Coupling, A Review

[laleia]

So the thing they don't tell you about teaching English abroad is that if you don't like drinking/clubbing, you spend an awful lot of nights alone in your apartment watching TV on your laptop. Of course, this was also my experience during most of college as well ...

Anyway, you end up looking for good TV to watch a lot, and I was on Hulu when I saw that they had Coupling. I'd watched an episode or two with darklightluna before and it was funny but the show (esp. Jeff) was a bit too awkward and triggered my embarrassment squick a bit too much for me to enjoy it. (Of course the episodes I watched where "Man With Two Legs" and "Girl With Two Breasts" which were both about Jeff making a fool of himself.)

Nevertheless, I decided to give it a try again. What I hadn't realized is that since those episode two years ago, I've kind of fallen in love with half-hour sitcoms (see: How I Met Your Mother, Community, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family).

And so I fell in love with Coupling for the first moment onwards.

Granted, I had some issues with it. The show used an awful lot of Men-Are-From-Venus, Women-Are-From-Mars type jokes, and the gender essentialism there is not something I'm a fan of, but I forgave it because it was satirical and intended for laughs and not meant in seriousness. I can see how Moffat might be generally be viewed in fandom as being the Who writer with more Plot-Win but slightly more Gender-Fail than RTD. (This is my interpretation of fandom reactions I've heard, possibly not a general fandom impression.)

This show made me laugh so hard at times, it was literally difficult for me to breathe. I had to pause the show and look away and breathe deeply and my lips started tingling and I'm sure I frightened my neighbors.

I have to say, my favorite ship during the show was definitely Patrick/Sally. I fell in love with them from the moment she used his large penis to dump her blind date to the realization that they cared about each other too much to sleep together, and then of course the SPIDER. OMFG THE SPIDER.

So I think I may have a Narrative Kink here. Up there with Eternal Rivals! and Fierce Opponents! and Secret Relationship! Apparently, I'm also a HUGE fan of Playboy Realizes He Is In Love With Friend.

I mean, I LOVE Patrick/Sally (OMG HE HAD A RING!!!), and I was a HUGE fan of Barney/Robin (although I liked them more in theory than in practice, i.e. I thought Barney-in-love-with-Robin was super-cute, Robin-in-love-with-Barney less so, Robin-and-Barney-secretly-sleeping-together was awesome, Robin-and-Barney-in-a-relationship was boring; I like the ship but don't actually need to see them get together), and of course I think it started with my love of Xi Men/Xiao You and their Hana Yori Dango equivalents. (You have no idea how annoyed I was that the HYD version of Xiao You was self-sacrificing enough to help him find his old girlfriend, effectively ending any potential relationship, argh.)

Apparently, I just have this thing for the playboy "manwhore" who slowly realizes that his female friend is slowly becoming someone he cares about. And he doesn't want to sleep with her because he doesn't want it to ruin their friendship.

And really, Patrick and Sally were MARRIED before they ever started sleeping together -- they watched movies together every week! He sees nothing wrong with going to her place in the middle of the night to kill a spider! (Even if that was his imagination.) <333333

But now the show is over! And I'm so sad!

Haha, I like how my attempt at a Serious Review of Media basically devolved into squeeing about my favorite ship. I liked all the characters as an ensemble, didn't like any of the characters much individually, but that's to be expected. They were all caricatures. Though Susan will always have a special place in my heart for dumping Patrick with a, "That was a relationship? I thought we were just having sex." Also she is badass at French

I do think that the show got a bit heavyhanded with the whole "Jane's not really bisexual, she's not really crazy, she's not really stupid, she's just craving attention" thing at the end that what's-his-face saw through. But possibly just because it stole my idea for the fanfic about How Jane Is Actually Sane And Her Real Name Is Gertrude But She Just Had Too Much Fun Being Crazy Twin Jane And It Stuck.

My least favorite character was probably Steve, but since he doesn't annoy me as much as Ted from HIMYM, Jeff from Community, or Leonard from BBT, or Ross from Friends (I think the trend here is that the main white male character of a half-hour sitcom tends not to get my love; possibly this can be extended to all male main characters ever but my sample size of tv shows with non-white male main characters is not exactly large here), he does alright. Also, possibly some of the ill-will toward him is a side-effect of my hatred from Lloyd Simcoe (from FlashForward). There are no words for how much I hated Lloyd Simcoe; if I ever wrote FlashForward fic I don't think I could keep from Lloyd-bashing, and I highly disapprove of character-bashing; that's how much I hate Lloyd Simcoe.*

And of course Jeff is just ridiculous. I couldn't really handle any Jeff-centric episodes because it triggered my embarrassment squick too much, but he made for funny sideplots. (Also, Moist! Von Lipwig, I mean.)

Anyway, I think Coupling's greatest weakness was that it was TOO SHORT. Seriously, British TV. What is with all these short season? How did this not get greenlighted for a bazillion seasons of a bazillion episodes each! Well, that and the weird Jeff-disappearance, which I understand from an RL perspective, but confused me until I looked it up.

*Question: When discussing fanfic with an RL person who is an RL friend/coworker, and the RL person mentions how she dislikes Ginny and will read anything that has Ginny-bashing in it, even if it is poorly written ... what is the best way to react? I changed the subject, which I suppose is the RL version of what I would do if I came across the comment online, i.e. make a mental note to myself and hit the back button.