A Comedy On This Day: Big Train (11 February 2002)

 I didn't have a television in 2002, so this is the first that I've seen of the second series. Amelia Bullmore and Julia Davis have gone, replaced by Rebecca Front, Tracy-Ann Oberman and Catherine Tate. Of those three, Front appears to have been given the most interesting stuff to do, but she must have had more of an established TV sketch comedy pedigree at the time of production.

 I've always found an equation-type quality in appreciating this sort of comedy, in which a setting that carries one set of expectations is juxtaposed with an outlandishly wrong element within it, leading to a conclusion that encourages the viewer to consider the sketch from a new perspective. It's a type of humour that provokes a kind of critical engagement within me (how is this situation going to develop, they've got those details right) while rarely making me actually laugh. I didn't find any of this episode very memorable once it finished, apart for one sketch - the development of a relationship and marriage between a couple (Pegg and Front) where the woman has huge sponge hands, perhaps because its the only part that encourages viewer empathy and where it felt like something emotionally real was at stake.