History Series / NightAndDay

A stylised and frequently bonkers soap opera that ran on the UK’s {{Creator/ITV}} network between 2001 and 2003. Aiming to recapture a youth audience lost to the channel with the poaching of Australian import ''Series/HomeAndAway'' by the rival [[{{Creator/Channel5}} Channel 5]], ''Night and Day'' revolved around six dysfunctional families living in and around the fictional Thornton Street in Greenwich, south-east London.

* WilliamTelling: One of the show's many fantasy sequences featured Charlie Doyle imagining himself in the role of William Tell, shooting apples balanced on the heads of his former and current wives.
* YourSonAllAlong: Supposed orphan Josh turned out to be the son of Steph and Alex.

* VariationsOnAThemeSong: While the opening theme was always the same, unusually there were four alternate versions of the closing theme, all from the theme song ''Always and Forever'', which were used on rotation: an extract from the chorus, two extracts from verses, and an instrumental version of the chorus which was increasingly used towards the end of the run.
* WhatIf: At around the halfway point of the series, an alternate reality episode imagined how the lives of Thornton Street's residents might be different had Jane kept her baby. In which Django murders Charlie, Natalie plots to sell Jane's baby to Rachel, Steph randomly turns demonic, and Jane jilts Sam at the altar - then disappears, of course. The whole scenario is Natalie's daydream; and on its conclusion she decides that there's no point worrying about what might have been.

* TheUnFavourite: Ryan, and also Dennis (though in the latter's case it’s largely just perceived).

* TheTrickster: Holly, through and through. One of the show's most mysterious characters and frequently ambiguous in motivation, she constantly plays mind-games and wreaks chaos - especially with Alex and, prior to her disappearance, Jane. Appropriately, during the school play storyline, she is cast as Puck from ''Midsummer Night's Dream''.

* {{Transvestite}}: Fiona and Dennis both have forays into cross-dressing; and in the final episode, four years in the future, Ryan now wears women’s clothes and goes by the name of Beverly.

* TheyDo: It took them eighteen months to get there, but after much to-ing and fro-ing, Josh and Della finally got their happy ending – and even some adopted kids for good measure.

* TeacherStudentRomance: Fiona and Dennis. Troublingly, there appear to be no consequences for Fiona’s career (similarly to how there are no legal consequences for Alex, having slept with a fifteen-year-old Jane).

* SuddenlySexuality: Della and Josh's foster-sister Holly Curran. Although it was largely a ploy by the girls to make Josh jealous and want to be with Della, there were some ambiguous moments, including when Della told Holly that she was in love with her.

** In a Spaghetti Western-style fantasy scene, Ryan ventures to a "common" area of London where he vanquishes two thugs on a council estate, entirely by insulting their sartorial choices. The scene is dubbed in Italian, with English subtitles; and gunshot effects are heard as Ryan delivers each crushing blow to the thugs' self-esteem.

* DrugsAreBad: Parodied late on the series, when Ryan Harper begins selling confectionary to fellow school pupils. One is even seen snorting sherbet in the toilets.

** Later in the series he reserves a special loathing for his mum's "disgusting, common" new boyfriend Woody Dexter, whom he frequently compares to an ape - to his face. On their first meeting, Ryan says: "Excuse me if I don't shake hands; I just don't want to ''touch'' you." On one occasion, when Woody responds to his unpleasantness with an: "easy, son", Ryan replies: "Don't you ''dare'' call me that. I'd rather stab myself in the throat than entertain the thought that we could be related."
** In a Spaghetti Western take-off fantasy scene, Ryan vanquishes two thugs on a council estate entirely by insulting their sartorial choices - all in Italian, with English subtitles. Gunshot effects are heard as he delivers each crushing blow to their self-esteem.

** He's even especially unkind to his ''girlfriend'' Celeste, on one occasion publicly telling her that she's "cheap" and "disgusting" until another slap is elicited.

** Once Jane has gone missing, Ryan gleefully announces to their mother Natalie that he's in a good mood because he had the bathroom to himself this morning, adding that he: "always wanted to be an only child." As his parents sit around on edge waiting for the phone to ring, Ryan inhales helium and calls the landline (which he's hidden in the [[ItCameFromTheFridge evil fridge]]), before introducing himself to a desperate Natalie as "Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen head." This earns him a gigantic slap from Natalie, and he responds: "You really are the world's ''best'' mother," before walking off upstairs cackling.

* TheSnarkKnight: Ryan, to the very core. There is literally nobody who escapes his sneering and vitriol. He even delivers people's ''names'' in a sarcastic way, unnecessarily emphasising every consonant to reflect the utter contempt in which he holds them.

