Coupling

Six best friends talk about all aspects of sex and relationships on their never-ending quest to find true love.

Cast:Jack Davenport , Gina Bellman , Sarah Alexander , Kate Isitt , Ben Miles , Richard Coyle , Richard Mylan , Lou Gish , Olivia Caffrey , Mariella Frostrup , Lloyd Owen , Elizabeth Marmur , Emilia Fox , Adam Astill , Michael Price , Amanda Abbington , Katharine Page , Raji James

1Season 1

S1.E1 ∙ Flushed

Fri, May 12, 2000

Steve Taylor is a charming, efficient man, but can't handle women well, being affected by fears which are only aggravated when he talks with his best mate Jeff, who always manages to say and do the wrong thing and worse...

2Season 1

S1.E2 ∙ Size Matters

Fri, May 19, 2000

When Susan calls Steve, he instantly looses all his command of conversation, yet they agree to meet and she offers to cook, according to Sally an offer of free sex plus catering. Steve's report to the mates is treated to Jeff's dubious 'foreplay tips', such as avoiding at all cost to be even a moment, while undressing, naked except for socks, and one the mentioned girls overhear entering the bar: using the girlfriend's first name to call the celebrity one usually thinks of during sex. Jane is absurdly confident her own bisexuality makes her eligible for pure gay hunk Howard and switches all labels and concepts potentially implying any homophobia. Sally haughtily turns down going out with Patrick by assuring him she won't have sex with him ever, till Susan explains his nickname "donkey" refers not to his mental abilities but to his intimate endowment, which cancels all Sally's prejudices, even if he is politically about her complete opposite. Steve and Susan's evening goes trough, burdened by misunderstandings and...

3Season 1

S1.E3 ∙ Sex, Death & Nudity

Fri, May 26, 2000

Jane's aunt dies, and everyone's going to the funeral ... but whose date is whose? The event has Sally worrying that her anti-aging beauty regime may never be enough. This episode also features Jeff's infamous (and illustrated) theory of the "giggle loop."

4Season 1

S1.E4 ∙ Inferno

Fri, Jun 2, 2000

While tidying up Steve's flat, Susan finds a hot tape we'll just call "Inferno" ... but that's not the FULL title. At a dinner party featuring all the friends, plus Jane's ambiguous guest, he is called upon to give a detailed review of the film and, by extension, a defense of the whole male heterosexual psyche. Jane also takes this evening as her opportunity to proclaim her variety of "open" vegetarianism.

5Season 1

S1.E5 ∙ The Girl with Two Breasts

Fri, Jun 9, 2000

Jeff meets and tries to "chat up" an Israeli girl who doesn't speak English. Meanwhile, Steve and Patrick are inspired to thoughts of a science fiction movie featuring intelligent breasts -- but what will they call it?

6Season 1

S1.E6 ∙ The Cupboard of Patrick's Love

Fri, Jun 16, 2000

Patrick's video collection, including the tape of Susan, is discovered. Before she can ask for Patrick's discretion, he's already shown it to Steve, Jeff and Sally who haven't even noticed that Patrick taped over her.

1Season 2

S2.E1 ∙ The Man with Two Legs

Mon, Sep 3, 2001

Jeff is smitten with a woman he's seen on the train. Well, actually, just with her leg as that's all he's seen of her.

2Season 2

S2.E2 ∙ My Dinner in Hell

Mon, Sep 10, 2001

Susan's sexually frank parents are coming to dinner, and Steve's worried. Seeing a nature TV show with Susan that talks about the need for the male of the species to continue to "enjoy" himself doesn't exactly help. Patrick and Jeff become obsessed with, shall we say, publicity rights. Meanwhile, Jane has discovered a talent for identifying people's ideal celebrity friend just by looking at them, and she has a surefire technique for meeting and befriending those celebrities. TV news presenter Mariella Frostrup stars as herself ... though her cellphone seems to be having an identity crisis.

3Season 2

S2.E3 ∙ Her Best Friend's Bottom

Mon, Sep 17, 2001

Steve accidentally sees Sally naked!

4Season 2

S2.E4 ∙ The Melty Man Cometh

Mon, Sep 24, 2001

Sally and Patrick both try to deal with the fact Patrick had some trouble performing "in the sack".

5Season 2

S2.E5 ∙ Jane and the Truth Snake

Mon, Oct 1, 2001

After getting herself fired from her radio job as a traffic reporter, Jane invents a sock puppet named Jake the Snake in preparation to launch a career in children's TV. Jake's honesty, though, could cost Jane her friends. Back at the bar, Patrick has an ingenious plan to dump his girlfriend for rejecting any hope of a threesome, a plan which backfires when she arrives in mid-phone call with the news she's changed her mind.

6Season 2

S2.E6 ∙ Gotcha

Mon, Oct 8, 2001

The ultimate "ticking time bomb" lands on everyone's door: a wedding invitation. Now Steve must answer the ultimate question: Do you have a future, or are you getting married?

7Season 2

S2.E7 ∙ Dressed

Mon, Oct 15, 2001

Patrick needs a pretend-wife to show off to a colleague while Jane has a dinner date. Only problem: She is a tad underdressed.

8Season 2

S2.E8 ∙ Naked

Mon, Oct 22, 2001

Jeff meets co-worker Julia and is interested in going out with her, as she is with him. Jeff explains his ineptitude to Steve and Patrick at asking women out. Elsewhere, Julia explains her ineptitude at being asked out to Susan, Jane, and Sally. Neither the guys nor the girls are aware of who the love interest is.

