Black Books, Series 3
(Channel 4, 2004)
The leads become more caricatured, the mishaps more cringey, yet Black Books still manages to go out on a high. The final episode “Party” hits all the right notes and sees Bernard, Manny and Fran deliver unto themselves a comedic bombe Alaska.
Black Books, Series 2
(Channel 4, 2002)
A step-down from the first series but still laugh-out-loud absurd. Bernard’s perpetually sloshed, almost nihilistic ill-temperedness is so extreme that it may have benefited from straighter support characters, rather than the equally ramped-up vagueness of Manny and the hardcore faddishness of Fran.
Black Books, Series 1
(Channel 4, 2000)
Like Monty Python’s ‘Nudge Nudge’ sketch, the scripts for this sitcom would look bafflingly unremarkable. The episodes are defined not by plot but rather a freewheeling melange of comic business and off-the-wall character humour. Dylan Moran’s misanthropic bookshop owner oozes dark charisma.