Coupling

[nightrunner]

I love this show too....I am sure it is cancelled but it's a classic.


Did anyone here ever watch it?





"All of us in our time are visited by the Melty Man... Don’t say his name, Patrick. Don’t even think his name, or he will rise from the shadow dimensions to do his evil work inside your terrified pants."

I loved the Darth Vader bit....

[rwctlc1107]

BBC America started airing it a few weeks ago and I sat there every friday laughing hysteically. But in typical BBCA fashion they show a fw episodes and stop!! I may buy the DVDS or add it to this years XMAS list.

Tina

[DreamDangerously]

not cancelled, it just reached the natural end of the story. It's a great show though. I was lucky enough to go and see an episode of the last series being recorded.

[fenris]

Best Sitcom Ever in my humble opinion. Simply brilliant writing performed by a truly excellent cast. DVDs of all four seasons sit proudly on my shelf. When it was first screened, I realised I was watching something special towards the end of the first episode, when Susan is both amazed and annoyed to learn that while they were together, her ex-boyfriend Patrick had compared and graded her breasts. By way of explanation, he simply shrugs and says;
"You were asleep. I was bored."
Genius. Prior to Coupling, Stephen Moffat had scripted two highly entertaining but overlooked sitcoms, Joking Apart and the much under-rated Chalk (in which the infamous 'Lesbian Spank Inferno' was first mentioned).

I know that the much-hyped American version of Coupling immediately crashed and burned, but I'm sure that I detect a heavy Coupling influence in the popular U.S. sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Anyone agree, or is it just me?

[DreamDangerously]

Yeah I'd go with you on that.

I thought the hillarity of coupling was that they were conversations people pretty much have with their friends and although it's comedy, it's not completely ludicrous or heavy handed. It never failed to have me in hysterics and The Giggle Loop is singularly responsible for some of my most painful outbreaks of forbidden laughter. It pops in to my head all the time.

That and the sock gap...but the less said about that, the better!

[rwctlc1107]

fenris said:

When it was first screened, I realised I was watching something special towards the end of the first episode, when Susan is both amazed and annoyed to learn that while they were together, her ex-boyfriend Patrick had compared and graded her breasts. By way of explanation, he simply shrugs and says;
"You were asleep. I was bored.
I know that the much-hyped American version of Coupling immediately crashed and burned, but I'm sure that I detect a heavy Coupling influence in the popular U.S. sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Anyone agree, or is it just me?

I was just sitting at my computer giggling at that line by Patrick. I can so see him saying that!

And I do beleive you are right How I met your mother is very similar. Barney is liek the Patrick of the group.

Tina

[fenris]

rwctlc1107 said:

How I Met Your Mother is very similar. Barney is like the Patrick of the group.

Actually I think Barney serves a similar function to Coupling's Jeff. I know that there's a world of difference between the walking mass of neuroses that is Jeff and the super-confident womaniser Barney, but both of them are keen observers of human behaviour and extremely vocal social commentators. The key difference between them is that while Jeff merely invents names for pre-existing and common behavioural situations (the giggle loop, the sock gap, the nudity buffer, etc), Barney actively tries to invent and then popularise them - for example, the 'phone five' and taking the 'lemon law' and applying it to dating.


Steven Moffat regularly contributes to the Outpost Gallifrey message board, and when asked there about what happened to Coupling's characters after the conclusion of the fourth season, he posted the following, which was subsequently included on the show's Wikipedia entry. For anyone who's not already seen it, enjoy;

Sally said yes to Patrick, they got married and are very happy... especially as Sally beat Susan to the altar, and finally did something first. Patrick is now a completely devoted husband, who lives in total denial that he was anything other an upstanding member of the community. Or possibly he's actually forgotten. He doesn't like remembering things because it's a bit like thinking.

Jane and Oliver never actually did have sex, but they did become very good friends. They often rejoice together that their friendship is uncomplicated by any kind of sexual attraction - but they both get murderously jealous when the other is dating. Jane has a job at Oliver's science fiction book shop now - and since Oliver has that one moment of Naked Jane burnt on the inside of his eyelids, he now loses the place in one in every three sentences. People who know them well think something's gotta give - and they're right. Especially as Jane comes to work in a metal bikini.