9Season 2

S2.E9 ∙ The End of the Line

Mon, Oct 29, 2001

A bit of sexy role playing creates havoc between the friends: who is the sexy Frenchwoman Giselle and the studly Australian Dick Darlington?

1Season 3

S3.E1 ∙ Split

Mon, Sep 23, 2002

Now Steve and Susan have broken up, he has nightmares, willing to give up a lot and beg to get her back. The boys try to comfort him and contemplate weird paths of thought about phoning, sex and lust. Susan won't even admit it to herself but she is just as miserable. Sally nearly convinced Susan to call him, but that doesn't work out. Steve got Jeff to call in his place to see if Susan called him, but the idiot doesn't use his cellphone. In times of despair, each group turns to its temple: the boys to a strip-club, where Jeff remembers pole-dancer Jenny Turbot as a former schoolmate, for drinks and fun; the girls to a beauty parlor, to bag on man- and realize life is even worse without them. Back home drunk after midnight, Steve calls Susan.

2Season 3

S3.E2 ∙ Faithless

Mon, Sep 30, 2002

Jeffs tells his mates he fears that he has caused irreparable disaster just by saying 'Hi' to office colleague Wilma Lettings. Her desk gave her the best view on his posterior during a photocopying disaster. This leads to a date with her, although her boyfriend is in Australia and Julia forbids co-workers to know about them. Jane explains 'how well' she addressed the religious program presenter James, whose sexy presence makes her substitute 'penis' for 'car'. She went to his Bible group, posing as a fellow Christian, only in her ruthlessly atheist, rude, promiscuous and violent way. Jeff's dangerous date is coached by cellphone with two female 'feelings translators', but Julia grabs his.

3Season 3

S3.E3 ∙ Unconditional Sex

Mon, Oct 7, 2002

Jeff's date with Wilma is coached by helpful cues from the friends by phone, but he still make up absurd lies.

4Season 3

S3.E4 ∙ Remember This

Mon, Oct 14, 2002

Sally's dream causes her to wonder about Patrick's role in her life. After recounting the night they met, Patrick and Sally face an uncomfortable truth.

5Season 3

S3.E5 ∙ The Freckle, the Key and the Couple Who Weren't

Mon, Oct 21, 2002

After a row about Susan's thoughtless inability to tell Steve whether his butt had an old mole or fresh freckles, they join the friends in the pub. Jeff arrives, oblivious he's wearing an SM mask, as Steve drags out of him from playing 'Spankman' with Julia, desperate for advice about the use of laxatives to recuperate jewelry swallowed from his irresistibly naked girlfriend. Back in her apartment, where she's handcuffed and Jeff still clue- and key-less, they freak at a knock she fears to be her parents. It's worse: her military ex Joe. Jane reveals more ways to be utterly out of touch with the world, especially her patient boy-friend, who later announces he must spend some months in Germany as radio-maker. James and Susan discover they knew each-other as wild Oxford students.

6Season 3

S3.E6 ∙ The Girl with One Heart

Mon, Oct 28, 2002

When Steve tells that Susan redecorated his bathroom, without a lock, Jeff considers this problem #1: a women-made hell where no man can ever de-clench again. Sally is toxic jealous when told Patrick, whom she hypocritically told to go for an open relationship, has a girlfriend, Jennifer- he believed to simplify matters by telling her Sally is a lesbian. Jane is madly in love, at first at sight, of a studly pizza delivery man. At a dinner, all the friends and their present significant others meet, in various rooms, ways and moods, never comfortably. Steve sings the praise of the toilet as modern man's version of a cave of last retreat in face of absurd female interests such as potpourri.

7Season 3

S3.E7 ∙ Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps

Mon, Nov 4, 2002

The girls make a shocking discovery.

1Season 4

S4.E1 ∙ 9½ Minutes

Mon, May 10, 2004

After a trip to a dating agency, Jane has a blind date with a guy called Oliver. Meanwhile, Patrick and Sally face the first problem in their relationship, and Susan attempts to talk to Steve about the imminent birth of their child.

2Season 4

S4.E2 ∙ Nightlines

Mon, May 17, 2004

The friends become entangled in a seemingly endless phone call as pregnant Susan looks for assurance of sexiness, Sally looks for the meaning of her new relationship with Patrick, and Jane looks for a way to hide now that she's in the wrong ex's apartment.

3Season 4

S4.E3 ∙ Bed Time

Mon, May 24, 2004

In reality and fantasy, Sally and Patrick match wits as he seeks to spend the night at home and she looks to entice him to stay over ... again. Oliver accompanies Jane to Sally's dinner party, which features an unexpected musical entertainment.

4Season 4

S4.E4 ∙ Circus of the Epidurals

Mon, May 31, 2004

Susan takes Sally to prenatal class to be her back-up in case Steve can't cope. Steve finds himself haunted by the ghost of spanking lesbians past and Jane tries to "out-keen" Oliver.

5Season 4

S4.E5 ∙ The Naked Living Room

Mon, Jun 7, 2004

Is it possible that lifetime loser-in-love Oliver is a good fit for lifetime loser-in-love Jane? Can a man win the heart of a woman when his apartment is "unedited"? What happens to a living room that has lost its battle with magazine nudity?

6Season 4

S4.E6 ∙ 9½ Months

Mon, Jun 14, 2004

Susan is in labor, and Steve is now remembering the events of that night. Patrick and Sally are having problems with Patrick's previous relationship with Jane. As well as Oliver is desperate for a night with Jane but is soon interrupted by Steve and Susan.