First he fell, then he rose, and now, 30 years after we last saw him contemplating another trip to that beach, Reggie Perrin is back.

The classic 1970s' series made its return to BBC1 last night, with Martin Clunes stepping into Leonard Rossiter's legendary shoes as the sales executive on the precipice.

And if you want a snap verdict based on the first episode, well, I didn't get where I am today by giving a snap verdict based on a first episode.

OK, given that's a bit of a fib, here you go. As Geoffrey Palmer might have said back in the day, bit of a cock-up on the revived sitcom front.

But let's start with the positives because there is much to cherish here. The writers have done a decent job, and that's no surprise, given that they're David Nobbs, who created and penned the original, and Simon Nye, the man behind Men Behaving Badly.

The jokes have been brought into the 21st century and observant viewers with the memory of an elephant would have appreciated a couple of nice touches, like when Clunes walked past Sunshine Desserts, where Rossiter's Perrin worked, on his way to male-grooming firm Groomtech, where he's now Head of Disposable Razors.

There were genuinely laugh-out-loud moments, not least when Perrin's two fawning subordinates Anthony and Steve (who incidentally haven't yet been given a catchphrase to compete with "Great! Super!") were tasked with finding a new use for pumice: "Let's combine exfoliation with aggressive cleanliness... and tap into the self-harming market."

And much of this new version is comfortingly familiar – train-commuter Perrin is still late to the office by the same number of minutes every day through increasingly ludicrous reasons: "Wrong kind of passenger at South Norwood." "High cones on the line in the Carshalton area."

But not all is rosy. Perrin's secretary now serves no purpose as an inanely dippy version of David Walliams' "computer-says-no" character in Little Britain.

The "Fall and Rise Of" has been dropped from the title, but it should really be called Reggie Perrin Behaving Badly.

Clunes' Men Behaving Badly character Gary shares so many traits with Perrin that it feels like he's simply grown up a bit and abandoned his bachelor-pad lifestyle.

He's the clown (falling off his chair while ogling Jasmine and getting his foot stuck in her waste bin); the bored, sarcastic office manager; and the laddish bloke – we've already had the tongue-in-cheek sexist remarks, the playing around with females' personal artefacts, the throwing of water into an acquaintance's face, and the late-night tomfoolery on the way home from the pub, all of which I've seen on Men Behaving Badly.

Most of all, what is unavoidable is the comparison with Rossiter, the master of comic timing.

If the original had never been made, Reggie Perrin would have the hallmarks of becoming a great comedy.

But that's the point – it's been done before and better. They've been so faithful to the original that, funny though it is, it all seems like a pointless exercise to remake it.

And I didn't get where I am today without spotting a pointless TV exercise.