Paulo Salem Many believe that this is primarily a comedy show, something to watch casually, for leisure. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As matter of fact, this show is mainly a very serious psychometric test. Clearly, it was designed to measure a person's "general intelligence", to put it in psychological parlance. I'm sure no serious psychologist would disagree that the rate of laughs per sketch can be used as a very good approximation of that elusive mental quality.One may imagine that it would be easy to cheat on this test just by faking continuous laughs. But Mitchell, Webb & co, in their impressive comic wisdom, dutifully placed bad jokes among their great hits, precisely to prevent such frauds. There is certainly an optimal laughs/sketch rate, and probably even an optimal laugh->sketch matching, but I shall leave these technical details to psychologists to determine.As a bonus, the show can also be used as an aid in diagnosing psychopathy: it suffices to check whether the subject laughed in the last episode of series four. In fact, the more I watch the episodes, the more correlations I find between certain sketches and certain mental qualities. It is pure scientific genius.Alas, it seems that the general public did not do very well in these tests: the show was canceled after only four series, what a shame! On the other hand, what could be more flattering than to be rejected by Vectron worshipers who can barely compute numberwang?The only reason I do not give the show 10 starts is to push these great guys to come up with even better sketches and, most urgently, figuring out a way to publish them -- perhaps by having some arch-villain to intervene in this prosaic issue? To be more blunt: please take my money (again), guys!

ewaf58 Just catching up with the first series from 2006 and must say it's given me quite a few belly laughs. I loved The Green Clarinet man sketch - how we may wish to have our very own clarinet to sort out awkward office managers.I still haven't worked out the weekly Number-Wang quiz show - and nor have the contestants by the look of things.It's at times very inventive and played with genuine wit. I laughed out loud at a sketch ( not sure from which series) featuring a cheap looking pedal bin shaped Robot that has a switch to change it into either a Cheese-bot or Petrol-bot.Regardless so say it get's confused and fills up a car with cheese - and then fails to commit suicide at it's own failings when further confusion means that it covers itself with cheese instead of petrol.

davideo-2 STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning In terms of mainstream success, Walliams and Lucas are the uncrowned kings of TV sketch show comedy. Little Britain has enjoyed a phenomenal success, that has branched out into TV specials, merchandising and overseas success, in places like Australia. But, while it can undoubtedly be a very funny show, it has been accused by many of relying on vulgarity and one-joke character catch-phrases to get by, and, sad as it is to say (being a big fan myself), this is very much true. Certainly, it has set a trend for modern comedy.So what's needed is an alternative, which we get in the shape of That Mitchell and Webb Look. Their best work, it is said, is Peep Show, which I must confess I have yet to see (will have to tune in when the new series begins on May 2nd.) With so many people saying it, it is most likely true, but we'll have to see...But this sketch show, despite containing a lot of duff stuff, certainly shows a neat sense of comic talent. It all feels very old fashioned, a throw-back to the likes of Fry and Laurie and Monty Python. Stepping back isn't as much progress as stepping forward, of course, but humour of their day certainly relied more on a genuine sense of comic talent than by being as gross out as possible. Both Mitchell and Webb are obviously well educated men of the Cambridge/Oxford set and some apparently feel the show is a bit snobby unless you're of the middle class persuasion but then what were...well, Fry and Laurie and Monty Python? A fair bit of the humour is very subtle and sophisticated and you do have to pay attention to the gags to get the most out of them. Being of the sort who likes my humour very silly, some of my favourite sketches include The Incredibly Posh People Who Are Still Unaccountably Waiters/Vicars/Tailors...,The Green Clarinet and Numberwang. The Snooker Commentators I find to be rather boring, and Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit was a bit of a wasted opportunity. And then there's the surreal/post modern sort of humour, including the camera cutting into Mitchell and Webb supposedly chilling out between shoots, not to mention The Surprsing Adventures of Sir Digby Chicken Ceaser, a re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes and Professor Watson as homeless winos/drug addicts who prowl the streets robbing and pillaging.As a comedy duo, Mitchell and Webb are rather different. Webb is far less restrained than Mitchell, very in your face with his humour with whacky, wild characters such as Raymond Terrific from Big Talk and The Green Clarinet Man. Mitchell relies more on subtlety and sophistication, a reserved English gent from the old school of comedy.The most surprising thing is how low budget it all looks, with some rather modest production values through-out. It doesn't seem to have as many fans as it could have, either, with the few comments here on the IMDb site, and a modest time slot on BBC 2 Thursday nights. But then this is old fashioned humour all the way, an alternative to those tired of constant crassness and vulgarity, so it's fate was sadly sealed anyway. ****

ian1000 I stumbled upon this by accident, when watching 'Extras', which was a lucky break.I had low expectations; many recent sketch shows have been pretty poor, but the inventive gems shown in this series will live with me for some time. My own favourites:-Grand Admiral Doenitz learning that he's Nazi Germany's last Fuhrer. Angel Summoner and BMX Kid.The show's most famous sketch was "Numberwang" the nonsense daytime quiz show; the best one was the German version with Mitchell rather than web as the host ("Das Ist Numberwang!").More please gentlemen.