• Series: This Life

• Release Year: 1996

Plot

The 11-episode first season of Amy Jenkins' BBC drama This Life juxtaposes the professional growing pains of a group of young London lawyers with their hard-partying exploits and romantic entanglements. The core cast of Jack Davenport (Miles), Daniela Nardini (Anna), Andrew Lincoln (Egg), Amita Dhiri (Milly), and Jason Hughes (Warren) coalesces quickly into a tight-knit ensemble whose characters are often at cross-purposes -- a far cry from the huggy, cuddly dynamics on Friends, the U.S. sitcom to which This Life has often unfairly been compared. Plotlines revolve around Anna's stillborn career, Warren's coming-out process, Egg's professional disillusionment, Milly's flirtation with her boss, and Miles' troubled relationship with his father. The simmering love and anger between Miles and Anna, however, provides the strongest throughline from first episode to last. Aside from the complex, soapy storylines, character is always at the core of the show's drama -- character as embedded in one's class and ethnic origins, career choices, and quest for a grown-up identity. With a navel-gazing Welsh homosexual, a buttoned-up South Asian, a self-destructive Scotswoman, a toffee-nosed golden boy, and a laddish soccer hooligan on board, Jenkins and her tight-knit group of writers and directors have enough grist for the dramatic mill to power twice as many episodes. And in the subsequent and final season, that's exactly what they get. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide