| Being single isn't easy. But at least you've got your friends. But what happens when one of your friends falls in love with one of your friends' friends? This funny, up-front series about love and lust amongst thirtysomethings centres around Susan and Steve - two lively, sexy funny people who get together and start going out.
Featuring the following episodes -
Split
The action begins where it left off at the end of series 2 - Steve and Susan have had an argument about their future, and Susan storms out of Steve's flat in tears. The screen splits into two and we follow what happens to both Steve and Susan simultaneously.
While Steve tries repeatedly to ring Susan, his courage failing ever time, the girls are locked in a debate over the merits of 1471, and what it means if the phone "chirps". Eventually the tension at both ends of the phone gets too much. The boys and the girls set out for "the Temple of Woman': the girls' case, a beauty salon; in the boys' case, a lap dancing club.
Steve gets hideously drunk, and phones Susan as soon as he gets home, pleading that she come back to him. She does just that.
Faithless
Jane and Jeff are both having difficulty keeping the faith.
Jeff is sent into a spiral of tension when his attractive colleague, Wilma, asks him out for a drink. Is Wilma about to make a move on him, or does she just want to be friends? If she's interested in his arse, then surely he shouldn't be talking to her, what with him having a girlfriend. But to refuse the date would be to assume that Wilma fancied him, and she certainly hasn't made that clear. Unable to face this challenge alone, Jeff rigs up his mobile phone for the date, so that his friends can hear his conversation with Wilma, and give him advice. Wilma puts her cards on the table straight away: she fancies Jeff and she wants to know if he fancies her too...
Meanwhile Jane is thrilled by the arrival of a new member of staff at the station, right from the moment he smoothly parks his huge, red sports car into a tight little hole. Mmm. Jane is not the sort of girl to be put off by the fact that James is the station's religious broadcaster, nor by the further complication that their first date is at a Christian discussion group. Hope begins to fade when James tells her that he doesn't believe in sex before marriage (although Jane does helpfully offer to take her top off if that will ease the situation). Despite this inauspicious beginning, James gives Jane a passionate kiss. Why is he bothering with her? Because he has faith.
Unconditional Sex
We pick up the action where we left off at the end of the last episode: with Jeff trying to work out how (or even whether) to refuse unconditional sex with Wilma. Meanwhile, his friends are still listening and offering advice via the mobile phone.
Jeff is no match in this debate for "devil woman" Wilma. She knows every argument that Susan (the expert in getting her own way) has ever used. Jeff paints himself into a terrifyingly extreme conversational corner, until he blurts out that the reason he can't have sex with Wilma is that his girlfriend is dead.
Wilma drives Jeff home, but decides to try once more to seduce him when they get to his flat. Unfortunately, Jeff's girlfriend, Julia, has been struck down by flu and is asleep in Jeff's bed. Seeing Julia's bare feet poking out from the duvet, Wilma makes the not-too-far-fetched assumption that this strange man who can't stop talking about his dead girlfriend has in fact just killed her. Wilma flees the flat, and Jeff says to Steve, "well, I think that basically went OK.".
Remember This
Sally is surprised to say the least when Patrick arrives at her flat at three in the morning to get rid of a spider for her. It turns out that he dreamt her distress call. What can this mean? Does Patrick subconsciously want to protect Sally? More shockingly, does Patrick have a subconscious?
Encouraged by their friends, Sally and Patrick independently tell the story of how they first met. It was at Susan's office party. The attraction was instant. Sally got horribly drunk and the two of them had a romantic embrace in the cloakroom. We see the scene from both points of view: the inebriated Sally believed she was acting cool when she gave Susan's phone number to Patrick. Sober Patrick actually remembers that it was Sally's number he was asking for.
Back in the present, the pair are troubled by the fact that they have got close, and yet never seem to get any closer. Nothing is ever going to happen between them now. Patrick and Sally agree to see less of each other.
The Freckle, The Key and The Couple Who Weren't
Steve is suffering from a bout of hypochondria, thanks to the discovery of a mole on his bottom. This leads to a bitter argument with Susan, about how well the pair can remember each other's blemishes. Steve feels hurt that Susan can't remember if the mole is new, and Susan becomes paranoid about the possibility that she too may suffer from freckles in her otherwise-perfect private regions.
The argument is settled when the gang are introduced to Jane's new boyfriend, James. It turns out that Jane has perfect recall of Steve's mole. And it also turns out that James has perfect recall of Susan's "nether freckling" - the two of them were briefly an item at university.
Meanwhile, a kinky evening with Julia goes horribly wrong when Jeff swallows the key to the handcuffs. Things go from bad to worse when Julia's ex, Joe (a man prone to violence), turns up at her flat demanding to see her. Jeff narrowly avoids being beaten to a pulp, but his heart is in even greater danger of being broken than his bones. It seems that there's a lot of unfinished business between Julia and Joe.
The Girl With One Heart
Susan has invited everyone over for dinner, which as we know is just asking for trouble.
Steve is particularly worried because Susan has recently redecorated the bathroom, and removed the lock, thus robbing him of his Fortress of Solitude. Sally's worry is that Patrick is bringing his new girlfriend: she's frightened that she will overcompensate her feelings of hostility towards her new rival by being embarrassingly nice. Patrick dimly perceives there might be a problem, so has told Jennifer that Sally is a lesbian.
Jennifer turns out to be Sally's worst nightmare: "slim and interesting." She pays Jennifer so many compliments that Jennifer assumes Sally is making a pass at her. Over dinner, Sally is horrified to discover that Jennifer thinks she is a lesbian. She furiously blurts out, in front of everyone, that it's Patrick she's mad about, not Jennifer. Ouch.
Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps
Sally is terrified that she might be pregnant, so she takes a pregnancy test and asks the other girls to do the same so that she knows what a negative result looks like. In her fluster she gets the tests muddled up. One of the girls is pregnant, but which one?
Is it Sally? Well, she did have sex with awful Peter on the night that Patrick came to save her from the non-existent spider.
Is it Jane? Well, with James away, she was so desperate for sex that she even briefly toyed with the idea of doing it with Jeff. But the pizza delivery man was on hand, so to speak. So, yes, it could be Jane.
Is it Susan? She reveals that she has recently discovered she has a medical problem which prevents her from having children. It would take a miracle for her to be pregnant.
Patrick asks Sally to meet him at the bar, where he tells her that he does in fact love her. Jane spoils the romantic mood by bursting in, proclaiming joyously, "I'm not pregnant!" Sally is devastated. Then Susan arrives with a new bombshell. A miracle has happened. She and Steve are expecting a baby.
|