Chimpomatic

Back for one final hour of drunken romance, jaw-dropping hangovers and scenes of people being superglued to the floor, Pulling is easily one of the best sitcoms we've had in years. It's hard to understand what more they had to do to get another full series commissioned - the characters are hilarious, the situations just the right/wrong side of believable and the one-liners savage. Tanya Franks, Rebekah Staton and co-writer Sharon Horgan all put in excellent performances, with Paul Kaye giving one of the best characters of his career as Karen's disastrous on/off/on/off/drunk/wasted/off/off boyfriend Billy.

Of course, now that BBC Three has morphed from the channel that gave us Nighty Night, Monkey Dust and even the early Little Britain into the home of quality entertainment like Coming Of Age or Horne & Corden, maybe it's better that it's been allowed to die a dignified death and head off into the near-perfect sitcom retirement home (Fawlty Towers was only 12 minutes long blah blah). But it's easy to imagine that Pulling could have become the female Peep Show and ran for a lot longer than just two series and this one hour special. At least it gets to wrap things up enough, and lets us wallow in the wince-worthy antics of Donna, Louise and the mighty Karen once more.

Donna's dating a braying posho whose idea of a good time is to cover his sheets with cash; Louise is back from a trip round the world with a new loved-up hippy she can't stand, and Karen's somehow settled down with a guy who thinks women should be in the kitchen making him pies.

It's a total testament to the madness of the modern TV world that this hasn't gone any further, but hey, at least they had the grace to let them back for one last round.

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9th May 2009 - Tumblr