Coupling vs Friends: Story

Coupling is often referred to as the British version of Friends, probably because both shows deal with sets of hapless thirty-somethings with nice hair who hang out and talk about their sex lives all day. On the other hand, if you tweak a few details in that last sentence, you'd wind up with a description of every sitcom ever made.

Coupling is bolder, perhaps a bit less traditional in structure and content than Friends. Of course that might be s US vs UK thing. The UK cultural standards allowed for some more explicit language and situations. The topics on Coupling are more focused on sex than romance. Friends characters have sex, but usually as part of a relationship. And there were only a couple of episodes (like Monica telling Chandler all the erogenous zones) where the mechanics of having sex are addressed. Coupling has its romantic moments here and there, but they are usually interrupted somehow. Often by Jeff. The practicalities of sex and relationships are Coupling's bread and butter; it leaves the fairy tales to the Americans.

The faster pace on Coupling also comes down to different business models. With three times as many episodes to play with in a given season, Friends had both room and mandate to fill the space. So naturally things take a bit longer to get to the point. Friends gets into family and friendship in deeper than Coupling. It helps that there was a sibling relationship with Ross and Monica, but we also see parents more on Friends than on Coupling. Friends also did numerous flashbacks to how the friends met and to their high school days. Aside from asides here and there we didn't see much of that on Coupling. There was the big flashback episodes to Sally and Patrick's first kiss but no real explanation, for example, of Steve and Jeff's first meeting.

The storytelling gimmicks of Friends don't extend too far beyond flashbacks, however, while Coupling is constantly playing with structure. There is one episode of Friends where it all happens in "real time." Coupling did real time, Rashamon structures where events play out from different perspectives, everyone on the phone, a bit of narration, screen-overlays, and split-screens. Granted, for all that flash, the stories usually ended pretty much the same on both shows. But within the short series, there is a huge amount of variety in how the Coupling episodes play out up to the end.

So, yeah, the shows have their similarities. I would say the strength of Friends was the depth and breadth of the stories, which gave the characters true space to change and develop over time. Coupling's high points usually involved some combination of biting humor and playful storytelling. I liked them both, but I have to admit the shorter time investment usually has me streaming Coupling rather than reaching for my Friends box sets.

Tomorrow: Character analysis.