Now, I’m as nationalistic as the next man (as long as he’s not Jean Marie Le Pen) but I do feel somewhat aggrieved that the genius of Still Game has been so shoddily treated by the BBC. If ever a show demanded a simultaneous transmission across the United Kingdom, then it’s this corker of a sitcom. In fact, the treatment of Still Game amply demonstrates the condescending, patronising, metrocentric attitude of the BBC to perfection. Given a derisory five episode run on BBC2 earlier this year, Still Game was, at last, finally scheduled nationwide. Despite being played alongside the far more heavily trailed Grass (which predictably had the darlings of the media creaming themselves) the antics of Jack, Victor and their egregious cronies – to be perfectly blunt – kicked the arse out of Grass. Taking the audience up from 1.2 million to 1.4 million, it became BBC2′s most-watched evening show. In simple terms, a humble Scottish offering wiped the floor with London’s great hope. Why the BBC continues to commission and heavily publicise Grass and the savagely bad Lenny Henry Show is beyond me, and also contempt.

The third series of the first genuinely great Scottish sitcom since the days of Para Handy returned to our screens neatly commencing where the second finished. Arriving in Canada, the opening line neatly underscored the entire episode and set the tone wonderfully for the next 30 minutes. On seeing her father arrive, Jack’s daughter stopped and muttered “My dad got old”. Delivered with enough nuance to convey shock, you realised once again that here we have two men who are not going gently into that good night. Too often, Still Game is dismissed as the antics of two grumpy old men. The reality is that it’s the tale of two men who, though sometimes grumpy, are happy in their ordered world and do so much more than merely live day to day, merely marking time until the Grim Reaper arrives. If anything, Jack and Victor are a wonderful representation of the modern day OAP, managing to portray the difficulties faced by the average pensioner in today’s society.

The only grouch that I had with this episode was that it really should have been a 60-minute special. For those of us who have witnessed the stage version of Still Game (which occurred before Jack and Victor popped up on Kiernan and Hemphill’s Chewin’ the Fat sketch show and embedded themselves in a nation’s consciousness) we have always longed to see the irascible duo visit Canada. The idea and the images were already there and there is certainly enough comedic gas in the tank to make an hour long special a workable possibility. Mind you, Kiernan and Hemphill have publicly stated that they’d love to take Jack and Victor to Las Vegas. That I’d love to see.

As ever, the joy of Still Game is both in the writing and the cast. The characters are all so well defined and the interaction between them is, more often than not, verging on the hysterical. This is always the case when Naveed’s shop comes into play. Arguably the scene of the best lines, the humble grocery store is, in effect, the nerve centre of Craiglang where gossip is traded and insults hurled. Tonight, we had Isa, Naveed and Winston (three superb performances incidentally) combining to perfection with a little sketch in which a level of coarse swearing that Gordon Ramsay would have blushed at was brilliantly achieved. In any other show, a white pensioner calling an Asian shopkeeper a prick would be met with a barrage of righteous indignation but here it makes for genuinely funny viewing. As does said Asian shopkeeper calling his customer a mad shagger. And all this is before we get to the resurrection of the word pie as a naughty word. Genius.

The beauty of Still Game is in its inherent ability to merge comedy with both farce and tragedy. The scene in which Jack’s daughter asked him to move to Canada to live with her was quite moving. Jack listened to her plea then rendered a little soliloquy in which he confessed that he couldn’t do without his late wife, and that he wanted to go home was beautiful. There was an air of poignancy that moved the viewer. Then, just as the scene was resting in a sea of serene solemnity, Jack opined that he had to go home anyway as he had £8 left on his powercard. Once again, genius. Likewise Jack throwing up on his grandchildren whilst visiting the CN Tower. The line, “Calm doon – it’ll wash aff”, seems certain to be reverberating around the bars of Glasgow for quite some time.

Every scene, every subplot was suffused with greatness. This was a genuinely brilliant episode of a genuinely brilliant sitcom. From the unsaid sadness of the opening line to the after-credit coda scene (the regulars in The Clansman comparing crap presents in a sweep – which Isa won with a gloriously tacky and risqué Big Beaver T-shirt) this was just a delight to watch. Apparently, audience research carried out in England after the five episodes were screened on BBC2 earlier this year showed that 80% of the audience thought so too. We can’t all be wrong.

