Michele Hewitson: So predictably silly it's almost good

Kath & Kim may make you groan, but you can't help but like it.

As if we didn't already know that Kath & Kim was as subtle as being hit on the head with a slab of XXXX, the new season opened with a lingering shot of Kim's knickers.

To which the bloke responded: "That's quite a sight." It was. I could only thank God the hornbag had not embraced the g-string.

"Oh my God, you look a bit like a fashion victim," said second-best friend Sharon.

To which Kim tossed her lank locks and said proudly, "Thank you Sharon, I try. It's really hard being a hornbag when you've got a baby. Now I know why Posh Spice looks like she does."

The baby, Epponnee Rae, is simply a new prop in the way that Kim's long-suffering husband Brett is simply a prop. Epponnee Rae allows Kim to say "Mummy's talking" and "Epponnee, stop whingeing. It's mummy's turn now." I laughed. I know such mummies.

Last season Kath & Kim fell a bit flat. And there's no getting around the fact that set-ups are laboured and predictable. But it's so jolly silly that its hard not to like the thing.

At the end of last night's first episode Kath says, "I've got one thing to say to you: deja vu". Kim plus the two props have moved back in with Kath and Kel. Kim had taken out a second mortgage on the marital unit and handed over $200,000 to her ghastly, cigarillo-smoking father, Greg, who has since left the country and left them homeless.

But it's not Kim's fault. Brett valiantly sticks up for her: "Gary played her for a fool ... for the fool that she is."

Kim: "Oh, shut up Brett. It was a lend. He's an entrepmanure."

Kath: "Well, you got the manure bit right, Kim."

Groan. But, anyway, Gary's gone which is just as well. I don't think I could have taken another breakfast scene with Kel, in his towelling dressing gown, facing off over the cocoa pops with Gary in Kath's kimono. And what a relief to know that Gary, who had designs on the as-it-turns-out-not-married Kath and Kel's house, couldn't touch your sausages, as a relieved Kath told a more relieved Kel. Who was, however, only slightly more relieved than the viewers.

We're glad about the deja vu. Having the family together under the one suburban roof makes sense. And it makes for some good jokes.

Kujo the rotty has already chewed up two of Kel's favourite man bags. Good doggy. The sight of Kim chucking Kujo's leavings over the fence on to the neighbour's lawn was quite something to see too.

It's not brilliant television, but it has its moments. Last night's include Gary wanting a light for his cigarillo and Kath offering him a donkey root light off her fag.

And Kim's pride in Epponnee's off-the-scale head measurement: "You should have seen the other mothers' body English".

We laughed ... quite a lot, actually.

* Kath & Kim, Sunday, TV3, 7.30pm