The Couple Next Door

It succeeds in being sexy rather than cringemaking. This is vanishingly rare and comes courtesy of a clever, layered script that ties each of the narrative strands together perfectly and takes enough time to build every relationship within the foursome to allow what unfolds to feel plausible.

With its intriguing characters, nuanced dynamics and surfeit of narrative dominoes just waiting to topple, Channel 4’s latest is a sexy, surprising success – suburbia never looked so much fun.

Tomlinson gives an affecting, unravelling performance, while Hugh Dennis is creepily compelling as an obsessed neighbourhood stalker. .... Otherwise, The Couple Next Door staggers under the weight of its dull, unnecessary subplots.

Evie, who appears at the outset to be a sensible, sweet-natured type, goes fully bonkers by around episode four. Every five minutes there’s a complete failure of logic, either in terms of plot or production. .... I found the whole thing ridiculous. So ridiculous that I happily binged the lot in two days.

There's a distinct lack of subtlety and nuance in The Couple Next Door, with some characters resembling archetypes rather than real, flesh-and-blood people, but it's slickly made and it does have something to say about long-term relationships and the so-called rules we establish for ourselves, sex and desire and how our wants and needs shift over time.

Overstuffed with supporting characters whose names you won’t remember and subplots you won’t care about, The Couple Next Door squanders the genuinely interesting tension between the characters at its center in favor of a confrontational, tonally jarring ending that doesn’t even entirely make sense.

Heughan and Enoch are fine, making the most out of material that doesn’t dare to give their characters much interiority or, in Pete’s case, even a personality and family backstory. .... The going gets tough once the erotic thriller angle—its saving grace— is shed in favor of laughably predictable, meandering subplots like Danny’s foray into corruption that ties into Pete’s investigative reporting.

The Couple Next Door is not an easy or particularly relaxing watch, with constant drama and secrecy that extends beyond the two couples that grows exhausting.

The Couple Next Door really leans on the stupidest parts of a plot that should just depend on the sexual chemistry among its four stars.

When the four aren’t interacting with each other, you can’t help but wonder what the point of this series is. Even if the show were longer, unfortunately, its side characters aren’t interesting enough to warrant any screen time, even though our main characters interact with them enough that they should draw our attention. Instead, the core four actors feel like the only people not sleeping through these scenes.

The season quickly becomes derailed by way of less intriguing subplots, disappointing character regression, and poor pacing that struggles to build to a satisfying finale.

These couples are as wooden as Dutch clogs.