Prunella Scales sad death shows us exactly why BBC is doomed - there is one way to save it

Prunella Scales's sad death had a silver lining - BBC1 showed a classic Fawlty Towers repeat on Tuesday evening in her honour. Thanks to John Cleese and Connie Booth's beautifully crafted scripts, every one of the show's twelve episodes was a work of comic genius. But The Builders was the first time Prunella's Sybil physically attacked husband Basil, kicking him in the shin and walloping him with an umbrella.

She knocked blundering builder O'Reilly to the floor too, telling him, "I've seen better organised creatures than you running around farmyards with their heads cut off."

Both men had it coming. O'Reilly made Starmer seem competent, and tightwad Fawlty was an explosive cocktail of obsequious snobbery, hypocrisy, and manic insecurity - a heart attack waiting to happen.

Sybil, whose backstory was fleshed out by Scales, was tougher and more practical but had her own flaws. Obsessed with fashion and fingernails, she had a laugh which Basil compared to "somebody machine-gunning a seal", and was forever chatting on the phone to friends - "Oh, I know. I know. I know."

His pet-names for her include "my little piranha fish", "my little commandant" and "my little nest of vipers". Sybil wonderfully described him "an ageing, brilliantined stick insect". In Communication Problems (with Joan Sanderson on sparkling form as near-deaf Mrs Richards) Sybil told him, "If I find out the money on that horse was yours, you know what I'll do, Basil."

"You'll have to sew 'em back on first!" he muttered. Yet despite their squabbling they made a believable couple.

Tuesday's repeat was doubly sad. Firstly because of Prunella's passing, secondly for reminding us that British sitcoms were once consistently laugh-out-loud funny. For decades, they were the best in the world. Not only were characters like Harold Steptoe, Captain Mainwaring, Margot Leadbetter, Fletcher, Victor Meldrew, Mildred Roper, Rigsby and Alf Garnett blissfully funny, they were also recognisably drawn from real life.

From Hancock Half's Hour on, the BBC commissioned mainstream comedies that became part of British national culture. They haven't had that kind of success since Gavin & Stacey. Compare and contrast with the Beeb's latest offerings. Leonard And Hungry Paul is a wistful tale of two young men on the spectrum. It's gentle, charming and clearly made with love. But there isn't a laugh in it. BBC3's surreal Juice was casually shocking - if Reggie Perrin had peed in a wine glass before letting CJ pleasure himself over him the hippo would have bolted.

In the long run the licence fee is doomed - how can people who never watch BBC shows be forced to pay for them? It's unfair and increasingly unjustifiable. But finding a new Del-Boy would probably give them a few more years. One simple solution: ditch box-ticking, aim for belly-laughs.

There were more nostalgic giggles in The Good Life: Inside Out (U&Gold) with Penelope Keith and a wealth of clips. But Tom Good could only pursue his dream of eco self-sufficiency because he'd paid off his mortgage before he turned 40. Does that still happen?

ITV's best comedy is back! Trigger Point is Danger UXB without the realism, quality acting and depth of character. It makes me laugh like a drain. In series one, facing a timebomb packed with nails, our heroine, Explosives Officer Lana 'Wash' Washington, whipped off her helmet and protective goggles to de-arm it.

The episode ended with her desperately trying to deactivate a motion-triggered nail bomb at a mosque by pulling at the door it was attached to. D'oh!

Lana never waits for support, rarely obeys orders, and merrily cuts open suspicious bags without x-raying them. The only bomb she can't defuse is the script.

Naturally, she's a better detective than the cops. Series three is slightly different because Lana now has PTSD and a co-codamol habit - possibly from all the initials she has to deal with: the PIR, the ECM, the CTSFO vantage point. (Would it hurt ITV to supply explanatory captions?)

On Sunday, faced with a booby-trapped black cab, she ignored specialist advice, took off her heavy blast suit and approached it. The taxi contained one terrified passenger Ned and a dirty bomb primed to release cyanide "extracted from natural sources - cherries, plums, apricot stones". An eco-killer!

Lana saved him but Ned (real name Declan) was finally dispatched by an exploding flour bomb, suggesting the work of the Homepride Liberation Front.

Lecturer Agnes was chained to a pipe in a basement was flooding due to sump pump sabotage. Hilariously, Lana's oppo Rich Manning was trying to cut through the hefty chains with miniscule wire-cutters.

Like a Batman villain, the killer leaves messages - 'Confess or die'. He also wants his victims to stop breathing before they blow. An asbestosis victim?

Halloween footnote. IT: Welcome To Derry (SkyAt) is the most horrifying thing you'll see this side of Rachel Reeves's coming Budget. Brace yourselves.