TV fans have just hours to binge ‘bonkers' drama before new season launches
The first season of the frothy swingers drama The Couple Next Door was pretty panned by critics – with a 38% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes – but viewers couldn't get enough.
In fact, the season became Channel 4's biggest scripted streaming launch ever, with the first episode garnering more than a million streams in its first week.
Starring Sam Heughan and Eleanor Tomlinson, the six-part run saw a young couple move to the 'burbs, only to become a bit overly friendly with their neighbours – with dire consequences.
The second season turns the show into an anthology, with only an initial nod to the couples of the first season via a newspaper frontpage, before we meet a new foursome set to swap beds.
The one mainstay, besides the Belgian filming location masking for outer Leeds, is Hugh Dennis's cul-de-sac creep Alan (although he's now somewhat reformed, doing community service).
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The new season focuses on the medically inclined power couple of Charlotte (Annabel Scholey) and her husband Jacob (Sam Palladio). She's a heart surgeon, he's an anaesthetist.
But when a new nurse Mia (Aggy K Adams) joins their hospital and then decides to rent the vacant house next door to them, their marriage is turned upside down.
A complicated situation is worsened by the return of Charlotte's handsome and clearly-still-into-her ex Leo (Heroes' Sendhil Ramamurthy).
Senior TV Reporter Rebecca Cook shares her take…
If you enjoyed the first season of the swinging Leeds neighbours, you'll be happy to hear this is more of the same – and perhaps better.
But if you were among the naysayers, probably best to look away now (it's not improved that considerably).
They've done away with some of the yawnsome filler of last season (criminal conspiracy, the strains of local journalism albeit from someone who can afford a humongous house), instead focusing on the character drama with a side of kink.
This erotic entanglement is a touch less silly than the last, largely because of one thing: Annabel Scholey. The Split star elevates what is quite soapy material because she's just very good at what she does. Even when it's shooting dangerous looks from under some scrubs.
The mysterious Mia from Norway crashes into the couple's 'sex Wednesdays' routine for scenes that are, yes, still a bit overplayed.
But if you're coming into this second season from the first, you already know what you're in for.
Loosely adapted from the Dutch drama Fatal Injections, the first season was billed a cheesy erotic thriller.
Duncan Whittaker wrote on Google reviews that he 'loved it,' adding: 'The ending was such a bonkers bit of fun.' More Trending
Jo Austin added: 'It was all a bit daft but entertaining and enjoyable enough.'
However, not everyone was completely on board with the season (hence the hate watch adjacent reputation) with Helen Johnson labelling it 'ridiculous!' before adding: 'I've only seen one episode but I laughed several times (and it's not a comedy!).'
Not holding back, Dean Skutela added: 'One of the worst programmes I've ever watched. I kept praying for it to get better but it just kept getting worse.'
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The Couple Next Door season 2 is available to stream on Channel 4, with episode 1 airing on the channel at 9pm.
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Casino Royale (2006) Daniel Craig and Martin Campbell rebooted the Bond franchise for an edgier, post-Bourne audience, and the results are still terrific. Less tremendous, however, is the sheer amount of product placement on show, as if producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson had taken fright at the potential cost of making an 007 film and had chosen to offset their expense against as many on-screen commercial partners as possible. You'll find everything from Heineken to Virgin Atlantic here, but there are a couple of truly excruciating moments, whether it's Bond driving, of all things, a Ford Mondeo, or the scene in which, asked by Eva Green's Vesper Lynd if he's wearing a Rolex, he replies 'Omega', only for Vesper to purr 'Beautiful.' Apparently the various advertisers paid $100 million to have their wares displayed on screen. For a franchise often (and rightly) criticised for its over-reliance on commercial tie-ins, this was a scheme worthy of a Bond villain. 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When Pacino, watching the commercial's playback, remarks to Sandler, in character, 'Burn this…this must never be seen by anyone', you can only wish that his request was followed. Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) You would struggle to mount a defence of any of Michael Bay's Transformers films on artistic grounds – they are, after all, loud and imbecilic pictures aimed at pubescent boys that are intended to sell toy robots- but the sheer level of on-screen shilling that goes on during the miserable fourth instalment took excess to new depths. During its interminable 165 minute length, no fewer than 55 brands are featured on screen, most obviously Bud Light and Victoria's Secret, and Bay's background in advertisements is clear from the lingering close-ups that he gives every one of these products. Nearly every one, that is. Hilariously, it came out in 2016 that the Chinese company Wulong Karst Tourism were suing the producers for $27million on the grounds that their logo was not displayed prominently enough in the finished film, a reminder that this monstrosity was made during that brief, bizarre period when Hollywood desperately sucked up to China. In this instance, clearly not effectively enough. Sherlock (series 4, 2017) This is less offensive or annoying than many of the other examples, and more simply jarring. By the fourth series of the much-admired Cumberbatch-Freeman Sherlock Holmes revamp, it was clear that the show was not operating in the same way that most BBC series did, and so the usual Beeb rules of not using recognisable technological products (ie Apple's iPhones) did not apply. Therefore, we are shown Cumberbatch's Sherlock using a then-modish iPhone 6S, which, viewers are invited to infer, is the technological equivalent of the great detective's legendarily wide-ranging brain. It's not so much horrible, as just a bit forced. One half-expects the great detective to ask 'Siri, how do I solve this particular case?' Ted Lasso (2020- ) It is obviously unfair to criticise Apple for asking that their products be included in series that they have funded at enormous cost to themselves, and many people are enormously fond of the big-hearted comedy-drama Ted Lasso, with Jason Sudeikis as the sunniest football coach you could ever hope to meet. It's just a shame, then, that the product placement here is ladled on with a trowel. Virtually every single scene features a character wielding an iPhone or a MacBook, checking out something on an iPad or watching an Apple-branded monitor. And the software gets a big plug, too. When Ted's chatting to his son back home in the United States, what's his method of choice? FaceTime, naturally; Zoom doesn't get much of a look in here. 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