It’s been a while since we had a decent erotic thriller on TV. With The Couple Next Door, we’re still waiting
“We think he’s had a stroke”
The Couple Next Door is almost so bad it is good, a would-be psychological thriller with erotic pretensions and whopping plot holes, it was so close to pushing right through and being enjoyable on the other side. But overly stretched over six parts, it languishes in a hinterland of awkwardness and incredulity, with occasional diversions to cringing ridiculousness. With bonus Hugh Dennis.
Written by David Allison who has adapted the Dutch series New Neighbours, it follows Evie and Pete’s (Eleanor Tomlinson and Alfred Enoch) move to a picture-perfect suburb in Leeds and the shenanigans they get up to with uber-friendly neighbours Becka and Danny (Jessica De Gouw and Sam Heughan). But as the swinging begins, cracks in everyone’s relationships reverberate through their lives.
Pete and Evie are trying for a baby and it isn’t going well, his sperm count being the main culprit. So Evie’s instincts are immediately drawn to alpha male Danny as he single-handedly carries their dishwasher into their new home on moving day. And when they discover that he and yoga instructor Becka doesn’t care for monogamy, she goes into overdrive at the thought of having a go on his gym-honed body.
She has trauma from a highly religious upbringing and he’s got a secret past so maybe it’ll be OK? It’s just that he’s also a dodgy cop and Pete is an investigative journalist whose latest story involves the organised crime body that Danny is mixed up with. And Becka has a stalker across the road (hello Hugh) armed with a nifty telescope. So the tangled web they’re bed-swapping in is inevitably doomed from the start.
It should be so much more entertaining than it is, but it is too silly too often. Like the whole paramedics-at-someone-else’s-house incident, who locked the door behind them? And how on earth did the actual residents of that house only find out by accident. The tip into wild-eyed psycho for one of them is way too rushed; the apparent lack of consequences at work for another just stupid; the notion that Alfred Enoch isn’t smoking hot is too much. You’re just left wondering why should we care, no matter how good Sam Heughan looks good in a wet vest.
Obviously made for the Americzn market. No housing estates like this one anywhere near Leeds and even if there were, these couples would not be able tp afford to live there.
Yorkshire filk who live in pretty, post card villages, do not have holiday log cabins within walking distance of the village.
Only up-side is we watched it with sub- titles due to my husband’s failing hearing. Sub-titled sex scenes are the funniest thing you can see o television.