Piglets

Itv isn't known for a lot of good comedy. It's not all Man About The House, Rising Damp, Only When I Laugh and this goes to show that Changing Ends is a modern exception (Viscous and The Job Lot were very good a few short years ago).

Quality actors like an unrecognisable Sarah Parish, Colin McFarlane and the usual Mark Heap are wasted here while Ricky Champ who played an inmate in a psychiatric hospital in Suspect on Channel 4 this week finds himself in another institution - an unfunny itv comedy.

Characters can take time to develop but, having bingewatched the first (and hopefully, only) series, I am no closer to liking the sexually-repressed characters that can't even supply their own catchphrase to look forward to with each episode.

Perhaps fewer characters might have given more laughs but an unfunny opening titles sequence with an unforgettable theme doesn't hold out for a good show ahead. The Thin Blue Line this isn't.

Many unfunny comedies use eye candy to hide from a poor script. Katherine Kelly in last year's equally bad Ruby Speaking springs to mind and Callie Cooke offers much the same here (Scorpio legs!) but Greeta is probably the most realistic of the recruits but she isn't funny either.

A lot of talented wasted by a group of fifth former writers it seems.

What has gone wrong with comedy these days ??

This has got to be one of the worst comedy shows that I have ever seen.

The acting is awful, the script is mostly nonsensical and the whole concept of these "recruits" would even be considered for the police force is totally idiotic.

It does remind me (in a very small way) of the police academy movies, but this is nowhere nearly as good.

There does not seem to be one redeeming character in the whole show, none of the recruits seem to be worthy of becoming a police officer, and the training officers all seem like they are rejects that have been transferred from other parts of the force to keep them quiet and out of the way.

All in all, this is a show that I hope never gets a second series.

Well it's not good. All the cast are unlikable (which seems to be the current trend), and the "comedy" relies on awkward comic timing from the try-too-hard cast rather than (heaven forbid) some decent writing.

Even the title seemed to be controversial for the sake of it, almost a televisual form of click bait. It did it's job in that it got some headlines before the programme aired, but sadly the show is neither as challenging or boundary-pushing as it thinks it is.

None of the characters make any sense (the chief inspectors come across as simpletons, the recruits as morons) and I'm never sure who I'm actually meant to root for. Or maybe it's because I just didn't care.

It's obviously bloody awful. Frankly we all should demand better.

A lot of the reviews are making me laugh at how ridiculous they are! Hey, maybe humour has changed that much in the past few decades, and I've just not cared enough to pay attention

There is a mix of Green Wing, Friday Night Dinner, The Young Offenders, The Thin Blue Line, and a number of other comedy dramas in the kind of humour Piglets employs

It is funny in a silly, obvious way, with exaggerated characters and traits, and a story that is more about the relationships between them all rather than supporting a particularly strong message or overarching plot

I enjoyed it for its levity, warmth and ease of viewing, and it did make me laugh.

I so wanted to like this. I'm a great fan of Mark Heap and Rebecca Humphries, and still regard Green Wing as an underrated masterpiece.

But, oh dear. The problem, as so often with comedies nowadays, is that it simply isn't funny because the material is so weak, lazy and uninspired.

Combine poorly written dialogue with an overabundance of second-rate actors and the result is an embarrassing mess. There's no other way of saying it.

I'm going to persevere because I refuse to believe that writers of this auspicious pedigree will not improve as the show progresses. But the signs are not good so far.