Produced in the early 2000's as a sitcom series for the young adult market and dealing with the trials and tribulations of being single, or fairly freshly coupled up and asking "well, how do we do this thing and what's next?"
I had the uneasy feeling of having seen pretty much exactly the same thing somewhere else but not being able to place it. Well, this sort of premis is common to sitcoms; Friends deals with exactly the same turf, albeit in an impossibly and unfeasibly glossed-up American way. So maybe this British take is doing for "Friends" what Gimme, Gimme, Gimme did to Will & Grace. Taking the American original, dropping it onto an acid bath and holding it under until all the gloss and glamour is stripped off.
Moving the action to Runcorn is as unglamorous and downmarket as you can possibly get. And this brings up another interesting parellel; at exactly the same time, the BBC was screening Coupling. I almost reviewed that show with a short paragraph reading "This is a more upmarket southern metropolitan version of Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps featuring Expies of the same characters in better-paid more professional jobs, with the jokes rewritten to appeal to a more aspirational audience."
Or does it work the other way round: this show is "Coupling" rewritten with filthier jokes, set in a dead-end rust belt post-Thatcher town in the North, where the cast are in dead-end jobs for minimal pay.. two regionalised versions of the same sitcom screening on the same TV station at the same time, snowclone comedies.
Having said that, it's funny if you have a strong stomach for some very basic, crude, humour. To use what is probably the right descriptive word which is too pretentious for this show, it's Rabelesian. It's good for a filthy basic dirty laugh.
Series Snowclone series?
Produced in the early 2000's as a sitcom series for the young adult market and dealing with the trials and tribulations of being single, or fairly freshly coupled up and asking "well, how do we do this thing and what's next?"
I had the uneasy feeling of having seen pretty much exactly the same thing somewhere else but not being able to place it. Well, this sort of premis is common to sitcoms; Friends deals with exactly the same turf, albeit in an impossibly and unfeasibly glossed-up American way. So maybe this British take is doing for "Friends" what Gimme, Gimme, Gimme did to Will & Grace. Taking the American original, dropping it onto an acid bath and holding it under until all the gloss and glamour is stripped off.
Moving the action to Runcorn is as unglamorous and downmarket as you can possibly get. And this brings up another interesting parellel; at exactly the same time, the BBC was screening Coupling. I almost reviewed that show with a short paragraph reading "This is a more upmarket southern metropolitan version of Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps featuring Expies of the same characters in better-paid more professional jobs, with the jokes rewritten to appeal to a more aspirational audience."
Or does it work the other way round: this show is "Coupling" rewritten with filthier jokes, set in a dead-end rust belt post-Thatcher town in the North, where the cast are in dead-end jobs for minimal pay.. two regionalised versions of the same sitcom screening on the same TV station at the same time, snowclone comedies.
Having said that, it's funny if you have a strong stomach for some very basic, crude, humour. To use what is probably the right descriptive word which is too pretentious for this show, it's Rabelesian. It's good for a filthy basic dirty laugh.