Just what the schedules need: another tired old sitcom. Set in a house, one room mainly, the living room, with people coming in and out to the sound of canned laughter, or is it studio laughter? There's an unfortunate landlord with unwanted tenants, and other people dropping in, also mainly unwanted. Lame puns, misunderstandings, a bit of slapstick ... Oh dear, what is this, 1976?

Wait though, because there's one other important thing. Make that two things: Vic and Bob, who wrote and star in House of Fools (BBC2). That means so much. It means Reeves and Mortimer's surreal anarchic bonkersness. So there's singing, a medieval metal gauntlet, tins and tins of sliced pineapple, a pygmy painting on the wall, an extensive tunnel network under the premises, and a potential date who – if Bob's lucky – will be something like Sandi Toksvig. Upstairs lives odd Norwegian son Erik and next door is Julie the sex pest (Morgana Robinson). Frequent visitors are Bob's convict brother, Bosh, and Vic's friend, Beef, who mainly likes to make love to African ladies. Beef is played by Matt Berry, lothariest lothario of them all and possibly – probably – the funniest person on television right now.

Yes it's a sitcom, but a sitcom in the same way that Shooting Stars was a panel game show. Again V and B have taken an established genre and shaken it up like a snow globe. Then they've cut a hole in the wall, stuck Vic (in his pants) through the hole, stretched out his ball sack, further and further ... Ow, then let go. Thwack, House of Fools hits you, slap in the eye. Yes, you're inside the snowglobe – well, inside Vic and Bob's collective head really, which is a kind of snowglobe of subversive lunacy and puerile boysiness. That – rather than a front room – is where it's really set. If, like me, that's your kind of place, you'll be in heaven. Rolling about on the floor, not sitting.

Rubbish for playing along to at home to, though. The sitcom game: you know, you just pause when a gag is obviously approaching, and guess the line. Points awarded for closeness to script. You'd be amazed at how well you can do in a show like My Family. With House of Fools, though? What will Beef say about pineapples? That they're the fruit of kings, "plucked by sweating topless beauties with thighs like granite and hairless arms as long as oars"? No, you're just never going to get that. Or guess that this opening episode will end as an amateur living-room re-enactment of Conan the Barbarian. Being rubbish for the sitcom game is a very good thing for the sitcom, of course.

Still on the subject of playing along at home to TV programmes, in our house we obviously watch The Voice the correct way: on swivel chairs, facing away from the telly, and spinning round when we like – and would like to mentor – what we hear. For The Taste (Channel 4), though, the game isn't clear yet. We combine the show with a late sofa supper. And we've bought a couple of those Chinese china soup spoons, which we eat along from. It's actually a really weird way of eating anything that isn't wanton soup (I know it's supposed to be won ton soup, but I like the idea of wanton soup OK?); because of the angle of the handle you have to lift it up really high.

We then describe our food, like they're doing on the TV. Which isn't that interesting, because describing food isn't as fun as making or eating it, especially here, as we've both got exactly the same rice and dahl or whatever. I describe it better though, she's too oldskool John'n'Gregg, so I go through … No? She's immune from eviction after last week? So I go home? Yeah, well, I'm home already.

See? The game is a mess. Which kind of reflects the show. The three judges – Anthony "I'm very rock'n'roll" Bourdain, the flappy comedy French fella, and Nigella – are more entertaining about food than John'n'Gregg. Nigella is good at flamboyant creaminess but awkward with the contestants, possibly unaccustomed to being around such ordinary folk.

Then there's the tastivision issue; it's not like The Voice, the viewer can't share the experience. And the whole format is overcomplicated to the point that it overshadows everything else, including the food. All the team tasks and individual tasks – she's making this, and he's making that – the mentoring, blind-testing, sighted-testing, judging, guest judging, rules, immunity, impunity … it's just a bit of a dog's dinner.