The New Adventures of Old Christine: A definite miss. Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays a just-divorced mum who still has a great relationship with her ex-. Ex-husband takes up with a new younger girlfriend, also called Christine, which makes Louis-Dreyfus the Old Christine - hence the title.

I think I laughed only about four times and they were more kind of nose snorts than belly laughs (attractive, huh?). Has one of those annoying precocious kids so beloved by US sitcoms, but most of the snorts came care of his adventures at his new private school (“Where are all the black kids?”), so that can be forgiven. Louis-Dreyfus is good, managing to avoid most of the possible Elaine mannerisms she could have thrown out, but the rest of the cast is insipid. Not exactly worth even half an hour of your time.

The Loop: I reviewed this way back in August when it was still a pilot. It's been retooled, although most of the good stuff - such as the Generation X-style margin notes – is still there. I won't bother with the plot much, other than to say it's about a junior exec at a Chicago-based airline firm who has to go through the various twists life and his job throw at him. The life stuff isn't that amusing, although it has its moments, but the work stuff is on a par with the US version of The Office without the cringe factor. Amusing and should please anyone who's ever hated their job, so I'm hoping it's going to be on the hits side.

I'll let you know what I think of the NBC version of Teachers when it starts on the 28th. It's based on the Channel 4 series, but has been smacked into standard NBC sitcom shape, albeit with the strange inclusion of Sarah Alexander from Coupling as a slightly priggish optimist who thinks she can make a difference in kids' lives. It's had bad reviews, so suspect a demise as swift as NBC's version of Coupling.

For those of you still interested (beggaring the question “Why?”), Joey should be back next month as well. With two of the stars already signed up to appear in other shows next season and abysmally poor ratings when it briefly returned after the Olympics, the writing's pretty much on the wall for Joey, I'm afraid guys.

Updates and related entries

August 31, 2006: UK Gold has picked up The New Adventures of Old Christine.
November 29, 2006: The Loop's second season is being cut from 13 episodes to 10