This Life

Move over Friends this is your more intelligent English big brother. A perfect picture of 90s London through the eyes of young professionals and ordinary blokes and girls. A few cheesy performances by Tikarum but it sort of worked at the time much like the Fonz worked in Happy days at the time. Not a poor performance from a rich cast that all went in to achieve memorable careers. This is a collectors piece for those who lived through and experienced the era in London. Nostalgic and immersive TV.

This is one of the most addictive, amusing and involving TV

series I have yet seen. It has a kind of cultish appeal, and I

know a lot of people who follow it closely and discuss each

weekly installment as if it was real life. That's the key I

think. This series is based in reality. A group of very

different personalities share a house in South London and the 2

year story shows their growing relationships and their

interraction with various friends and colleagues mainly in the

legal profession. It's fairly graphic stuff with sex in

various forms, nudity, bad language and drug use presented in a

very matter of fact way. The characters are believable and

appealing despite the warts and all presentation, and the lines

are often bitingly clever. Daniela Nardini as Anna gets the

best lines by far, delivered in a wonderful Scottish brogue for

maximum effect. All good things must come to an end however and

the series concludes with the happy group disintegrating after a

massive row. But it was good while it lasted. What a

stunning, intelligent and

I still hold firmly to the belief that the last episode of this landmark show is the best 40 mins of British TV drama ever. Any number of storylines coming sharply to a head, the terrific wedding reception with its toilet sex and terrible dancing, darkest secrets coming horrifyingly to light and the legendary punch. But how sad! If we'd known then that there would never be another series we would have stormed the BBC ourselves. But think positive. The show is endlessly rewatchable, and its influence has lived on in Queer as Folk, Attachments, Teachers, Metropolis, Tinsel Town and most contemporary drama since.

Just please, please publish the damn scripts!

When the last episode of the second series of This life was over and done with I sat in front of the tv and really felt as if I lost not one, but several close relatives in an accident or something. This Life gave us several of the finest moments in tv-drama. Ever.

A near-perfect study of life's transitional period between careless partying and responsible adulthood, this addictive British series touches a nerve with anyone who's waged that cumbersome battle. The absorbing characters and first-rate acting draw the viewer in until you feel like you want to jump into the fray yourself. Don't miss this on BBC America.