Dial M for Middlesbrough

After the feeble Death on the Tyne. Draper's tour operators Terry (Johnny Vegas) and Gemma (Sian Gibson) return in another disappointing and overlong instalment.

On the way to Middlesborough, the coach breaks down at a dismal down in the dumps caravan park, a place where Gemma once had a holiday of a lifetime.

Pretty soon they stumble across people getting murdered in some sadistic ways.

The site owner is hoping that the land is designated as a nesting site for some rare birds which means he does not have to sell it to H from Steps.

Jason Donovan plays a sleazy entertainments manager who once had a thing for Gemma.

It is a combination of comedy and gruesome deaths. One person gets spiked by a swingball, Terry finds a finger in some soup he had and there is even a hit man wandering about.

The best joke was Terry wanting to have a classy wedding with Gemma and lay on a gravy fountain with vegetables. It was the only decent gag in the whole thing.

The other 2 were pleasant distractions but this just wasn't. I think I missed the crazy old people that are usually on the bus. This was mostly the 2 of them and a new cast of extras that I didn't find funny at all.

I really like Johnny Vegas (Ideal) and Sian Gibson (Car Share) and did actually like their previous two outings as a crime solving duo. This one really left me feeling underrated though. I think if I were to read the script on paper, I would have found some of the dialogue and scenarios pretty funny and no doubt I'm sure the cast had a laugh whilst filming it. But something about the way it was ultimately transcribed to screen has somehow really sucked the humour out of it. This is strange since it was directed by Ed Bye who has done some fantastic stuff with Red Dwarf.

My general gripe is the way the dialogue just seems to be a cascade of gags which fail to hit the mark more often than not, but do very much succeed in clawing you out of any moment you feel like you might actually be engaging with the plot. You end up with a general apathy from being forced to find the comedic side in every situation, even a grizzly murderous rampage. Gemma's character came across as more of a two-dimensional annoyance to Terry's constant miffed persona more than anything else. I found myself willing for her to be the next victim quite often, just for some peace from her relentless inane commentary and overacting.

The scenes between her and Terry stretch the absurd to further inject more relentless comedy, but unfortunately this sacrifices the chemistry they used to have on screen and makes their pairing seem even more unrealistic. You end up yearning for a bit of real non-shock value dialogue to ground the story line and it just isn't there.

Instead you just get character after character, pushing every line they've been given to the extreme as if somehow trying to showcase their resume. The story struggles to move on in a cohesive manner when you just have a collection of acting cameos that are nothing but escalating performances of nonsense jigsawed together. This might have been better reserved for Panto as it certainly doesn't work for me as a TV Viewer.

Funny enough to pass 90 minutes without taxing your brain. Not as funny as the Death on the Tyne episode.

For three years I've tried hard to like these 'murder mysteries'. Some decent actors struggle with awful scripts and dreadful plots. You soon couldn't care less who is the murderer and just want it all to finish. Few if any, redeeming features. Comparisons with Carry On films or similar are well wide of the mark. These make Carry on Columbus look funny and this is by far the worst of that canon. Pitiful in the extreme.