Greg Dixon: No one spared when Ali G takes on da US

9.45am

The usual way to start anything about Ali G is with some sort of lame attempt to replicate the patois of the baddest rapper to come out of the Staines ghetto.

But I'll spare you the keep-it-reals and the wickids because if you haven't heard of Ali G by now - or tried your own imitation of his natter - then the return of Sacha Baron Cohen's comic creation in Ali G In Da USA (9.30 pm, TV2) means nothing. And if you have, you'll have already organised a tape for the VCR.

You'll probably be slotting in the same tape you used last year when the first episode of this series was screened here. For some bizarre reason, TV2 played only the first episode last year and the rest of the series, the second made for HBO, which screened early last year in Britain and the United States, screens from tonight. Figure that one out.

So tonight picks up where episode one left off, with Britain's Baron Cohen unleashing his hilariously obnoxious, vulgar and deliberately stupid characters on the unsuspecting but deserving in da, sorry, in the US.

Each of the series' 12 episodes has a theme. Last year's first was "law" and others are politics, art, peace and so on. Tonight it's war.

"War, huh, what is it good for?" G asks upfront. "Well for a start it sorts out who is the strongest out of two countries. Also you get to see some amazing hexplosions. But there is some people out there who don't only not enjoy the war but they try to spoil the fun for everyone else. And doz chickens is called the UN."

Cue G interviewing former UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali ("Is Disneyland a member?") and taking a tour of the UN security council chamber ("why do you give crap countries a vote?").

As fans know that with G (and with Baron Cohen's other characters, the Kazakstani journalist Borat and gay Austrian fashionista Bruno), the set-up for each joke is asking incredibly brainless questions or saying incredibly rude things with a straight face. The punchline is watching the reactions - the furrowed brow, the stare, the look of bemusement or shock, the desperate attempt to answer the question.

It's a one-joke act. It's just as well that one joke works so well. But you do rather get the feeling Baron Cohen's running out of his joke questions.

In his interview tonight with a good-natured General Brent Scowcroft, America's national security adviser under Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush, G asks some of the same questions he asked four years ago of Britain's much-decorated war hero Major-General Ken Perkins: Did he consider changing sides during the war?

In the round-table discussion tonight on religion he asks a Catholic priest whether he'd marry a Jewish girl, just as he asked, again years ago, the Grand Master of the Protestant Orange Order in Northern Ireland whether he'd marry a Catholic girl.

Still, the thrill in this comedy is that G gives it to the establishment, sacred cows and those who deserve a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. And there are some tasty match-ups to come, including author and hair stylist Gore Vidal, and - I can't wait for this - G attempting to sell a business idea to Donald Trump.

This is rude, crude entertainment which ... oh all right, I can't help myself: Dis here is sweet bitchin' in da house. Big ups to Ali G.

Sorry.