Feel The Force

BBC2

It’s true that there have never been more cop shows around – our society’s prevailing obsessions remain gangsters and police. They’re a couple of the few remaining jobs where you can get shot at which immediately makes them preferable to the media jizz slurping occupation where you’re currently passing yourself off as competent. The closest you’ll come to danger is the minuscule chance of being impaled on your own stapler as you frig yourself senseless to the latest Aerial Telly review.

"The closest you’ll come to danger is the minuscule chance of being impaled on your own stapler as you frig yourself senseless to the latest Aerial Telly review."

So new police sitcom Feel The Force should come as no surprise, featuring the remarkable Michelle Gomez (Green Wing) as WPC Bobbins and the less remarkable Rosie Cavaliero as WPC Frank. They’re two bungling murder squad officers!! I had a feeling they might be. Frank desperately seeks a man and has little success. Bobbins desperately wants recognition as a great police officer only she’s a bungling murder squad officer!!! so she’s not getting it.

The pedigree of the participants is good. Writer Georgia Pritchett‘s credits include the marvellous Smack the Pony but also the desperate 2DTV. Aerial Telly makes no secret of his admiration for Michelle Gomez – terrific in Green Wing and The Book Group and Rosie Cavaliero did well in the sparky Spoons sketch show.

"It’s weakly conceived and executed with a total lack of conviction. Nobody involved ready believes in the sitcom and it’s not hard to see why."

But, alas, it’s weakly conceived and executed with a total lack of conviction. Nobody involved ready believes in the sitcom and it’s not hard to see why. It tries to make up for the lack of comic tension by being cute – knowing references to Taggart, Cagney and Lacey and, bizarrely, The Sixth Sense crop up but they’re really distractions from the lack of real comic meat available.

New sitcoms take time to settle in and Feel The Force could turn out be a stayer. But, deep down, you know it won’t. Great comedy works when conflict and humour are woven into the series premise. David Brent is a deluded control freak who believes he’s a liberator of minds. Ted Crilly is the only sane person on an island of lunatics. Harold Steptoe is a rag-and-bone man who wants to be a sophisticate. Comedy arises effortlessly from the situation and the characters.

"They feel like they’ve been parachuted in from Sitcomland – their actions only making sense in the context of a sitcom."

Frank and Bobbins are a pair of wacky cops who act like a pair of wacky cops. They feel like they’ve been parachuted in from Sitcomland – their actions only making sense in the context of a sitcom. That’s never a good thing. It’s also had any pre-pilot edge it had ruthlessly filed off by the BBC who dread licence fee reviews like a cash-in-hand builder dreads a visit from the social. "Play it safe or they’ll take our shit" is their depressing mantra.

"The bottom line is I don’t trust anyone who was involved in 2DTV. It feels underwritten, just like that cartoon atrocity."

I think the bottom line is I don’t trust anyone who was involved in 2DTV. It feels underwritten, just like that cartoon atrocity. A misfiring American sitcom at least has a group of writers to gangbang it with rewrites and stuff some funny gags in. While Gomez and Cavaliero may eventually elevate this to likeably daft they’re not going to be able to carry this turkey on their own. Root-and-branch reform is needed or, more likely, getting this swept under the carpet and moving onto the next project.

The best thing about it: Michelle Gomez

The worst thing about it: The laziness of the whole thing.

The verdict on Feel The Force: You can’t feel The Force .

Marks out of 10: 4