"Really? It's my daughter's birthday. Well, due date. To be honest, I don't know if she's been born yet. Or if she's a girl. Or if she's mine." - Adam Williams (James Nesbitt) to his blind date upon learning that it's her birthday
Cold Feet: Complete 2nd Series DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
It seems like Desperate Housewives is on the cover of every magazine on the newsstand these days - from Vanity Fair to Field & Stream. While Wisteria Lane's heady mix of soapy drama and silly laughs may seem like a new innovation to American audiences, British series like At Home with the Braithwaites and Cold Feet have achieved a similar balance for years. With the release of Cold Feet: Complete 2nd Series on DVD, in-the-know American fans can now catch the further exploits of six Manchester friends as they struggle through life and love. (If, on the other hand, you're not quite in-the-know yet, start with the first series. While this review keeps series two's secrets, it contains a few series one spoilers.)
As series one ended, Adam Williams (James Nesbitt, Murphy's Law) watched helplessly as a train carried his pregnant girlfriend Rachel Bradley (Helen Baxendale) off to London. The problem? She wasn't quite sure if the baby was Adam's or her ex-husband's. Series two picks up six months later. With Rachel's due date approaching, Adam hasn't seen or heard from her since they said goodbye at the train station. He has become a man obsessed with the absent Rachel and the baby and resembles, in the words of a friend, "someone who's given up." He perks up when Rachel reappears in Manchester, but after discovering how she spent the last six months, it becomes unclear whether they can work through their problems and continue their relationship.
The series' other couples face challenges of their own. Wry, sardonic Jenny Gifford (Fay Ripley) is increasingly unhappy in her marriage to ordinary bloke Pete (John Thomson). She spends much of her time trying to console Adam...and nursing an intense attraction for him. David Marsden (Robert Bathurst) is laid off from his job after a merger, threatening the social standing of both David and his wife Karen (Hermione Norris, Wire in the Blood). Not that Karen is particularly worried about it - she has decided that she hates all of their snooty friends.
Cold Feet really hits its stride in series two. The events in this season are much more dramatic than those in series one, but by emphasizing character over soapy stunts, series writer Mike Bullen helps to ground the show in reality. The show is still funny, but the wacky humor employed in the first series is toned down here in favor of character-based laughs. The tone is so pitch-perfect right from the start that many viewers will be tempted to devour the entire series in one sitting.
In the first series, Adam was a well-meaning ne'er-do-well who often could not help acting on his most childish thoughts. He's still the same in series two, but becomes touchingly mature when faced with the prospect of becoming a father. He longs for a child, even dreaming of what life would be like with a tyke of his own. This serves as a great contrast with David, who has a child but can't be bothered to even glance at him. All of this changes when a truly heart-stopping moment early in the series changes David's attitude. Suddenly, life for David becomes less about career success and more about donkey rides and Thomas the Tank Engine.
One sweet development in series two is that the relationship problems between the other two couples allow Karen and David to shine. In series one, they were the unhappiest of the three couples, but now the tables have turned. A hopelessly romantic plotline involving their wedding anniversary is especially memorable in the third episode.
For every emotional high like Karen and David's anniversary shenanigans, series two presents several emotional lows. The playing out of Jenny's crush, for example, is absolutely heartbreaking. Ripley's performance as a woman whose marriage is spinning out of control - caused by her own actions and a stunning betrayal by her husband - is absolutely mesmerizing. She is sure to bring many viewers to tears during the final moments of episode four, a dialogue-free sequence that simply tracks Jenny as she walks down the street after a confrontation with Pete. This bit, lasting no more than twenty seconds, is made unforgettable by Ripley's incredibly moving performance.
Series two's only flaw is its final episode. Emotionally, episode five gives the series a strong sense of closure. There's still one episode to go, though - a stand-alone episode in which all three couples head off on holiday to celebrate the millennium. The episode isn't terrible, but because it fails to add anything to the series, it has a tacked-on feel.
The six episodes that make up the second series are divided onto three discs. The discs are housed in three standard-sized keepcases which slide into a cardboard slipcover. The back of each keepcase includes brief synopses of the episodes found on the DVDs. The synopses often reveal major plot points, so avoid reading them if you haven't already seen the episodes.
The menus are simple and functional. A dream sequence from series two plays on a continuous loop in a small window. Viewers can choose to watch an entire episode or can jump directly to a scene using the "Scene Selection" menu.
