Last week, I sat open-mouthed as this silly, bizarre, children's tv-like and often very bad sit-com unfolded before my eyes. But, for some reason, I just couldn't hate it. I could sense the work of some clever comedy-phile just in the background, desperate to hit the mark.

And after seeing last night's second episode I'm pleased I didn't write it off straight away, because while this still needs to do so much more (and believe me, I'm not underestimating how far it needs to come), there was a huge improvement. When the credits, with its poorly animated opening and terrible music, started up, though, I've got to say that I remembered how bad certain elements of this show really are, but when the first conversation got underway between Cara and Alex (Addison) I noticed a distinct change - I was smiling. In fact, I laughed. Laughed! Incredible.

They were talking about how much Cara loves mange tout, although she pointed out that there's not all that much left once you've taken them out of the shells. Alex: "Do you know why I never come to yours for dinner?" Cara: "Is it the tiny peas?" Perhaps you had to be there, but this did make me giggle. And it wasn't the last time, either - although it has to be said that certain storylines provided a disproportionate amount of laughs while others were on the level of last week, if not worse.

The main problem with last night's episode was that the two weakest links in the show - Brian and Professor Brian Mycroft - were put together, and their scenes were deeply unfunny. In fact, they slowed down the show as a whole, and this is a shame because, just as last week, when Chris Addison is on screen things worked so much better. The incomprehensible questionnaire he had to complete for a laboratory inspector, for instance, was genuinely enjoyable.

Overall, then, this was better - there were more gags, more of which hit the mark, and more storylines to hold our attention. There's a good little show struggling to come to the surface here, it's just a shame that it's still being stifled by quite a lot of dross.