Steve and Susan have two children now, and have recently completed work on a sitcom about their early lives together. They're developing a new television project, but it keeps getting delayed as he insists on writing episodes of some old kids show they recently pulled out of mothballs. She gets very cross about this, and if he says "Yeah but check out the season poll!" one more time, he will not live to write another word.

Jeff is still abroad. He lives a life of complete peace and serenity now, having taken the precaution of not learning a word of the local language and therefore protecting himself from the consequences of his own special brand of communication. If any English speakers turn up, he pretends he only speaks Hebrew. He is, at this very moment, staring out to sea, and sighing happily every thirty-eight seconds.

What he doesn't know, of course, is that even now a beautiful Israeli girl he once met in a bar, is heading towards his apartment, having been directed to the only Hebrew speaker on the island. What he also doesn't know is that she is being driven by a young ex-pat English woman, who is still grieving the loss of a charming, one-legged Welshman she once met on a train. And he cannot possibly suspect that (owing to a laundry mix-up, and a stag party the previous night in the same block) he is wearing heat-dissolving trunks.

As the doorbell rings, it is best that we draw a veil.

[fenris]

Steven Moffat is writing a romantic comedy for the BBC entitled Adam and Eve, the title characters being an executive and his PA. Describing the show, Moffat has said "It's about a love story that never happens."

[fenris]

fenris said:

I'm sure that I detect a heavy Coupling influence in the popular U.S. sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Anyone agree, or is it just me?

A friend of mine recently bought the second season of How I Met Your Mother on Region 1 DVD. I spent most of yesterday at his house and we watched twenty episodes back-to-back. In my opinion, the Coupling influence has become even more pronounced.

One of the things I really liked about Coupling was that Steven Moffatt would often (bravely) disregard and/or play around with the usual narrative structure used in sitcoms. A lengthy sequence would be replayed in it's entirety, but shown from a different person's perspective. Time would rewind so that we could see events elsewhere that had happened concurrently with what we had already seen. There would be split-second flashbacks to seemingly minor and previously unseen incidents in the past that now had major consequences in the present, etc. Well, in How I Met Your Mother's second season, such tricks with the narrative are used extensively.

I also liked how Coupling consistently centred it's storylines on the differences between the sexes - the conflicting ways in which men and women think and behave (Unlike Friends, the series Coupling was most compared to, where the sex of the characters often had little or no bearing on storylines. Instead it was the personalities and accompanying flaws of the characters in Friends - dim Joey, control freak Monica, selfish/cowardly Ross, cynical Chandler, spoilt Rachel, ditzy Phoebe - that were the focus, and what often fueled the scripts. The fact that they were three men and three girls was often immaterial). In it's second season, How I Met Your Mother is also starting to have quite a few plotlines concentrating on the differing views and behaviour between genders, although compared to Coupling it's slightly subdued.

[fenris]

I've noticed that the movie Definitely Maybe, which opened here last Friday (08/02/08), has a plot near-identical to How I Met Your Mother. I've not seen the film yet, but Ryan Richards plays a father with a pre-teen daughter, and he tells her the lengthy story of how he and her mother met and fell in love. But there were three important women in his life at the time, so he changes the names and tells his daughter she has to guess which one is her mother. The women were his college sweetheart (played by Elizabeth Banks), his best friend (Isla Fisher) and a work colleague (Rachel Weisz).

Hmm. Beautiful blonde Banks, gorgeous redhead Fisher, and stunning brunette Weisz. Yep, sucks to be him.

[orokiah]

fenris said:

I've noticed that the movie Definitely Maybe, which opened here last Friday (08/02/08), has a plot near-identical to How I Met Your Mother. I've not seen the film yet, but Ryan Richards plays a father with a pre-teen daughter, and he tells her the lengthy story of how he and her mother met and fell in love.

