Married Single Other

Q: On which date did the Battle of Hastings take place?

A: Love. At least, that's the answer according to new ITV flagship drama Married Single Other

The handy thing about ITV is that, after years of neglect, you know exactly what to expect from any new programming they choose to heavily hype. You expect it to be awful. With good reason, too. Take Michael Winner's Dining Stars. Inexplicably the focus of a number of Granada Reports "news" features prior to its premiere on Friday night, the show involves the washed-up one time director now most commonly known for one of those inane television advertising catchphrases - "Calm down, Dear, it's only a commercial" - that are funny precisely once, if you're feeling in a particularly charitable mood. The show consists of Winner visiting two families, eating a three-course meal in their company, before inviting them to a London-based cinema setting, where they're screened footage of him critiquing everything from their cooking to their conversation, before deciding whether or not to award them one of his entirely valueless dining star awards. The whole thing is an exercise in providing a vehicle for a smug, needlessly self-satisfied man - whose most significant directing job of the last twenty years involves the aforementioned esure adverts - to patronise the general public whilst expecting them to be grateful for it.

That's having sat through a full episode. Married Single Other, on the other hand, looks like the kind of show you can safely assess simply by sitting through the adverts a couple of times, whilst saving yourself the bother of actually suffering through an hour of it. The premise: a group of thirtysomethings angst over settling down - either they're ready to but can't; they have done and they regret it; or they don't want to and aren't certain what that means. Admittedly, that's not the worst premise for a show (This Life could be summarised in much the same way, as could Cold Feet), but being a product of ITV's recent reverse Midas touch commissioning policy, you cannot help but expect the worst. The first episode drew decent ratings, but that's to be expected - so much promotion had gone into it that it couldn't help but start strongly, with plenty of people likely to tune in out of curiosity, if nothing else (the very reason I chose to sit through it). The second episode didn't fare quite so well. So far, the show has received decidedly mixed reviews.

You know you're in trouble when, minutes into the first episode, you're introduced to an annoyingly precocious child who has his own blog and uses words such as 'aplomb.' Trouble is, he often comes across as the most intelligent character of the ensemble - in contrast, Dickie (played by Dean Lennox Kelly), is an online poker-obsessed bloke who thinks nothing of declaring "man, am I good at that" post-sex. Everywhere else, the approach to characterisation possesses the same sledgehammer-subtlety, too. Ralf Little plays Clint, whom we know is supposed to be a womaniser because a) he refers to someone he picked up drunkenly the night before as 'Sofa Girl,' in lieu of actually remembering her name and b) he has a large framed picture of a lingerie-clad model on all fours hanging above his bed. Eddie (Shaun Dooley) is the token nice guy, devoted father and loving boyfriend, who really wants to marry his long-term girlfriend Lillie (Lucy Davis). Despite being with him since sixth-form, Lillie doesn't feel the same way, being a post-feminist woman who doesn't need to be tied down. Her opposition of marriage - on the grounds that it is entirely unnecessary, given the longevity of their relationship - stands in contrast to the desires (conscious or subconscious) of her friends, and might make her a sympathetic character were it not for the fact that the script insists on repeatedly hammering home just how independent and modern a woman she is, in the process managing to patronise her rather than empower her. Meanwhile, Abbey (Miranda Raison) and Babs (Amanda Abbington) are as yet somewhat peripheral, not massively sketched out beyond their obvious personality traits.

Of course, the show follows their trials and tribulations in the pursuit of love and long-lasting happiness. The problem is that love is so common a theme that there really is nothing new to say about it, so the only option is to try and say it in an interesting way, avoiding as many of the cliches as possible. That's not the approach Married Single Other chooses to take, however, with characters spouting boring platitudes such as "money doesn't matter, only love matters" and "love is always the answer" on a semi-regular basis, sentiments that are tired and, ultimately, boring, whilst the characters who don't quite agree with these declarations act as ciphers to remind us all that love is complicated. Yes, ITV, love is complicated. Thanks for spelling that out to us in the least imaginative way possible. In fairness, the performances aren't terrible - aren't bad at all, in fact - and there is a reasonable amount of chemistry on display. The problem is that each character is such a broad stereotype that it's impossible to view them as individuals worth caring about and, for all their supposed uncertainties, the truth is that each of them seem entirely stuck in their own particular ways, with little scope for change. The argument could be put forward that, only two episodes in, the show still needs time to gel, that the characters need a little more time to develop, and that then the audience might get on their side. But between episodes, almost a third of that audience has already disappeared. It's hard to imagine why anyone would stick around to see how their lives develop.