The return of Pls Like: the comedy that catches YouTube's dark side

Liam Williams's well-observed mockumentary digs into the real-life furores surrounding vloggers like PewDiePie and Logan Paul in its daring second series

Sat somewhere between People Just Do Nothing and Nathan Barley, BBC Three's Pls Like was one of the sharpest, strangest comedies of 2017. Helmed by its creator, deadpan comic Liam Williams, each of its six 15-minute episodes followed his fictive quest to become a YouTube celebrity, on the way encountering a stable of self-absorbed content-makers presided over by talent manager James Wirm (played to full, sleazy potential by Tim Key). At its centre is Zoella-like video-maker, Millipede, who, as Liam informed us at the outset, has "over 10 million subscribers, which to give you a sense of scale, is roughly the same number of military deaths in the first world war". Over the series, Liam's view on the "self-manipulating content puppets" improves, leading him to blackmail Wirm with a Fake Sheikh-style video and setting the vloggers free. Bizarre, empathetic and on-the-nose, the show earned a Bafta nomination in the short form category.