For its third season, BBC2s Coupling scales back to a shorter, seven-episode run even as its soap opera elements expand dramatically. The season begins with a breakup between two main characters and ends with an unexpected hook-up between two more. In-between, even Jane (Gina Bellman) finally gets a steady boyfriend of sorts. Stylistically, creator/writer Steven Moffat takes the most innovative elements of his established style and runs with them. One episode occurs entirely in split screen (inspired, it seems, by the Mike Figgis film Timecode). Another tells an entire story from two disparate points of view, mining comedy and real pathos from the difference between them. Not that Moffat skimps on the outright silliness: one episode revolves around a mole on one characters posterior, while anothers plot revolves around the comic possibilities of an unlocked bathroom door. Ending, as the previous season did, on an emotional cliffhanger, Couplings third season suggests that the casual raunchiness and episodic flow of the early installments will henceforth be tempered with dramatic plot twists and continuing storylines. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
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