“A little ‘Desperate Housewives’, maybe, but it’s nice,” assumes new neighbor Pete (Alfred Enoch) when he and wife Evie (Eleanor Tomlinson) move into a suburban street at the beginning of “The couple next door.“First shown on UK’s Channel 4 in late 2023, Starz delayed imports seemed determined to beat critics to town. But while the six-parter aesthetically evokes the drapery that attracts Wisteria Lane, narratively it lacks its sense of camp fun.
This adaptation of the Dutch series “Nieuwe Buren” initially presents Pete and Evie as the perfect married couple. He’s a mild-mannered journalist at an understaffed local paper, she’s a kind primary school teacher, and the couple are giddily expecting their first child: hence the move to a safer and slightly discombobulating area (the show is set in northern England but largely filmed in Belgium).
But their dream of domestic bliss is soon shattered, firstly when Evie suffers a devastating miscarriage, and secondly when a love triangle (or should that be love square) develops with the couple, who, contradicting the title, live across the road.
After itching for some neighbors more along their wavelength, police officer Danny (Scotsman Sam Heughan trying very hard to hide her native accent), and yoga instructor Becka (Australian Jessica De Gouw gets to use her own) waste little time introducing themselves. By the time the movers leave, the latter and Evie have practically become BFFs.
Pete, on the other hand, takes a little longer to warm up to, Danny’s ability to single-handedly lift dishwashers and penchant for tight muscle-baring T-shirts that clearly threaten his masculinity from the offset. “Try not to sound so excited,” he half-jokes when he hears Evie draw comparisons to The Terminator, the first sign that her desires extend beyond the ideal home clearly well beyond their financial envelope.
It’s certainly not the last. As the first episode draws to a close, she and Danny are basically eye-fucking each other while taking out the trash. As the second episode opens, she fantasizes that all their smoldering led to a passionate, rain-soaked “The Notebook”-style kiss. And after a flirtatious trip to the beach where she learns that her new friends are regular swingers, she begins to discuss the possibility of an open marriage.
Before it descends into far-fetched farce, “The Couple Next Door” looks like it might have some semi-insightful things to say about the concept of non-monogamy. How those who consider themselves progressive still view the practice with suspicion, for example (it’s fair to say that Pete is much less enthusiastic about possible wife-swapping). Or how such extraactivity in the bedroom doesn’t have to define a relationship – Danny and Becka are also loving parents, popular in their community and, judging by the copious public displays of affection, clearly still head over heels for each other.
Coming from a nation known for its tight-lipped attitude towards sex, the series is also surprisingly erotic. Although Evie and Pete stay clothed while they christen their new kitchen, their sexual chemistry is palpable. And little is left to the imagination as the couple gets a little more adventurous. Director Dries Vos seems fully aware that he has four photogenic leads at his disposal and, contrary to the chaste PG-13 action favored by today’s Hollywood, he’s not afraid to show them getting hot and steamy, literally in the case of a sauna session that causes the new arrivals to let their defenses down.
Unfortunately, the warmer the temperature rises between four, the more ridiculous the story becomes. As we already know from the chill, where Evie is seen breathlessly running away from a forest cabin with a rifle-toting Pete in tow, things get potentially deadly. Yet the quick trip to such a shocking turn never convinces, with the former reduced to a “Fatal Attraction”-esque rabbit pan (well, koi carp killer in this case) and the latter to a wild-eyed lunatic in an instant without any plausible justification .
The show also gives each character an equally crazy subplot, with Becka pursued by a creepy neighborhood voyeur (the typically lovable Hugh Dennis playing against type) who gets off in the most humiliating way possible, and Evie repeatedly clashing with the evangelical cult parents who believe that IVF is a sin. Meanwhile, Pete starts digging around an apparent criminal mastermind whose idea of laying low is to transport his ill-gotten gains in a van expressly marked “Import/Export” flanked by a corrupt police convoy. No prizes for guessing who else might be involved, too.
The actors do their best to keep up with such madness. But only De Guuw comes out the other side unscathed, her friendly free spirit the only party who acts like a relatively normal human being. It’s a shame she won’t be joining Dennis as a returnee for the upcoming second season set on the same impossibly sunny street.
Nevertheless, the first should still find an audience in the calm after New Year, a period that thanks to the success of Netflix’s Harlan Coben adaptationsis fast becoming synonymous with soapy melodrama and contrived twists. Just be prepared to leave your critical thinking aside.
“The Couple Next Door” continues to stream Stars 17 January.
