TV Review: Uncoupled is a piece of fluff — and that's what I liked about it

Pictured: Brooks Ashmanskas as Stanley James, Neil Patrick Harris as Michael Lawson and Emerson Brooks as Billy Jackson in Uncoupled. Picture: PA

 Uncoupled (Netflix) is annoying from the get-go. Middle-aged New York realtor Michael and his friends talk in that arch, bitchy, knowing dialogue that no one uses in real life unless they are on Sex And The City or The West Wing. Or maybe it’s just because they’re affluent Americans and I’m out of touch.

Either way, it gave me an urge to put a foot through the telly. The only thing that stopped me was the thing that kept my shoes from the screen with the other two shows — it has decent story-telling.

The acting is superb. And you get used to annoying bitchy people after a while. Michael, played by Neil Patrick Harris, has been dumped by Colin, his partner of 17 years.

It’s a good story because of the way he reacts. We’ve all been there.

We all know the nauseous punch in the gut moment when you’re dumped out of love. We understand the lurching emotions, rage one minute followed by the desire to buy the former lover something nice and win them back.

Michael does it here, giving Colin a present for his new apartment at their one and only attempt at counselling. Colin white lies and says he needs some space, and after 15 minutes of watching a needy, vain Michael trying to process the end of their relationship, I’m with Colin.

But just because Michael is hard to like doesn’t mean we don’t shout for him. (The audience was on Carrie’s side in Sex and the City and she was unbearable.)

The plot zig-zags along with some cringy little turns. The present Michael gave Colin turns out to be a photograph of the two of them — it’s so ill-judged that you want to have a word with him.

The friend-in-need here is his colleague, Suzanne in an eye-catching performance by Tisha Campbell. She gets to dish out pep talks and harsh truths to Michael as they walk around a gleaming New York. I won’t bore you with another Sex and The City comparison, but the two shows share a creator, so this is to be expected.

At least in this show, people have jobs that could actually fund a chi-chi lifestyle in New York. Michael is a pushy realtor as he tends to the needs of the one per cent in Manhattan. It felt like property porn at times, but there is a faintly subversive side to Uncoupled as well.

It’s hardly hard-hitting satire, but the rooftop charity bash in an exclusive area to raise funds for their local park felt like a Marie Antoinette moment. Michael was there, but in a work capacity. As nice as everyone is to him, it’s made clear that he’s just the real estate guy, one step up from a plumber.

Uncoupled is a piece of fluff compared to the serial killer and real crime stuff we’re being force-fed on telly these days.

And that’s what I like about it. Give it a watch.