No, Prime Minister.

I was really looking forward to the revived series of Yes, Prime Minister. I love the original series for its urbane wit, subtly and powerful acting. Sadly the new version is rather lacking in these departments.

I know it's been on for a couple of weeks now but I only just got an opportunity to watch it today. One of the biggest problems was that it felt like a stage play. I know that this series is adapted from the currently running stage play, but its as though they've literally just filmed the play.

That can be a strength it wasn't in this case. You need different filming techniques and acting to really capture the dynamism of the stage. Trying to recreate that with cameras in a studio is very hard. In this case they failed. It just felt stodgy.

The first episode was OK. There were some funny moments. At first I didn't realise there was an ongoing plot, rather than the fairly stand alone episodes of the original run, so the rather abrupt and open ending jarred badly. It didn't feel like a natural end, more like it was just where they had to put a break into the play.

The real problems lie in the second episode. This episode sees the one female character, played by Zoe Telford, spend most of the episode in a revealing little black dress, meanwhile the men get to stay in their suits. They trot out the tired old cliché of lecherous foreign dignitary trying to feel her up almost as soon as the two characters sit next to each other at a dinner. Spin on to after dinner and the whole thing is used as fodder for some pretty lame jokes. She doesn't react in the way that any sane woman would.

I was watching this with my girlfriend and she was disgusted by this deplorable depiction of a female character. I have to agree with her. I don't expect this from a sitcom made in 2013. You didn't see it in the original run. You'd never have had Dorothy Wainwright dismissing wandering hands with a lame quip. I really don't understand the decision to take the series in this direction.

I'll give at least the third episode a try but I don't hope for much.