Never Better BBC2, 10pm Fairy Tales BBC1, 9pm

It has taken some weeks to assess Never Better, a slow-burning and cerebral comedy that's generally funnier later, after its first viewing, when bits of its understated dialogue have somehow floated back to the top of your sub-concious. Thus I will apologise to the elderly woman I startled recently with a sudden outbreak of incredulous laughter at the top of Glasgow's Byres Road.

Sorry, ma'am. I wasn't chortling at your wheeled shopping trolley. Instead, 48 hours after the event, I'd been tickled to recall one of Never Better's many "Did yon mainstream comedy show really address that edgy topic, or was I hallucinating?" moments.

An artful blend of British TV's most recent takes on Seinfeld - in particular Lead Balloon and Saxondale - Never Better is a deft sitcom about next-to-nothing. It centres on Keith, played by The Green Wing's Stephen Mangan.

Whereas Saxondale concerned a middle-aged suburban misanthrope with anger-management issues, Never Better's Keith is a middle-aged, middle-class suburban misanthrope with a debilitating condition (alcoholism) who repeatedly suffers grievous social embarrassment due to his selfishness and self-absorption, plus a self-centred tendency towards self-congratulation.

This list of psychiatric disturbances doesn't seem the stuff of comedy. Likewise, Never Better eschews the ready prompt of a laughter track, while also going in for potentially dangerous silences; wordless pauses during which Mangan allows a range of conflicting emotions to flit across his blank, ultra-long, horse-like and indeed positively Ruud van Nistelrooy-esque face.

More importantly, Never Better ventures where sitcoms rarely tread. One of its lesser targets last night was Christian faith. There was also an incident wherein one of Keith's fellow Alcoholics Anonymous attendees, Marianne, suffered a relapse into drink - induced by the loss of her Christian faith - during which she crudely tried to entice Keith, whom she'd never liked, into bed. "I'm this far down, I might as well sink as low as I can go," she sneered, marginally more disgusted with herself than by the sight of Keith.

"That's very flattering," Keith replied, adding a rare punchline to one of Never Better's few bits of relatively conventional comedy banter.

More daringly, Never Better had Keith seeking to avoid social interaction with his wife's nephew, Paul, a teenager with Down's syndrome. Keith's reason for wishing to avoid Paul's school concert? Because whenever the pair met, Keith felt, Paul hugged him with too much glee and physical gusto - because Paul was a gay predator. Moreover, according to non-gay Keith, Paul was exploiting the social leeway granted to a person with Down's syndrome to mask his impulse to sexual harassment.

Gulp. Crikey. Never before can such an accusation have been voiced in a sitcom. Or anywhere. Paul was then confirmed as gay, having identified Keith as his "new girlfriend". Captured during an adoring hug by Paul, Keith's face transmitted despondency as he stared at a wall-mounted crucifix - Christian faith again, see - in a moment which may soon become even funnier than it weirdly was last night.

Celebrity came under the microscope in Fairy Tales, a one-dimensional update of the fable of the emperor's new clothes. Annoyingly, too, The Empress's New Clothes signed off with a confused moral message, suggesting that these days it is perfectly laudable to appear in public with one's bahookey hanging out.

It was Denise van Outen's bahookey we saw hanging out in public. The best one can say of Denise's rear is that it's much less wooden in appearance and manner than the rest of her.