling fresh. You have to commend that longevity in Peep Show, as most British sitcoms, particularly ones with a strong cult following, tend to peter out around the fourth series. Series 5 was a slight disappointment to me, because I felt the aftermath to Mark (David Mitchell) and Sophie's (Olivia Colman) wedding disaster wasn't very fulfilling, but this new series appears to have a much stronger narrative through-line...

Mark and Jez (Robert Webb) are both prospective fathers to Olivia's gestating baby -– one biologically, one spiritually, with neither brave enough to confront the situation and get the truth. Anyway, Mark's celebrating a promotion at JLB, splashing out on a new sofa for the flat, and he's even found Jez a job as a "phone pig". However, it all came crashing down around their ears following a fire drill that turned genuine ("bloody hell, Mark; get your elbows in, it's all gone Backdraft!"), when their boss Johnson (Paterson Joseph) arrived to inform the staff that the company's collapsed and they're all unemployed.

For Mark, a ray of light shines from the disaster when he becomes the spokesman for the staff in their battle to win compensation from JLB's German firm, led by Steffan Strauss (Robert Cambrinus), whom Mark impersonates with a Hitler moustache for a satirical sketch performed with Dobby (Isy Suttie). Things are complicated very nicely when Mark's blackmailed with a cheque for £15,000 to end the workers revolt, yet pressured by Dobby and Mark into raiding JLB after-hours and ransacking the place. Cue scenes of Mark stealing the ergonomic keyboard he covets anyway, before spraying fire extinguisher foam over Dobby just as Steffan and Johnson arrived.

It was another superbly-written piece, full of tiny gems you don't catch on first viewing, that once again finds new ways to humiliate and embarrass the pair. I'm assuming we won't find out who's the father of Sophie's baby until the finale (at the earliest), but that will give the show a certain mystery to play with. It was also very funny to see both Mark and Jez doing their best to put notions of fatherhood out of their heads, quickly hiding baby clothes delivered to them by Super Hans (Matt King) under the bed. The fear of parenthood and growing up is something that continually undermines Jez and Mark's lives; the latter rewarding himself with a plush sofa that further ties him indoors, where life's just that little bit easier to ignore. But not even they could ignore a screaming baby when it enters this world – could they?


18 September 2009
Channel 4, 10pm

written by: Sam Bain & Jesse Armstrong directed by: Becky Martin starring: David Mitchell (Mark), Robert Webb (Jez), Olivia Colman (Sophie), Matt King (Super Hans), Paterson Joseph (Johnson), Neil Fitzmaurice (Jeff), Isy Suttie (Dobby), Jim Howick (Gerrard), Vera Filatova (Elena), Endy Mckay (Lisa), Robert Cambrinus (Steffan Strauss) & Douglas McFerran (Security Guard)