Review, The Couple Next Door - net curtains will twitch

The Herald Scotland

2 days ago

***
WHEN you become a television critic, no one tells you how many hours will be spent watching people have sex (or how tedious that will be).
Having sat through the first series of Channel 4's swinging in the suburbs psychological thriller, I was prepared for this new six-parter. Sandwiches and a flask to hand, I hunkered down for the long haul like Alan, the neighbourhood Peeping Tom (played by Hugh Dennis), putting in a shift at his telescope.
But what do you know, all concerned had upped their game considerably. While The Couple Next Door was still a heap of weapons-grade silliness, it was a better-acted, better-plotted, better-directed heap of weapons-grade silliness.
Instead of traffic cops and yoga instructors, the protagonists this time were doctors and nurses. Lottie the heart surgeon (oh, the irony!) was married to Jacob, an anaesthetist. Lottie was so busy with her job and an ailing dad to look after she had to schedule sex with Jacob, a man so dull he could have put his patients spark out with his conversation alone.
Lottie couldn't complain, not really. Life was good, if predictable. Then a nurse named Mia turned up at the hospital and moved in next door.
With her heavy European accent and mysterious past, the beautiful Mia intrigued Lottie and flattered Duncan. Smouldering glances over a patient's open chest cavity soon became flirty conversations over glasses of wine, and before you know it our couple had become a throuple and clothes were being torn off all over the shop. You certainly couldn't fault the trio's enthusiasm. They didn't even pause to brush their teeth before jumping between the sheets. And yes, the sex scenes did go on, and on, and on.
The good times on the sofa and in Antwerp hotel rooms could not last, though. Lottie and Duncan's well-ordered life had been turned upside down by Mia and her demands. Regrets? They had more than a few.
The Couple Next Door began life as the hit Dutch series, Nieuwe Buren ('New Neighbours'). Both are filmed in Belgium and the Netherlands, hence the slightly unusual houses on wide open streets that make the place look like America.
Written by David Allison (Marcella, Trust Me), this series powered along, fuelled by plot twists that ranged from unlikely to flat-out bonkers. There was far more going on at the hospital than an on-off threesome. Frankly, it was a wonder anyone left the place alive, such was the carry on.
From a pretty decent cast overall, Annabel Scholey was a solid centre of credibility as Lottie (even if she did look disconcertingly like Kate, Princess of Wales). Plaudits go again to Hugh Dennis, who scrubs up well as a serious actor.
There was plenty to question (wouldn't the police be called in to investigate wrongdoing rather than leaving it to hospital administrators to play detective?), and more than a few cliches (particularly in the sex scenes). But if it was noirish nonsense you are after, The Couple Next Door supplied it by the bucket load.