It's 13 years later and we can't wait to catch up with everyone hovering around the big 50.
It's 13 years later and we can't wait to catch up with everyone hovering around the big 50.
Favourite TV viewing from 1997 to 2003, Cold Feet is making a comeback. Shane Watson takes a look at possible storylines.
Welcome back Karen and David, Jenny and Pete, Adam, but sadly not Rachel (RIP, this isn't Dallas). How excited are we about the return of Cold Feet? Very, is the answer. Because Cold Feet was a mirror held up to our fledgling relationships and early married lives. It covered everyconceivable challenge from twins to testicular cancer, infidelity to alcoholism. And now it's 13 years later and we can't wait to catch up with everyone hovering around the big 50, teenagers revolting, and Adam (for one) back on the market. Prepare for (at an educated guess) the following storylines, in no particular order:
Everyone falls out about Brexit
It's been bubbling for a while. Jenny was Remain, Pete was Leave. Now their kids are getting Corbynised. Maybe one of them gets locked up, Charlie Gilmour style, during a demo, and maybe Aunt Karen is caught doing something shameful on CCTV. Adam tries his hand on Tinder/Air BnB in his spare room and gets more than he bargained for.
Someone has a full-blown mid-life crisis. At this stage of life, in 2016, this is bound to crop up, and I'm voting it will probably happen to Pete. This won't be just an affair, we're talking the full suicide bomb: secretly remortgaging the house; some madness involving liposuction and drugs and a plot of land in Sri Lanka paid for out of the children's university fund. Obviously.
At least Rachel is dead, so the group don't have to deal with the horror of which half of the couple to stay "most" friends with. Still, they've got to welcome a stranger into their group, which is somewhere on the spectrum from an effort to soul-destroying. They could get several episodes out of this modern dilemma. Including the one where Jenny and Karen deliberately lose Adam's girlfriend on the motorway on the way to Wales.
Pete gets accused of sexually inappropriate behaviour in the workplace
It could be crossed-wires. It could be over-sensitivity. It could be that Pete is losing the plot. Again. This is bound to be the episode where Pete gets some shocking lessons in dealing with the power of social media.
David and Karen are divorced but co-parenting three children. This is fertile Cold Feet generation territory: how mothers manage their relationship with the woman who is in loco parentis, when there is a 50/50 chance they don't trust their husband with the kids, let alone her. This episode might start with the twins getting an unscheduled haircut (serious overstepping on the part of the girlfriend) and end up with Karen having a car-kicking fight while screaming, "Do Not Touch A Hair on My Children's Heads!' Further episodes or spin-off on this theme might include, the one where they all agree to spend Christmas together "for the sake of the children".
Pete finds Jenny's mother dancing naked in the garden
They've already touched on this area, when Pete had to put his mother in sheltered housing. Now there's a good chance one of the couples has the whole sandwich thing going on at home. The parent with dementia, the school child with dyslexia, the university student with a dope habit, the dog who should be put down but everyone is in denial.
David tries to get back to his millennium physique
David (and possibly Karen) have gone gluten, wheat and dairy-free. Back in the day, it was all kissing the wrong person after one too many cocktails that got the Cold Feet couples at each other's throats. Now it's attempting to maintain a social life when half of them are doing the 5-2, and the other half are still binge-drinkers and secret smokers.
Jenny and Karen end up crashing a (much younger) neighbour's party
As a last ditch attempt to prove they have still got it, they allow themselves to be over-served negronis. And on top of that Karen has some mood-altering pills, given to her by a woman at work, who may or not be attracted to her. (Later on, expect, the one where Karen experiments with the girl from the office).
Karen gets far too into yoga
Or running. Or cycling. Or possibly Karen makes Jenny go to a mindfulness retreat but neither manages to stay the course.
The one where they realise they have No Idea what their children are up to. The way this would unfold is that one of the teenagers (Adam's son Matthew) will reluctantly tell his father that Pete's son is dealing MDMA. Naturally Pete and Jenny will refuse to believe it. The parents will rally around their children and fall out spectacularly. Pete will punch Adam. Then Pete's son will end up in hospital and everyone will realise none of them know anything any more.
Adam and David form a man-band
They hire some sexy backing singers, get a piercing each, buy a weekend tour bus and the wags at home do not like it one bit. For a while it causes unspeakable tensions, especially when David joins them on the jew's harp. Then something brings it all to an abrupt end.
Jenny considers a boob job
Or Karen actually has vaginoplasty. Sorry! But these are the times we live in! Maybe they don't go through with it, though. Perhaps they decide to head to John Lewis for a Charlotte Tilbury makeover instead. That's our girls.
Lenvy (that is, lifestyle envy), kicks in big time
The Cold Feet couples were always mismatched socially and financially. That's life. But at this stage the envy faultlines are starting to show. Maybe Karen is getting a new kitchen with a set of Hans Wenger wishbone chairs. Or sliding windows out to the decking. Either way it's impacting on the women in the group and they are getting twisted and demanding material changes. (Expect: the one where Pete borrows money from a dodgy bloke he was at school with and it badly misfires.)
The way they were
Welcome back Karen and David, Jenny and Pete, Adam, but sadly not Rachel (RIP, this isn't Dallas).
• Adam Williams, played by James Nesbitt. The "rogue in a brogue" eventually settled down with Rachel and after fertility issues they had a baby boy. Successfully fought testicular cancer but more tragedy was to come.
• Rachel Bradley, played by Helen Baxendale. Sweet (and sometimes sour) Rachel got together with Adam in a classic boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-wins-girl-back storyline. Cue 9.4 million sobbing viewers when she was killed in a car crash in series 5.
• Pete Gifford aka Adam's best mate, played by John Thomson. Cuddly - but slightly useless - Pete was devastated when wife Jenny admitted to having a crush on his best friend. In the epic flounce that followed, he cheated, divorced, married Australian Jo on the rebound and then separated from her, too.
• Jenny Gifford, played by Fay Ripley. Queen of the put-down, Jenny walked out on her cheating husband Pete and left Manchester to relaunch her career in Manhattan. She returned for Rachel's funeral in Series 5 and moved back in with Pete.
• Karen Marsden, played by Hermione Norris. The stressy middle-class mother who took her frustrations out in a bottle (or two) of sauvignon blanc. Married to wet wonder David, she had an affair that ended with a furious custody battle - over the children and the kitchen.
• David Marsden played by Robert Bathurst. Terribly-nice-but-terribly-terribly-dim management consultant David had a penchant for an overly formal dinner party. Also had an affair (with the local residents' campaigner) . Also fought over the children and the kitchen.
