10 Awesome TV Shows (With Just One Bad Episode)

7. Peep Show - "Business Secrets Of The Pharaohs" (8.2)

Peep Show is one of the two greatest British sitcoms of the last 10 years. Amazingly, the story of two socially inept flatmates Mark Corrigan and Jez Osborne started back in 2003 and its ninth series is about to air later this year - in British sitcom terms such longevity is very rare. And to the credit of the show's writers and of course helped by the comedic talents of David Mitchell and Robert Webb, the quality of the show has remained remarkably consistent through the years. However, Business Secrets Of The Pharaohs, the second episode of series eight, falls flat. In it, Mark seems about to realise his dream of having his non-fiction debut that gives the episode its title finally published, whilst Jeremy endeavours to become a fully-qualified life coach. Being Peep Show, neither get their way - and we'd want nothing less. The real problem for this episode is Mark's plot - the fly-by-night publisher he encounters is so obviously a con-man and even as he becomes increasingly desperate it is a stretch to believe he'd fall for such an obvious scam. Mark is so utterly out of character that it takes us away from the comedy. The other flaw with this episode is the recycled feel of its scenes. It's perhaps inevitable that any comedy hitting its eighth series will retread old ground eventually, and its certainly apparent here. Although its hard to hate any scene featuring the line "I'm wearing a grass skirt made of dicks", Jeremy having taboo-breaking sex with his life coach is almost identical to his escapades with Nancy back in the second series. Also, Mark going clubbing with Dobby (and hating every second of it) is funny, but again it feels we've seen it all before - there's a very similar scene in the third series with Sophie. Peep Show's main duo are still worth watching, but when a comedy starts repeating itself it's usually the right time to end it - and the upcoming ninth series has been confirmed to be the last.