Fresh Meat, series 3, episode 7, review Until last night, this faintly tired third series of Fresh Meat had plodded. That disappointment, however, was both underlined and fully forgiven by the glorious seventh episode: a madcap installment that reminded us how good Channel 4"s erratic student comedy drama ought to be. The episode began inauspiciously enough: Candice (the sober Christian turned activist turned Goth, whose permanent character revolution comes in handy for driving plots) decided to throw Howard (Greg McHugh) a birthday party. How many sitcom episodes have been built around the motif of a discordant party? In a series which has, so far, either recycled tropes (the University Challenge fraud) or come up with limp originals (Kingsley's scrotal angst), this seemed uninspired. Yet, alchemically, this tired plot vehicle actually sputtered into life, and everything in Fresh Meat that had been wrong mysteriously began to come right. Vod (Zawe Ashton) and Oregon (Charlotte Ritchie) rekindled their dormant sparring when Vod appointed herself advisor to Oregon's campaign for Student Union president. She shouted down Oregon's manifesto lines on a hardship fund with adamantine Vod-logic: "I'm probably eligible for it, and I'm not even interested in it. That's how boring it is. Her alternative? Let's get a bouncy castle in the library. Metallica in the library. Anything to liven up the f---ing library, actually. Elsewhere in the house, the writers (finally) ratcheted up both pace and absurdity. JP (Jack Whitehall), now fully deranged with love for ungettable Sam (Hannah Britland), made multiple attempts on Kingsley's (Joe Thomas) life having discovered his 432 texts to her. JP was much more amusing as assassin than as last week's resurgent 'legend'. Jack Whitehall swapped his usual jawing for a hysterical wide-eyed calm, inviting Kingsley to eat a special risotto he'd made him. Is that broken glass? Kingsley asked. "Shouldn't think so," replied JP with mesmeric creepiness. It's probably a bit of translucent rice. Or a pearl onion. Kingsley then fished out an ear-sized shard of glass. Later, the party motif came good too. Candice's blanket invitation allowed several simmering plot-lines to spark each other to life. The painstaking web of deceit Kingsley had built to hide the (oddly numerous) women in his life from each other came to bits in a frenetic screwball five-way spat. It was infinitely more fun seeing Kingsley's house of cards come tumbling down than it has been watching him earnestly build it up; infinitely funnier that everyone was in either obscure or offensive fancy dress for the showdown. In all, this was Fresh Meat vastly improved: pacier, sillier, and with Kingsley thrice slapped. But what took it so long?