Coupling

Steve and Jeff go to a wine bar where Steve has decided to dump Jane, his longstanding girlfriend, once and for all; but when he sees her he's soon ensnared by the basest of male instincts. Meanwhile Susan and her best friend, Sally, go out to the same bar. Susan meets up with Patrick, with whom she has been enjoying "sex with a fringe of conversation". However, when it transpires they've both been unfaithful, it looks as if the fling is over. She then bumps into Steve who is buying condoms in the toilets, and he cheekily asks her out.

Steve is surprised when Susan invites him round for supper at her place. As Jeff expounds on "the sock gap" and offers advice on foreplay and his theory on celebrity marriages, he has no idea Susan can overhear everything. Meanwhile, Patrick invites Sally on a date to a motor show. She feels they just haven't made that special connection yet - until Susan reveals why she called him Donkey. Elsewhere, to everyone's surprise, Jane materialises with Howard, a good-looking young man. But it seems she's going to have a bit of a challenge on her hands if she thinks she's going to seduce him.

An upset Jane appears on Steve's doorstep. Her aunt has died and she wants Steve to go to the funeral with her. When Steve tells Susan that he told Jane he couldn't go, she insists he must, and Susan announces she wants to go, too. Steve just keeps digging himself in deeper and begs a strangely confident Jeff to go as Susan's partner. Meanwhile, Susan is busy inviting Patrick to the funeral and he is inviting Sally, who has a pathological fear of growing old, to be his decoy date. However, before long, all six of them are heading up a suburban street dressed in funereal black…

When Susan decides to video a TV programme, Steve gets paranoid about her finding his lesbian porno video. Jane is astonished to hear that Steve told Susan he loved her, something he failed to say to her throughout the five years of their relationship. When Susan suggests they have a dinner party and invites her, Jane persuades her therapist, Jill, to go to the dinner party with her. The pair turn up on the doorstep, much to the boys' excitement. Is this Jane's new date, they wonder. However, things soon go from bad to worse for Steve…

The boys are sitting in the bar looking at a beautiful girl with the casual lust of no-hopers. When she glances at Jeff, who's "way past the nudity buffer," the others encourage him to go and talk to her. A man on his way to an execution, Jeff plods off in the direction of the bar. Before long he's babbling away - but she seems to understand nothing. The girl is from Israel - she hasn't understood a word. Jeff is transfixed. The next day the girls watch the same beautiful girl in the bar. They're looking at perfection. Suddenly she's on boy alert - and it's Jeff she's eyeing up…

Jane turns up on Patrick's doorstep. Stunned, he offers her a drink. She senses his emotional walls. Why does he never talk to her? Meanwhile the boys discuss screen nudity. Then Jane opens Patrick's cupboard to be confronted by a wall of videos. Jane grabs him and slams him against the wall. It seems Patrick has filmed all the women he's ever had sex with - including Susan. News spreads about the videos. But just who has the naked rights to Susan now she's going out with Steve? Slightly anxious, Susan decides to confront Patrick, only to find he's watching a video - and he's got company…

Jeff has fallen in love with a red shoe on his morning train. Meanwhile, Sally has been seeing Liam for two weeks and everyone wants to meet him.

Jane and Sally are obsessed with finding out whether Steve still goes solo. Meanwhile, Susan has invited her notoriously frank parents over for dinner.

Susan's latest project is to choose some furniture for the flat that she and Steve will share together and the truth slowly emerges about a deep mystery: why Steve and Sally have suddenly started acting so strangely.

Following a disastrous impotent encounter with Sally, Patrick seeks reassurance from Steve and Jeff.

Jane's career as a radio traffic reporter is put in jeopardy when she receives some unexpected criticism. Meanwhile, a grim-looking Patrick is determined to finish with his latest girlfriend, Lynda.

Steve and Susan prepare to celebrate their year anniversary, when Steve suffers a frightening experience and is dreading questions about their future.

Jane's attention has been caught by a stunningly handsome guy in the bar. Meanwhile, Patrick is locked in insane competition with Ivan, an acquaintance from work.

