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Cold Feet: Series 6 (2016)

TV series review: Cold Feet – Series 6 (ITV, 2016)

Remember back in the late 1990s/early 2000s, there was this magnificent British TV comedy drama set in Manchester and was about three couples/six friends and their lives? (Even Richard Armitage featured – in Speedos, no less! – in series five.)

Well, it’s 2016 and ITV decided it was time for a reboot.

When it comes to reboots, the fans of the original show will always be worried about whether it’s going to be any good at all, let alone if it will live up to the original series. With The X-Files reboot (which we didn’t get to see until FEBRUARY, thanks Five!), it was a bit of a mixed bag, but mostly positive. With Cold Feet, we needn’t have worried. In fact, ITV have already commissioned series seven, so it must have worked for them as well as those of us who remember the show from back in the day AND who have the DVD box set in the shelf to boot.

Almost 15 years on, Adam (James Nesbitt) is living in Singapore and he has some major news: he’s getting married! Him and considerably younger Angela (Karen David) haven’t been going out for all that long, but are very much in love. He returns to the UK to tell his teenaged son Matthew (Ceallach Spellman) that there will be wedding bells ringing.

Jenny (Fay Ripley) and Pete (John Thomson) are still together, their kids are now teenagers, and life is hard. Pete works two different jobs just so they can scrape by.  Pete’s long-term unemployment has shot his self-confidence to pieces, and he’s in a bad place mentally.

On the other side of the income spectrum, David (Robert Bathurst) is in a basically loveless marriage to Robyn (Lucy Robinson), and his ex-wife Karen (Hermione Norris) is fed up with being taken for granted at work.

Even though it’s only a few episodes, a lot of things happen to all of them, and it’s like meeting up with old friends. The characters are about 15 years older and therefore in a different stage of life, but at the same time they’re the same people as before. It feels as if you’re picking up where you left off, and that’s no mean feat.

Joining the cast this year were some more or familiar faces: Leanne Best as Adam’s landlord Tina, Alastair Mackenzie as the landlord’s boyfriend, Art Malik as Eddie (Angela’s dad), Tom Bateman as a publisher (was he really that good looking in Jekyll & Hyde?! Also: him and Karen bantering – wowza!), and James Bolam as Harry, one of the old-timers Pete is a carer for. Even Robert Webb re-appears as Grant to stir up trouble. Missing Ramona (Jacey Sallés)? Not to worry – she shows up in episode eight!

If I have any regrets about Cold Feet, it’s that I didn’t have the time to re-watch the entire first five series as a precursor to series six, to remind myself of where we left off all those years ago, because a bunch of things that were mentioned I had little to no recollection of. (It’s been a few years since I last saw it, and at the time I may have just been fast-forwarding through season five in order to find the scenes with Richard Armitage in them.)

As a reboot of a popular old TV show, Cold Feet works very well. It works well as a new TV show as well, but it would probably be a bit hard going if you’re completely unfamiliar with the characters, as they’re introduced to people who already know who they are. Still, it’s fun (there are some laugh-out-loud moments), shocking/devastating (two incidents involving the same character – both were very “woah, they’re going THERE?! That’s … that’s DARK!”), and it’s still very much like a romantic comedy.

It’s very nice to have you back, Cold Feet. We never knew how much we’d missed you!

5 out of 5 airports.

Traxy

An easily distracted and over-excited introvert who never learns to go to bed at a reasonable time. Enjoys traveling (when there's not a plague on), and taking photos of European architecture. Cares for cats, good coffee and Boardwalk Empire. A child of her time, she did media studies in school and still can't decide what she wants to be when she grows up.

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