I saw Definitely, Maybe at the weekend and it was excellent. A sophisticated cut above your average romcom, with subtle twists and turns and an ending I wasn't expecting. Spoilers follow:

Elizabeth Banks' character turns out to be Maya's mother and Will's soon-to-be ex-wife, but instead of having the film end with a cliched reunion between them, he tells Maya she's his 'happy ending', signs his divorce papers, and is persuaded by his wise-beyond-her-years daughter to take a chance on the only woman who can make him happy: April, played by Isla Fisher.

For me Kevin Kline and Isla Fisher were the stars of the show. Amazing to think now that she started off in Home and Away.

[fenris]

I saw Definitely, Maybe on Monday night (11/02/08). Although it's been billed as a romantic comedy, it's not really a comedy at all, and I suspect it was only labeled as such because the studio didn't know how else to market it. Instead, it's a wonderfully sweet (and bittersweet) film about how relationships and friendships change, shift, develop, grow, sometimes end, and occasionally get renewed.

The best performances for me came from Fisher and Weisz. The former is finally given a chance by Hollywood to prove she can do more than daffy comedy, and she shines here. Abigail Breslin (who previously starred in 2006's breakout hit Little Miss Sunshine) also impresses as the daughter, and Kevin Kline provides good value as an unconventional, aging, rumpled lothario, who's so charming that women not only find him irresistible and but also cheerful accept that he's going to cheat on them. Elizabeth Banks (who plays Betty Brant in the Spider-Man movies, and also had a memorable supporting role in The 40 Year Old Virgin) gets limited screen time and struggles to register. As in all of his movies, Ryan Richards has a likable screen presence, but fails to give a strong performance.

I really liked Definitely, Maybe. It's early days, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be one of my favourite films of the year.

orokiah said:

For me Kevin Kline and Isla Fisher were the stars of the show. Amazing to think now that she started off in Home and Away.

It's interesting to contrast and compare Fisher's career with that of one of her contemporaries. Emma Harrison was born in New Zealand but raised in Australia. Both she and Fisher found fame during the mid-to-late Nineties by a similar route: while Fisher was starring in Home & Away, Harrison was appearing in rival soap Neighbours. Both left their respective shows at approximately the same time, moved to the UK and promptly became lads mags favourites, posing for several picture-spreads in FHM and Loaded. The key difference was that while Fisher limited herself to posing in bikinis and underwear, Harrison was happy to completely disrobe.

Fisher subsequently faded from view for several years, her name only kept in tabloid circulation due to her ill-fated romance with Darren Day (who seemed at the time to be declaring undying love for - and getting engaged to - a different starlet every week). Meanwhile, Harrison maintained a high profile by continuing to discard her clothes, appearing in a series of photoshoots and videos for Playboy.

However, fast-forward almost a decade to the present: Fisher is now an established Hollywood star, while Harrison is currently languishing in the drawer labeled Where Are They Now? Food for thought.

[fenris]

Jan 21, 2008 22:04:58 GMT fenris said:

A friend of mine recently bought the second season of How I Met Your Mother on Region 1 DVD. I spent most of yesterday at his house and we watched twenty episodes back-to-back.

Last weekend I visited my friend and we watched the entire third season of How I Met Your Mother (on Region 1 DVD) in one marathon session. Despite the U.S. writers' strike, an impressive twenty episodes were made, without any dip in quality.

For me, the most impressive thing about How I Met Your Mother is it's strong continuity, which is as good as any show I've seen and especially unusual in a sitcom. Seemingly unimportant events in early episodes turn out to be highly significant later in the season. Minor characters from previous episodes (or even previous seasons) make reappearances. Particularly enjoyable throughout the third season are newly-filmed flashbacks revealing previously unseen events that occurred during Seasons One and Two - but it's always easy to keep track of when these events happened, because (and I suspect this was deliberate) Alyson Hannigan has adopted a radical new hairstyle each season.

Quite simply, it's a stunningly well written & performed show. Not as good as Coupling, but definitely a worthy successor.