“Pilot/Flushed”

Coupling season 1, episode 1
Original air date: September 25, 2003

This first episode is mainly a scene-setter, in both versions. It introduces the audience to the six main characters, most of whom have slept with each other. The plot is that Steve has been trying to "flush" Jane, his girlfriend of five years, for some time now, but she's unflushable, as Jeff so eloquently puts it. Every time Steve tries to break up with her, she says things like "I don't accept," and "I'm not wearing panties." They keep ending up having sex instead of breaking up.

This is exactly what happens again, when Jane plays the ultimate card, revealing that she's bisexual. She claims to have told Steve this before, but he swears up and down that he's never heard about it. They end up in the women's bathroom of the bar they're in, and Steve pops out of the cubicle to get a condom. He runs into Susan, who has just broken up with Patrick. He's mortified enough to be running into someone else, but it turns out they know each other: they met at Susan's work party a few months ago, when Jeff brought Steve. Oh, yes, Jeff and Susan work together. And Susan seems to remember some woman Steve was with at the time (Jane). Susan coyly elaborates that if it hadn't been for that woman, she would've hit on Steve herself. Steve makes his way back to the cubicle with Jane, after first promising to call Susan sometime.

Steve makes good on his promise and calls Susan at her office. Jeff is desperately running interference between the two of them, because he doesn't want Susan finding out that he told Steve that the reason he and Susan didn't work out together was that he made her terribly nervous in bed. Of course, it's the opposite that's true, which eventually comes out when Susan and Steve meet for dinner, and they both wonder why Jeff's tagging along.

Jane also tags along, having found Steve despite his best efforts to duck her. She's incensed when she realizes that he's on a date with another woman and breaks up with him on the spot. Sally and Patrick walk in, on a first date, and Susan roundly chastises Patrick for using their restaurant and her best friend to get over their relationship. Jeff continues pestering Susan and Steve until Susan exasperatedly asks what it'll take to make him go away, flashing him? He agrees, and she sighs that she wasn't being serious. Everyone else agrees that flashing a breast would be a good way to settle everything, including Steve who edges over to the larger group, arguing that he doesn't want to be the only one not to have seen Susan's breast if she goes through with it.

She does go through with it, managing to also give a glimpse to a passing waiter, who promptly sets up a table for six in the crowded restaurant. Susan announces to Steve that they have a new plan for the evening — their friends and exes sitting down to dinner together for a little getting-to-know you kickoff to their new relationship.

Differences
Aside from cultural differences, like the fact that Jane compares their doomed relationship to the Titanic instead of Crippen, the main differences between the two episodes revolve around American tastes and time. Sections of dialogue are trimmed, like Susan's discussion with Patrick that their sex life didn't seem like a week's worth of sex, so she assumed he wasn't being faithful. All references to "unflushables" are gone, presumably because American audiences would find them too crude.

I fear, upon first viewing, that the excellent tirades and monologues that make the British show so funny — especially Steve's — will be condensed into tidy, American soundbites for time and taste reasons. "Do not take the wrongness of masturbation from us!" <And scene...>