Jeff's new boss Julia questions whether it is right and proper to kiss someone junior at work.

Susan and Steve each find themselves tempted by other people. Steve guiltily swaps phone numbers with an attractive woman in a bar.

Susan is furious, Steve is as indecisive as ever. They are both sleepless and miserable. Steve seeks solace in lager, dirty video games and reaching for the phone, Susan in a soggy handkerchief and a self-help book about soul-mates, faith and why men are rubbish. Both rally their friends and head for The Temple of Woman - a prodding, waxing, tweezing beauty salon for Susan, a whooping, hollering lap-dancing club for Steve where Jeff bumps into an old friend…

Jeff has been going out with Julia for some time. But then the disconcertingly lovely Wilma propositions him in the stationery cupboard. Meanwhile Jane meets and quickly unnerves the ruggedly handsome James under similar circumstances. James presents the religious programme and Jane soon finds herself in competition with the Supreme Being of the Universe. While Jane tries to convince James of the benefits of sex before marriage, Jeff finds himself a rabbit in Wilma's headlamps.

A very nervous Jeff has arranged to have a friendly drink with gorgeous Wilma who comes clean - she fancies him like mad and she wants to 'borrow' him from his girlfriend. After a spectacularly awkward, drink-sipping silence, Wilma offers him unconditional sex and Jeff is a man without the emotional software to say no. Steve inadvertently compares his own relationship to the Cold War and Sally tells Susan about a little agency called Man Test…

It's three in the morning, and Patrick has been called out to rescue Sally from a spider in her bedroom. This event causes them both to reflect on their very different recollections of their first meeting at Susan's office party 4 years ago. While Jeff expounds on Porn Jelly and his eight thousand names for breasts, Patrick has to face an uncomfortable truth. Is there some kind of emotional thing with Sally? What if she's the one?

A quiet night in with Julia leads Jeff to a Nudity Hoovering problem. Steve is troubled by a freckle on his bottom and reaches for the Book of Death (The Medical Health Encyclopedia). Sally and Patrick have become new-partner-hating best friends and possibly mole-buddies. And if all that wasn't enough, it's time for them all to meet James, Jane's religious broadcaster boyfriend who doesn't believe in sex before marriage.

Susan has been redecorating the bathroom, only she's removed the lock from the bathroom door and de-clenching is now out of the question for Steve. Much to Sally's consternation, Patrick has a girlfriend - and Susan has invited them all for dinner. Jane wants to bring a date as James is away - and a gorgeous pizza delivery man seems to answer her prayers. Whilst Jeff and Julia don't seem to be seeing each other much, Sally worries about being over-nice to That Girl - who turns out to be annoyingly beautiful. And Patrick hasn't been entirely truthful about his relationship with Sally…

Now Sally's blurted out how she feels to Patrick and has convinced herself it's not meant to be. More importantly, she really, really doesn't want to produce a bald, noisy thing that will destroy her life - and decides to use Jane and Susan as a pregnancy control test, which leads to some unexpected revelations. Susan admits that she and Steve have been having a problem and decided to get themselves checked out - which Steve can only do with the help of a porn menu and a comfort pillow… Meanwhile Jane admits to having gone a bit mad a few weeks ago when she went to visit Jeff…

One bar, three different points of view, the same nine-and-a-half minutes: Susan and Steve discuss pregnancy, Patrick and Sally talk relationships and Jane has a blind date.

Susan is worried she's turning into an emotional tent while Steve is being executed on a nightly basis...by a foetus!

Can Patrick find his way home from the enchanted glade of his one true love and get a decent night's sleep?

At their antenatal class, Steve finds himself haunted by ghosts of lesbians past while Sally is troubled by a string quartet.

Is it possible that Oliver is getting somewhere with Jane? But how can you win the heart of a good woman when your living room has lost the battle with nudity?

The night before the birth of his first child, Steve Taylor is visited by an old friend...or possibly an old maths teacher!