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Back Channel4.com, episode 1 David Mitchell (left) and Robert Webb are back, with Back. The two are, of course, and rightly, best-known for Peep Show, and so it is a pleasure to see them return with a comedy drama that is complicated enough to be interesting, and current enough to be funny. Written by Simon Blackwell (who also wrote a few episodes of Peep Show), Back is a thoroughly modern blended-family drama. Mitchell is Stephen, whose father, Laurie, was the landlord of the local village pub and has just died. At the funeral, Andrew (Robert Webb) shows up, claiming he was once fostered as a child, by the family. Now, he’s a smooth-talking high flier, while Stephen is a bit of a childish, bumbling fusspot. Stephen doesn’t remember Andrew, although the family did foster lots of kids. And everyone else around him is delighted with fabulous Andy, who seems to be proof that even an awkward start in life can’t hold back the really good guys. The jokes are good — someone mentions a music festival nearby, with four stages; “Yeah, like cancer,” says Stephen — and there is plenty of fuel in the various complicated relationships to keep things moving. Mammon RTE Player, until October 20, episode 1 This was broadcast nearly four years ago in the UK, but for the many who missed it, catching up now is heartily advised. The six-part series spans a six-day period as a bunch of financial journalists investigate a serious embezzlement scandal involving Norway’s political and banking elite, but that threatens to go even further and deeper into the fabric of society (don’t we all love it when journos get to be the heroes of the hour?).

Tightly plotted, tense, sometimes labyrinthine, this is worth making the effort to follow. The action moves between Oslo, Bergen and the Norwegian countryside, including beautiful fjords and mysterious forest. Alongside the main financial plot is an interwoven story of sibling rivalry and suicide.