The Couple Next Door
When a show is based on a book that no one has bothered to even translate into English to release as a tie-in edition with the show, as a viewer you're not expecting fine art. Which is exactly where your expectations should be in regard to The Couple Next Door. This is about pretty people fucking each other. Both literally and figuratively. Jessica De Gouw and Sam Heughan are Danny and Becka, the playful couple into swinging. Eleanor Tomlinson and Alfred Enoch are Evie and Pete, the happily married childhood sweethearts expecting their first child. The couples become friends, Eleanor and Alfred lose the baby, and the sexcapades start. Evie is a little too into it. Pete is just trying to please his wife. As for the swingers, they broke their cardinal rule of not mixing friendship and pleasure. There's large expanses of time just wasted on longing looks with music and slow motion camerawork. So. Many. Longing. Looks. Yes, I get it Starz, you're trying to do softcore porn, can we maybe get a plot to go with that? They do try to shoehorn in a plot with corrupt cops and investigative journalism and religious fundamentalism and slut-shaming and Danny having a deaf kid by another woman, but none of this matters, and in fact, none of it is resolved or will be resolved because by season two we're onto a whole new cast. Well, almost all new. One standout character remains. Which is where this show shines. When it's just pretty people and their paramours, it's nothing, when it becomes about creepy stalkers and sexual mind games, well, then it's special. Eleanor Tomlinson's Evie gets this wicked gleam in her eye as she starts to become obsessed with Danny. She knows they have a connection and due to his incredibly fertile sperm he gets Evie pregnant. Which Evie then spins into a fantasy of the two of them running off together and starting a new life. Which, yes, it could then be compared to Fatal Attraction. But the thing is, while Evie is wonderfully unsettling, it's when Alfred Enoch's Pete goes over the edge that the whole series gels. He is deranged but Enoch makes the character someone relatable. You want him to take this all to the next level. You want him to burn their street to the ground. This show understands it's soapy nature and that is why it works. If it didn't have this absurdity to it, well, then it would be pornographic schlock. Which brings us to the best character who is returning for the second season, Alan Richardson as played by Hugh Dennis. Alan takes care of his wife while spending all his free time spying on Danny and Becka. He quickly spirals out of control when Becka boots him from her yoga class. He takes revenge by breaking into their house and leaking their private photos online. But the strain is too much and he has a stroke. Which leads to him being taken care of by his wife. Who exerts exquiste revenge on her pervert husband. It's that exquiste revenge, that exqusite mania, that line between how a normal person would react to a situation and how we wish our darker selves could react that makes this show work. It's still not high art, but at times it's hilarious.
