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When pregnant Susan (Sarah Alexander) has serious doubts about Steve (Jack
Davenport) being her birth-partner, she asks her best friend Sally (Kate
isitt) to be her back up, & come to join her (& Steve) at a couple of
antenatal classes (but "without turning it into a circus). Sally of course
agrees wholeheartedly ... until she learns she probably has to be present at
the actual birth, & because of the size of the baby, the doctors might have
to make a incision you-know-where. So, to not let her friend down, she asks
Jane (Gina Bellman) to be her back-up, who in turn asks Oliver (Richard
Mylan) to come along for the ride (as a nice way of dropping him), who in turn
asks Patrick 8Ben Miles) to join him to not be the only non-father among the
attending men. For no reason at all, the class is held by Jill (Elizabeth
Marmur, the psychiatrist from the episode Inferno
from four years ago), who is of course immediately devastated once Jane shows
up. The class is soon divided into male & female points-of-view when the
use of painkillers during childbirth (men: yes, women: no) is dicussed, &
Steve vividly takes a stand pro-painkillers, speaking for all men in the room
... but Susan has already made up another plan when she hands the
responsibility for not giving her painkillers over to him ... In
itself this is not at all an unfunny episode (especially the scenes when Sally
goes to her safe-place where a string-quartet is playing are hilarious), but
seen in a bigger context, it relies way too much on past glories, as some
elements are copied straight from other episodes - the concept of everyone
inviting everyone else to some event where they are all out of place is
straight out of Sex, Death
& Nudity, Jill's nonsense-discussions with Jane is out of Inferno,
& Steve taking a stand for almost anything is actually a mainstay
throughtout the series - , & they were all done better the first time
around. & again, Richard Mylan as the new weird guy (after Richard Coyle's
departure) fails to bring any laughs to the series.
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