* TheSnarkKnight: Ryan, to the very core. There is literally nobody who escapes his sneering and vitriol.

** Once Jane has gone missing, Ryan gleefully announces to their mother Natalie that he's in a good mood because he had the bathroom to himself this morning, adding that he: "always wanted to be an only child." As his parents sit around on edge waiting for the phone to ring, Ryan inhales helium and calls the landline (which he's hidden in the [[ItCameFromTheFridge evil fridge]]), before introducing himself to a desperate Natalie as "Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen head." This earns him a gigantic slap from Natalie, and he responds: "You really are the world's best mother," before walking off upstairs laughing.
** He also fits the bill for StepfordSnarker, owing to his many insecurities.

** Once Jane has gone missing, Ryan gleefully announces to their mother Natalie that he's in a good mood because he had the bathroom to himself this morning, adding that he always wanted to be an only child. As the family sits around on edge waiting for news, Ryan inhales helium and calls the landline (which he's hidden in the [[ItCameFromTheFridge evil fridge]]), before introducing himself to a desperate Natalie as "Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen head." This earns him a gigantic slap from Natalie, and he responds: "You really are the world's best mother," before walking off upstairs laughing.

* TheSnarkKnight: Ryan, to the very core. He also fits the bill for StepfordSnarker.

* SexIsEvil: The characters’ tendency to link sex and sin is a running theme of the show. It’s most overtly exemplified by Frankie, who is in denial about sex to the degree that she founds a Virgin Army, dedicated to excising racy passages from Victorian novels. Other characters frequently display hang-ups about sex and morality – not least Rachel, Kate, Ryan, Mike, Natalie and Sam.

* SchoolPlay: The tendency of TV and film works to use a school play scenario (usually Shakespeare) to advance romantic and other plotlines is lampshaded, as Rachel and Josh pen a Shakespearean medley, throwing all of the Bard's greatest characters onto the stage simultaneously. The storyline continues for several weeks.

* RedHerring: Plenty during the entire ‘where is Jane?’ arc that lasted for most of the show’s run. Francoise’s disappearance after meeting Alex in the graveyard is later proven to be a red herring, when we learn she’s safe and well back in France. Creepy Malcolm is thought to have killed Jane and is even caught digging a grave, but it turns out to be just for his dead dog. Likewise, Josh’s blackouts prove him to have had no involvement in Jane’s disappearance.

* PutOnABus: Surprisingly for a soap, almost totally averted (probably because it was so short-lived). All of the main characters introduced in the first episode remained right to the end, or very close to it.

*** Curiouser still, a second rare version exists whose only difference from the usual sequence is that the whole title of 'NIGHT AND DAY' (unmerged at the D, and with spacing added) drifts in from the left. Whether these oddities are stylistic choices or production mistakes is unclear.

* WilliamTelling: One of the show's many fantasy sequences featured Charlie Doyle imagining himself in the role of William Tell, shooting an apple balanced on the head of his former and current wives.

* ArtisticTitle: Night and Day's stylised opening sequence features video headshots of the main characters (either smiling or scowling, usually towards the FourthWall), in a series of quick transitions incorporating images from the show's locations. Colouring is predominantly red and black, as with the final title card and break bumper; and the sequence ends on a smiling Jane, while the words 'NIGHT' and 'DAY' drift from left and right towards a static 'AND' in the foreground, with the 'D' in the AND and the DAY eventually overlapping so that it finally reads 'NIGHTANDAY'. The characters of Steph and Kate, who weren't present at the show's outset, are added a few weeks into the run. But curiously, the show later on occasion uses a rare version of the titles that not only reverts to the original sequence without these characters (despite them still being in the show), but also omits the actual title of the show. Curiouser still, a second rare version exists whose only difference from the usual sequence is that the whole title of 'NIGHT AND DAY' (unmerged at the D, and with spacing added) drifts in from the left. Whether these oddities are stylistic choices or production mistakes is unclear.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Consultations with psychics abound, as do individual character visions – for example, while in the catacombs, Josh has a vision of a man holding a black chrysanthemum. This later turns out to be the name of the Japanese club where Jane is alive and working as a geisha. Also, an ‘alternative reality’ episode around halfway through the series explores what might have happened if Sam and Jane had married – and many of the events that occur in this episode eventually come to pass in the show’s real timeline.

* {{Geisha}}: Jane is one of these by the time we finally encounter her in the flesh, a full year since her initial disappearance. She's now black-haired, amnesia-stricken, and works at a club called the Black Chrysanthemum, where it seems she is required to work as a prostitute.