Here we go again. A programme about benefit claimants. Look at them all. Smoking fags. And swigging beer. And watching telly during the day, with the curtains shut, when they should be out working. Look how fat they are. And ugly. And stupid. Aren't you glad you're not as fat or as ugly or as stupid as that?

Or perhaps you prefer the media's other common approach to welfare, which instead of stereotyping those who receive benefits, stereotypes those in charge of reforming them. Look at them all. Swigging champagne. And claiming expenses. And watching debates in the "Westminster bubble". Look how posh they are. And rich. And evil. Aren't you glad you're not as posh or as rich or as evil as that?

Neither approach is helpful really, or entirely accurate, but they dominant the discussion on welfare. You can hear versions of the two arguments in the front of cabs and in the back, in pubs and coffee shops, in staff canteens and in the Commons tearoom; from people who are intelligent and people who are less so. It seems like the whole debate about welfare is held up by the twin stereotypes of the lazy benefit claimant and the evil benefit cutter.

Channel 5's Benefits (Thursday, 8pm) is definitely closer to the first lazy-claimant approach than the second in that it deliberately sets us up to be irritated by its subjects. I was fully aware that the programme was doing this, and that I was being manipulated, but nonetheless I could still feel my irritation level rising, particularly when they introduced us to Michelle.

It went like this. First, we were introduced to Michelle who has changed her surname to X (mild irritation). We were told she hadn't worked in 18 years (irritation getting less mild) and in that time she has received more than £250,000 in benefits (irritation rising). She has also spent some of this benefit money on drugs and growing cannabis in her flat, which is paid for by the state (irritation now becoming quite noticeable – beginning to make phiffing noises with my lips). "I have been cushioned by benefits," she says. "I have a very nice lifestyle." (Can now feel the irritation on my skin and in my head and in my teeth. Who does this woman think she is?)

And then, after poking me with a stick for five minutes, suddenly, the programme did something quite sophisticated (quite sophisticated for a Channel 5 documentary anyway) by suddenly introducing another fact, which is that Michelle suffers from multiple sclerosis and believes the cannabis relieves her pain. This did not suddenly make her a sympathetic figure – far from it, the version of her in this programme was pretty dislikeable - but it did remind us that the debate about welfare has subtleties behind the unsubtleties and that any judgement about whether someone deserves state help, and how much it should be, depends on the circumstances of each case.

In all, the programme presented us with three cases: Michelle; Keith, who has applied for more than 2000 jobs without success and often relies on food banks; and Stephen, who has been out of work for seven years. Stephen told us it wasn't worth his while working. "You should go out and work," he said, "but if your lifestyle is better and you're getting more money sitting on your arse, that's why everyone gets stuck in that rut. I'm not going to give up what I've got for less than I've got."

That was not easy to listen to, but the documentary did not accept or challenge the truth of it and, in the end, Stephen and the other case studies are just that – case studies. There's no way you can use them to draw any kind of informed judgement about the state of welfare and how much more needs to be cut from the budget.

To make a judgement on that, you need context and there was none of that in Benefits. Andy Burnham, the Labour leadership candidate, among others, says television demonises benefit claimants, but it's worse than that: it demonises everyone involved, on all sides, and doesn't look at the subject seriously and in depth. There is a need to reform welfare, and a need to fix the problem of there sometimes being a financial incentive to stay on benefits. But there is also a need for television to explore the subject properly. It can point a camera at the likes of Michelle as she draws on another joint and poke us with sticks to make us react, but what it should really do is give us a series that tackles the subject of welfare properly and in depth. We are still waiting for it.