VSomdiens have always needed something to do on television beyond comedy itself, which takes too long to write to support a career on its own. Television, meanwhile, has always needed comedians to fill in the gaps in programming. For years, panels have been the mutually beneficial solution, but in 2021, there’s a new way to keep beloved buffoons at work: give them a series where they invite other comedians on vacation.

After two decades of brilliantly imaginative routines, usually performed behind an inexpensive keyboard, Irish comedian David O’Doherty is now receiving this accolade in the form of Long for the Ride With David O’Doherty (Channel 4), a lightweight quartet who sees him riding a bike with a different comedian every week. Surely there must be more than that? For better or for worse, there really isn’t.

Future two-wheeled getaways will see O’Doherty joined by Mel Giedroyc, Joe Wilkinson and (taking advantage of the unwritten rule that allows one non-comedian guest per season) Grayson Perry. Episode one, however, recklessly invites comparison to the best of all “two comedians on vacation” shows by having Travel Man host Richard Ayoade as O’Doherty’s first mate. In his own Channel 4 vehicle, Ayoade deploys a comedic voiceover that sounds as if every sentence has been mercilessly sharpened for maximum dryness, irony and surprising vocabulary, combined with improvised remarks that reveal that it is, in fact. as well as Ayoade speaks naturally.

Ayoade, in other words, is some of the best in the UK for just showing off and being funny. Recognizing this, O’Doherty relegates himself to the role of a straight man, caring about bike gear and overseeing the route while throwing improvised prompts on his friend. Ayoade pulls a good mood out of the fantasy that they are broke on a railway crossing, imagining the incident as a viral YouTube video with cheesy, rambling narration; then he hits gold when one night around the campfire lets him grate in a lower register the next morning, triggering a riff where Kiri Te Kanawa becomes a gruff northerner.

Most of the time, however, Along for the Ride is so stripped down in its format and laid back tone that, even with Ayoade on board, it works. Sometimes it sounds like the nadir of the increasingly sprawling “two comedians” industry: the unscripted comedy podcast, which harbors that pullback you feel when the improvised cat refuses to turn into a “song.” . O’Doherty and Ayoade chatter about marshmallow toasting, the Nazi invasion, and doping in competitive cycling without much payback, and in a tea room they suffer the polite ignominy of being served by a waitress whose comedic timing, cutting off O’Doherty when he becomes erasing his routine on jam doesn’t work, earns her the biggest laugh on the stage.

But while Travel Man has tighter gags than a corporal’s carry-on baggage, O’Doherty isn’t looking for so much hilarity here as he is a timid stroll. Even the scenery, from Winchelsea in East Sussex to Dungeness on the Kent Coast, is just a pleasant, unpretentious countryside escape, as opposed to the spectacular and best places in Britain seen in Another Giant the genre, Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing. There is also no equivalent here to this show’s serious subtext on the value of companionship and natural beauty in the face of increasing mortality, and the closest to the excitement is whether the two comedians will be demoted by one of the many motorists looming behind them, not realizing that they have passed in the background of a much-needed comic and factual spectacle. (The moment O’Doherty lands upside down in nettles while lifting his bike over a door is too obviously designed to be counted.)

So, do they make an old-fashioned celebrity travelogue, punctuating the trip by meeting eccentric local historians and enthusiasts with fascinating nuggets to share about their corner of the nation? Nope. Other than the tea room waiter, it’s just O’Doherty and Ayoade, who ride and freestyle for a good hour. They rode their bikes for fun, with the host’s farewell lesson to his guest being to encourage him to ride his bike more often just for fun. Along the way do not apologize for not needing to take us somewhere. But its simple pleasures – exercise, the great outdoors, intermittent fun banter between two guys you’ve seen on a lot of other similar shows – aren’t enough.