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Coupling - The Complete First and Second SeasonRating:
Release Date: 28 October, 2003 Retail Price: $54.98 OUR Price: $49.48 You SAVE: $5.50! Cast: |
Coupling - The Complete First and Second Season Reviews
Too bad we do not have a sitcom as funny as "Coupling"
The American version of "Coupling," the British comedy that is their version of "Friends," was a big disaster, which only goes to prove Shavian adage that the Americans and British are a people separated by a common language. Yes, when you start watch the first episodes you will quickly figure out which character on "Coupling" matches up with who on "Friends," but that takes about five minutes.
Steve Taylor (Jack Davenport) is Ross, without the Ph.D. in paleontology, who has just started dating Susan Walker (Sarah Alexander), who certainly is more confident about living in the real world than Rachel. Jane Christie (Gina Bellman) is decidedly quirky like Phoebe, but without the loveable cuteness or the innate sense of compassion, and Sally Harper (Kate Isitt) is psychotic about her appearance the way Monica is about cleanliness. Jeff Murdock (Richard Coyle) thinks about sex as much as Joey but without any of the success because of an extraordinary ability to always say the wrong thing, which makes it odd that Patrick Maitland (Ben Miles) ends up being the Chandler figure since he is apparently a sex god (or sex "donkey"). But by the second or third episode of the first series (what we in the Colonies call a season) you should be able to deal with "Coupling" on its own terms.
The biggest difference between "Coupling" and "Friends" is the preoccupation with sex. "Coupling" only had six episodes in its first series and if you took the first season of "Friends" and selectively cut it down to only six episodes it would not be as much about sex as these episodes on "Coupling." A plotline about a job interview turns into being about sex. Everybody goes to a funeral and that turns into being about sex as well. By the end of the first series you will not be thinking about "Friends" any more, but about "Sex in the City" as the more fitting comparison.
The six episodes from the first series are as follows: "Flushed" has Steve trying to break up with Jane, and one of the most unusual circumstances for arranging for a date you have ever seen as Steve and Susan first hook up. "Size Matters" has Sally seeing Patrick in a new way, or, to be more accurate, hoping to see Patrick in a new way. "Sex, Death and Nudity" has the gang showing up en masse at the funeral of Jane's aunt, although exactly who is with whom and what their relationship is for public consumption is not clear. "Inferno" is about the elephant in the living room at Steve and Susan's dinner party, namely the porn tape that Susan discovered in Steve's magazine. "The Girl with Two Breasts" has Jeff successfully having a conversation with a beautiful woman who still likes him, but that is because she is from Israel and only speaks Hebrew. The first series comes to an end with "The Cupboard of Patrick's Love," where it seems one of his collection of videotapes of his bedroom activities has the name "Susan" on it. The first series almost ended on a rather sweet note, but then they went for the gag, which is the whole object of "Coupling."
The second series offers up nine episodes: "The Man With Two Legs" highlights Jeff's inability to avoid saying the wrong thing to a pretty woman. "My Dinner in Hell" has Steve convinced Susan's parents are making fun of his, uh, recreation practices. Steve has a different problem in "Her Best Friend's Bottom," in which he accidentally sees Sally naked. "The Melty Man Cometh" has Steve and Jeff explaining the causes of impotence to Patrick. "Jane and the Truth Snake" has Jane taking pills after being fired, which only results in her creating a snake puppet that insists on telling the truth. "Gotcha" has Steve and Susan at a fancy dinner for their first anniversary and the question is whether Steve will pop the question. "Dressed" has Jane at a dinner party where she is wearing nothing under her raincoat and Steve upset that Susan is pretending to be Patrick's trophy wife. In "Naked," Jeff has finally found a woman who also blurts out the wrong thing all the time, but unfortunately she is a senior manager at his firm. "The End of the Line" has Steve and Susan's relationship in trouble because of a woman named Giselle and a bar in Australia that Susan thinks is named in honor of her trip Down Under (it is complicated, which is the whole point of the comic confusion).
The bottom line is that I find "Coupling" funny, as in laugh out funny, which is not something I usually do (unless watching the nightly news). The fact that two series still amount to less episodes than you get with a season of an American sitcom works to the show's advantage. Basically creator Steven Moffat, who based the Steve and Sue relationship on dating his own wife, only writes scripts if he comes up with good ideas, so it is not just that the best episodes are hysterical but that the worst episodes are still at least a bit above average. Yes, this is a decidedly British situation comedy, but there is something compelling about this approach to combining sex and humor when compared to the drivel of most American comedies.
Coupling: best British comedy since Fawlty Towers
When someone asked me about Coupling, I told them, "It's like Friends plus Sex in the City, only funny." A snide remark, I know, but what can you say? American sit-coms give us gags; British sit-coms give us wit, humor, and outrageous laughter.
I fear, though, that Coupling is over. The original six actors were, taken together, perfection - like the various strains of point and counter-point in Bach or Mozart. But then, tragically for the fans, Richard Coyle (Jeff) left the series. The remaining five, plus the new character, "Oliver," kept it up bravely and well, but, in the end, Coyle's departure, depriving us as it does of Jeff, removed an absolutely essential 1/6th of the recipe. Oliver is good, don't get me wrong, but Jeff somehow was essential. To Richard Coyle, all I can say is "OH, Jeffrey!!"
To potential collectors, you won't regret buying any of these seasons, though.
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