The lads are back, Pet!

Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (BBC1)

FEW returning series come with as much baggage as this one. The original series was a hit with viewers and critics alike. The actors, more or less unknown 16 years ago, are busy and familiar faces these days.

Living up to that reputation is an almost intolerable burden for this new six-part series, despite having the same writers and most of the original cast.

The question to be asked isn't, is it any good?, but is it as good as the original? After the first episode, the answer is not an unqualified 'yes', although it's a darn sight better than most series taken out of mothballs after a long period.

Never judge a book by its cover or a series by the first episode. Much scene-setting needs to be done to establish the story. Here, writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais cleverly sketch in what's happened to the old gang of Oz, Dennis, Neville, Barry, Moxey and Bomber in the intervening years.

They have achieved varying degrees of success since we last saw them fleeing the Costa del Crime. Barry wears expensive suits, smokes cigars, drives a posh car and is married to Tatania ("a beguiling beauty from the Urals"). Dennis, on the other hand, is driving a taxi around Newcastle for a local drug dealer who looks like Emmerdale's Butch Dingle (mainly because he's played by the same actor).

The only one missing is Wayne as Gary Holton, who played him, has died. He's been replaced by his character's son, Wyman.

The others look older, though not necessarily wiser. Oz seems the exception, turning up at his own funeral (don't ask) as Leonard and looking like bank employer of the month. Happily, a later Oz-in-his-baggy-underpants scenes shows that some things never change.

He makes his old mates an offer they can't refuse - to dismantle Middlesbrough's Transporter Bridge and flog it for a fortune.

The plot is rich with possibilities, the main one being that the old gang go to Arizona to negotiate a deal with native American Indians. As in the first two series, we'll have the fun of seeing these labourers-turned-bosses on the loose in an unfamiliar environment.

Before that, tourist chiefs in Middlesbrough can rejoice in the spectacular shots of the Transporter Bridge, even if the Geordie element remind us that people from Middlesbrough are known as Smoggies.

Within a few minutes, the characters feel like old friends with Timothy Spall revelling in Barry's Brumminess and Nail nailing Oz's shambolic air. Whether even they can wipe the floor ratings-wise with The Forstye Sage, showing on ITV at the same time, remains to be seen.