Still Game received a much more low-key launch, which is a great shame as it is a corker of a sitcom, with Jack and Victor emerging as wonderful characters. Neither seems to have any particular aspirations, other than to keep surviving and to maintain their dignity in the face of old age. They aren’t particularly angry about their situation, and generally seem to accept their lot with a good natured optimism. They look forward to their little treats, like the occasional pint, a trip to the park to feed the ducks, or a trip to the shops. While this doesn’t sound too promising, the life-long bond between the two provides plenty to occupy our time.

In the second episode of the series, “Courting”, we join our doddery duo with Victor looking forward to visiting the charity shop, so that the pair can chat up Barbara, the old lady who works there: “Just like the old days; the old patter”. Jack is not at all keen and wants nothing to do with it. Later Victor realises that Jack simply can’t bring himself to be unfaithful to his wife, who died almost exactly 10 years ago. This unfolds into a surprisingly touching scene where Victor has to console him and persuade him not to hold onto the past. Kiernan and Hemphill show a deft touch in making us care about the characters, and considering that we’re only on the second episode, it’s amazing how much we are able to share a sense of how long the two have been friends, and how much history they have between them.

A neat sub-plot is played out with Winston (Paul Riley), one of the regulars at Jack and Victor’s local. A very mild mannered man, Winston goes totally over the top whenever he is angered, and finds himself barred. Unable to comprehend life without the pub, he takes to sitting on the doorstep, persuading other regulars to bring him out drinks, before going off to discover alternative ways to spend his days. We see him drinking alco-pops with local children, and making small talk with old biddies at the Bingo Hall. His desperation to fill his time leads to his proud boast that he has taught himself chess, is taking clarinet lessons, and all sorts of weird and wonderful pastimes.

When Jack gets his girl, it is a classic story of the friend feeling rejected. Victor shuffles through life feeling lonely. The situation is not helped by the fact that he is offered a date with Barbara’s sister, who turns out to be what Winston describes as “a munchkin”. Again, Victor’s plight is expertly played out, allowing us to see his dilemma, as he feels dejected, but somehow pleased for Jack. A visit to the local shop makes him feel no better – “Just one Chunky Kit-Kat, Victor? Fancy not buying one for your old friend Jack”. While there, he meets another superb support character, local gossip Isa. In a brilliantly meandering tale, motormouth Isa roars through the story of how she came to discover Barbara has a husband. Eventually, Jack finds out, and after some more soul-searching with Victor, everything’s back to normal, ready for next week’s episode.

The real strength of Still Game is the sheer warmth of the characters. Jack and Victor are good people, and their life-long friendship creates a very believable bond between the two. Kiernan and Hemphill portray their characters beautifully, while their scripts strike a good balance between the slow paced humour of Jack and Victor’s conversation, and the more immediate comedy of the supporting characters. Winston and Isa may seem like they could have come straight out of Father Ted, but they are kept just on the right side of believability. Among them all, however, there is a sense of community, a sense that they’re all in the same boat, but are just taking different approaches to solving the problems presented by the need to fill their days. There is very little actual conflict in Still Game, just plenty of good-natured banter and bickering, which in turn makes for fun viewing.

But there is one potential problem. The whole thing is conducted in very strong Scottish accents, which, as with Rab C Nesbitt, may lead to people south of the border scratching their heads. Thank goodness for Ceefax subtitles, which give you the gist of what’s going on in less colourful vernacular. This problem is sometimes turned to the show’s advantage however, particularly in Isa’s rambles which degenerate into near-incomprehensible high-speed lectures about all manner of unseen characters and their various weaknesses and then veer off wildly into all manner of unrelated gossip. For the most part, though, it is all too easy to find yourself concentrating on deciphering what is going on, rather than actually appreciating the subtleties of what you’re being shown.

Of all of the BBC’s new comedy output so far this year (and OK, we’re only three weeks in), Still Game is easily the finest and has the greatest chance of becoming a long-term success. It may not provide many laugh-out-loud moments, but those there are hit the spot every time, while the interplay between the characters is up there with the very best sitcoms around. The decision to base the programme on elderly characters certainly makes a refreshing change from youth-orientated forgettable shows like Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, and allows us to believe that the characters have had a real life outside the confines of the programme – making us feel involved in their relationship in a way that most sitcoms only manage to do over time.

OK, maybe it won’t figure in the top 10 if Britain’s Greatest Sitcom were to be re-staged a couple of decades in the future, and to be honest it seems destined to be one of a long line of underrated comedies, but it is an excellent show all the same. In fact, change the accents, and you could almost submit Still Game‘s scripts as a current day series of Whatever Happened to The Likely Lads. And that’s some tribute.