The return of Alan Partridge

If there were a formula for Partridge, it would be staleness plus hysteria wrapped in a wool-blend jumper that’s carefully checked for lint by his long-suffering assistant, Lynn (Felicity Montagu).

His tragedy – and Partridge is one of the great tragicomic antiheroes of British TV comedy – is that, while the world changes, he’s unable to. He’s petty, clueless, needy, bigoted and riven with professional envy. Despite this, Partridge never gives up: scrabbling, pivoting, diversifying in an industry that doesn’t want him any more.

His new BBC One sitcom is How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge); the brackets are a nice touch, communicating peak-Partridge dread he’s been forgotten. Written by Coogan, with Neil and Rob Gibbons, it follows Partridge as he tries to jump on to the bandwagon of mental health – “Today, bravely, I can reveal that I too had mental health problems” – after fainting face-first into a presenter’s lap at a corporate gig for animal feed.

Sporting alarming greige hair, Alan has a new partner in Katrina, “one of the fittest women over 40 in Norfolk” (a terrifically icy Katherine Kelly). Otherwise, he’s trying to reinfiltrate the mainstream, even as, morally stunted as ever, he continues broadcasting his Saudi Arabian breakfast radio show from Norwich: “Good morning, God is great!” Although no longer at the BBC – “I find a steady stream of Norfolk-based corporate work just as fulfilling” – there are references to This Time (where he had a meltdown) and the North Norfolk Digital show Mid Morning Matters, where he reunites with Sidekick Simon (Tim Key): “Come here and give me a half-hug, you bloody bugger.”

What’s new with Alan? Barely anything, which is the point. Just as Partridge is the ghost of TV past, he operates best in formatting relics such as this classic sitcom, where the modern world (including the spectre of cancellation) is distrusted. Alan is happiest bragging about his am-dram production of Dead Poets Society: “A powerful clarion call imploring us to both live life to the full and educate our children privately.”

I can see How Are You? leading to calls for Partridge to be humanely retired, or perhaps smothered with a car blanket. The pace can be sluggish and the supposedly edgy mental health theme frequently disappears. Still, the gag quotient is high, with the bulk of the comedy coming from Partridgean travails (“I’ve had my run-ins with Mumsnet”) and emergencies (“I’ve accidentally dressed as Rupert the Bear”), all finely honed from nigh on 35 years of characterisation for what has become a national comedy institution. Partridge aficionados are guaranteed laughs.

Melancholy suffuses the BBC One documentary Sharon & Ozzy Osbourne: Coming Home. Delayed from August, and filmed over three years, it primarily focuses on the last phase of the musician’s life, as he and Sharon prepared to relocate from Los Angeles to their Buckinghamshire mansion, and to stage Ozzy’s farewell performance with Black Sabbath in his birthplace, Birmingham, on 5 July. He died 17 days later at the age of 76.

Here, the singer is clearly very ill, suffering from Parkinson’s and spinal problems. In one scene he undergoes physiotherapy to get fit for the final gig (which doesn’t feature) on a walking machine aided by pulleys and leg supports. His determination is palpable: “In my mind’s eye I can hear a crowd.” He misses performing: “It’s the only thing I’ve ever done that’s made me feel a bit important.”

He doesn’t want pity, but calmly relays: “I had a head full of monsters last night.” Nor does he believe in an afterlife: “I think heaven and hell is here. Sometimes it’s heaven, sometimes it’s hell.”

Elsewhere, Ozzy rallies with his signature spirit, railing about wanting to return to the UK – “I’m not fucking American!” – and balking at the idea of retiring: “I’m not going to start collecting stamps.” Scenes with the family, including son Jack, daughter Kelly and his grandchildren, sometimes have the feel of their hectic 00s reality TV juggernaut The Osbournes, but with stress and trauma piled on top.

As a subdued Sharon tries to renovate their Buckinghamshire home, complete with a new duck pond – “It’s our last chapter… it’s our time” – there’s the distinct impression that all the Osbournes expected longer with their “Prince of Darkness” patriarch than they got. Occasionally you feel uncomfortable – voyeuristic – watching this play out, though as gruelling as Paula Wittig’s documentary is, it’s also poignant: a study of an unorthodox but close-knit family coming together to navigate their way through a crisis.

On Disney+, the US sports comedy Chad Powers is about an obnoxious jock, the disgraced quarterback of his successful college American football team, who is cancelled for pushing over a disabled fan. After disguising himself with latex prosthetics – his father is conveniently a makeup artist – he gets on to a floundering college squad as southern bumpkin Chad Powers.

Playing over six episodes and inspired by a character developed by former American footballer turned broadcaster Eli Manning, it’s got star wattage in the lead: Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick and the forthcoming The Running Man). But the comedy in Chad Powers is basic, and so saccharine it makes me fidget. While Powell does a decent job as the arrogant, self-centred jock, when he morphs into a quasi-Forrest Gump as Powers it becomes laboured. With a sparky supporting cast including Perry Mattfeld, Steve Zahn and Frankie A Rodriguez, it’s a nice enough watch for those in the market for a new sports comedy. But I do wonder: what’s the point?

Monster: The Ed Gein Story

(Netflix)

Showrunner Ryan Murphy (The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story) turns his grisly true crime focus on serial killer and body-snatcher Ed Gein, the reputed inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Charlie Hunnam stars.

The Reluctant Traveller With Eugene Levy

(Apple TV+)

A special episode of the travelogue in which the Schitt’s Creek star goes to Windsor Castle to meet Prince William, who talks about 2024 being “the hardest year” of his life, with both his father, King Charles, and wife, Catherine, receiving cancer diagnoses.

Blue Lights

(BBC One)

The return of the acclaimed Belfast-set police drama melding recognisable characters and high-octane action. The cast includes Siân Brooke.

Photograph by BBC/Baby Cow/Ollie Upton; Expectation/BBC/Ruaridh Connellan