3. The Armstrong And Miller Show (BBC1, 2007 - Present)
Before they both rose to stardom as comedic actors in their own right, Ben Miller and Alexander Armstrong wrote and starred in a sketch show on the Paramount Comedy Channel (later moving to Channel 4) that was simply titled Armstrong And Miller and ran from 1997 to 2001. Six years after it ended, the series was revived on BBC1 with a new team of writers and supporting cast that included Geoffrey Whitehead (The Worst Week Of My Life) and Belinda Stewart-Wilson (The Inbetweeners) in minor roles. Despite it being a very solid and entertaining programme, there's no real unique selling point to set it apart from its competitors. It's just a well written and performed programme with some excellent satire on both topical and always relevant subjects as well as some very funny recurring sketches. It made a name for itself and has currently lasted for three series just by virtue of being fresh and entertaining.
The characters only rarely fall into the aforementioned trap of being the same joke repeatedly with the basic set-up of many of the characters being the groundwork for putting them in different situations like the Street Talking RAF Pilots (the programme's most famous sketch) being imprisoned in a POW camp, lying about managing to crack the Enigma Code, and preparing to attack Normandy among other things. Sometimes the sketches can be something as simple as taking a science-fiction scenario and giving everything a mundane twist like a planet being named Lower Dinsbury or a spaceship having a flat battery. And it works very well even though it's not trying to be high concept and break the mould of what the audience expects. It's traditional sketch comedy and works all the better for it. A fourth series has been commissioned but its production is being delayed indefinitely by Armstrong and Miller's other working commitments.
What Are Its Best Known Sketches? A pair of street-talking RAF Pilots, bawdy music hall performers Brabbins and Fyffe, and a trio of children's TV presenters who regularly have to make on-air apologies for various indiscretions.