The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret

Series two, episode one
Entirely enmeshed in his own web of lies about life, work and his dead dad, we left ex-pat American energy-drink salesman Todd Margaret (David Cross) with an awful lot of explaining to do to his boss (Will Arnett), assistant (Blake Harrison) and unrequited love (Sharon Horgan). So how, nine short days later, does he end up with his finger on North Korea’s nuclear button? The next six episodes of this second and final series will reveal all: this week sucks in Jihadists, his very-much-alive dad and the ever-game Jon Hamm.

As farce, it’s admirably well engineered, the US-UK culture clashes are more finely honed and Cross has thankfully reined in the irritating excesses of his screaming-pitch performances from the first series. He and fellow ‘Arrested Development’ alumnus Arnett are uproarious whenever they share screentime, but inspiration strikes only sporadically (and we could certainly live without the rape 'gags'). ‘Todd Margaret’ is still less than the sum of its considerable parts.