A soup of sicko behaviour

Last night's TV reviewed: Derren Brown: Trick or Treat; Peep Show

Glen is just an average guy. A spectacularly average guy: aged 40, lives in suburbia, two kids, dull job etc. Glen's life is kind of fine, but it lacks something. Enter the antichrist, aka Derren Brown. Suddenly Glen is in a lift, being thrown all over the place. It finally stops, on floor H - for Hell. And there's the antichrist with a choice of cards: trick or treat. Glen picks treat, luckily for him. And his treat is to learn everything about everything, in no time at all, using the antichrist's special methods.

One week later, at the Night of Champions pub quiz, Glen's on his own, up against the best quiz teams in the land. And he knows all this stuff, things he never knew before - George Bush's middle name, what a fight-off in fencing is called, how many of Henry VIII's offspring went on to rule the country. There is only one explanation: sorcery, witchcraft, magic, paranormal powers, whatever you want to call it. It's all further proof - if further proof was needed - that Brown really is the antichrist.

Except he's not actually a very good one, because Glen only comes second in the quiz. Still, it's spooky as hell, with the emphasis on hell. And it makes you think: if he can do that with Glen, could I learn Mandarin in a week, with Derren's help? Or how to play football like Lionel Messi? And these are all clearly treats. What are the tricks like? Maybe we'll find out next time. Scary.

Mitchell and Webb are back, doing what they do best - not That Mitchell and Webb Look, but Peep Show, which is so much funnier. I think the main reason that Peep Show is better than That Mitchell and Webb Look, apart from the whole sketch-show thing feeling a bit tired, is that TMAWL is mainly written by MAW. But they're performers, not writers. Very good performers, as we see in Peep Show, which is mainly written by other people, namely Jess Armstrong and Sam Bain, who are very good writers. It's a winning combination.

Peep Show is a treat - a sordid soup of sicko male behaviour and fabulous inappropriateness. I love it. But I’m wondering how much more of it I can take. Not that the first episode was bad. It was, as ever, excellent. But the lives of feckless flatmates Mark (David Mitchell) and Jeremy (Robert Webb) are becoming so pitiful that, sooner or later, they’re almost bound to feel like killing themselves. The episode was so dark, I had half a mind to do it myself.

When Peep Show started, five years ago, you felt you could take Mark and Jeremy’s neuroses and failures relatively lightly. Mark was in endless forlorn pursuit of Sophie (Olivia Colman), Jeremy’s god-awful band was going nowhere… But never mind – they were in their twenties. They’d get over it, grow up, settle down and live normal lives. Eventually. But now that they’re older, Mark’s ineptitude with women, and Jeremy’s ineptitude full stop, are outright depressing.

Take the ending of the first episode. Mark’s date, who he’d timidly decided was “the one”, muttered that he was a “weird guy” who she didn’t want to see again, and stalked out of the flat. Jeremy taunted Mark; Mark told Jeremy to “fuck off”. That wasn’t wry or rueful or bittersweet. That was mutual loathing. I could feel myself developing a stomach ulcer just watching it.

Perhaps the writers should have a heart, make this the last series and let Mark and Jeremy go out on a high. Or at least a bearable low. Because imagine them in another five years. Back, as they are at the start of every series, to square one: Mark still socially incompetent, Jeremy still jobless, both still single, both still stewing in their respective petty bitternesses. But aged 40. What kind of soul-squashing catastrophes will they be inflicting on themselves, and each other, in middle-age? It possibly shouldn't go on for very much longer.