I think some of the older episodes were in front of a a live audience. I watched the Smeg-Ups program last night and they were getting laughs for the mistakes, or so it seems.
Not having an audience could make a difference - it must be much easier to do good comedy when you have an audience to play up to.
The 2nd episode was sometime of an extended advert I thought. Lots of shots of DVDs, boxed sets and loads of other RD paraphernalia. Still, better than nowt.
Malc