Sergio’s

Chris, we’re going to Sergio’s now. Yeah, although not definitely there. We could possibly go somewhere else.

We’ve got this down in ‘comedy’ and ‘sitcom’ but it’s close to not being either. At times, Bliss is almost unwatchable. For the uninitiated, the premise is simple: a man has two separate lives. Two separate wives, two separate houses and two teenage children, one from each family. For the most part you have to suspend your disbelief – it’s probably not entirely possible, all told. If you consider that both families live in Bristol, you do find yourself wondering how they’ve avoided each other completely for what you can assume is 15+ years that the concurrent relationships have been active.

Anyway, let’s not analyse too much. The man (Stephen Mangan) is roped into attending a meal in Sergio’s with his (commonlaw, unmarried) wife Jo Hartley and he gets wind that his other (officially married) wife Heather Graham is also due to have a meal there with her friends while he is ‘away’ doing his travel writing job. Cue a lot of panicked flustering while he tries to prevent the situation getting out of control. Yes, Hollywood film star Heather Graham. Living in Bristol. Presumably she’s an aquaintance of David Cross, who writes the show.

I think we can all see where the logo is headed. Sergio’s is an Italian, so we’re going with £10m payoff merchant Prince Andrew’s favourite eatery. Shame he wasn’t on hand to help Mangan out for this. I’ve heard he never sweats.

Speaking of arseholes, you get so wrapped up in how the whole tangled mess is going to play out, you kind of forget how terrible the main character is. He does come across as amiable but his actions are almost as rotten and unforgivable as Garry Sparrow’s.

The chances of Goodnight Sweetheart appearing on this website are very low, btw.

NB A nice little Easter egg in this one is that you can see that a certain T. Margaret also has a booking at the restaurant.