So, I finally got a chance to watch the entire run of the BBC comedy seriesCoupling. One of my local Public Broadcasting Stations recently began playing it on Saturday nights as part of a large block of British comedy, including the likes of Waiting for God, Fawlty Towers, Vicar of Dibbley, and Father Ted. I’d been enjoying Coupling most of all because a.) It was, to me, the funniest of the lot, b.) I’d never seen it before and c.) It’s written by a long-time Doctor Who fan and now Doctor Who writer… a fact I totally forgot when I started watching it, and only remembered about 3 episodes in. That’ll teach me not to watch opening credits. This PBS station, however, just entered one of its dread periods called “The Pledge Drive” and has taken off the entire block of comedy that it normally shows. Meaning, to continue with Coupling, I had to take matters into my own hands.
I know my fellow Americans will be all too familiar with the concept of the PBS Pledge Drive. Let me elaborate on this for those who live outside the States, however. The dread Pledge Drive is a time honored tradition in which these publicly funded television stations will take off the majority of their regular programming (at least the only stuff that anyone even mildly sane would ever watch), and replace it with “specials” while interrupting every half an hour with on-air segments hosted by bland, usually homely people will try and encourage you to give money to their station by reminding you that it is only with public funding that they can bring you quality programs like this. Usually, these “special”, “quality programs” are turgid, 2 hour long videos of: some new Opera sensation (“oh, my god… he’s blind and he can sing like that! Isn’t that amazing?” …”NO! It would be amazing if he was deaf and could sing like that!”), a travelogue to some far flung place, an Irish pan-flautist, or most amazing of all… a cooking special. Sure, sometimes one of them will get the bright idea of playing a comedy marathon. Sure, once upon a time they used to have Doctor Who marathons, a fact slightly mitigated by the fact that they’d still interrupt them with Pledge hawking. Most of the time, however, it’s a metric ass-load of pretentious nonsense, sometimes sinking as low as celebrating the career and “talent” of Sarah Brightman. What they don’t seem to realize is that some of us like reliability and consistency in a television station. Maybe I would have been moved to give them money had they left my Saturday nights undisturbed, allowing me to get my Coupling laughs from them. Instead, they had a cooking show on, and I gave my (not small) amount of money to Amazon to get some DVD’s. Capitalism wins again, I guess. I do hope that at least some small amount of that money filters back through the channels of purchase and into Steve Moffat’s pocket.
Onto what I thought of Coupling: I loved it. Every last episode… though Season 4, episode one was a bit uneven, but by Mr. Moffat’s own statements (I think I read something like this) , Richard Coyle’s departure made that somewhat inevitable. I would have to put Coupling into my top 5 comedies of all time at the very least, if not actually at 1… which I admit, it’s hovering at right now. “Unconditional Sex” was somewhat a muted success for me, though, as I discovered that Lou Gish died a week ago right before I watched it, meaning the jokes about Julia being dead weren’t going over so well with me at the moment. I know some didn’t care for Oliver, but I kind of liked him. He had Jane’s psychology sussed, I think. He was nowhere near the neurotic mess Jeff was… yeah, ok, Jeff was hilarious… but would you really hang out with him? Gina Bellman is fantastic. Her portrayal of Jane is one of the highlights of the program for me. Patrick and Sally were made for each other. Steve and Susan had to work at it a bit more, but were a great couple.
My only complaint: I need closure on this. I know it’s unlikely any “ending” will be made, but I just need closure! I need to know if Jane and Oliver work out. I need to know if Sally actually gives Patrick a slightly less rude answer to his proposal. I need to know that Susan was ok after the C-Section, and what kind of neurotic father Steve made. I NEED TO KNOW!!!!
Ok, that’s me venting for today. Move along. Nothing more to see.
