"Not Going Out" Serious (TV Episode 2006) Poster

(TV Series)

(2006)

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8/10
A really funny start to the series.
Sleepin_Dragon11 January 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Deadbeat Lee is house sharing with the charismatic, bubbly and upbeat Kate. She attempts to get him to become more go getting, she suggests clown school, he refuses but Kate goes herself. Her ex, Tim is Lee's best friend. Lee's helping Kate out by going on a date with her friend, an author called Lucy, the date is not a success.

It's hard to believe this debuted back in 2006, it's been a while since I've watched the early episodes. Absolutely loved seeing this once again, I'd forgotten how much I missed Tim Vine and the pair's chats in the pub.

Slick dialogue, truly funny lines, this was the start of a show that turned out to be comedy gold. Lee Mack is an awesome comic performer, he's so funny. Word for Megan Dodds too, she did a great job, always think of her as a serious actress, but she's got good comic timing.

Truly laugh out loud, 8/10
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7/10
Serious
Prismark1029 August 2019
I never saw the early episodes of Not Going Out and it certainly was a different show back then.

I believe Lee Mack wanted to adapt a British version of Everybody Loves Raymond and it then went on a different path.

The set up is Lee is a slacker who writes Christmas cracker jokes. He shares a flat with American Kate who used to go out with Tim who traded her in for a younger model. Tim also Lee's best friends and they regularly meet up in the pub.

It is a good opening episode, with Tim Vine in the cast, the faster punslinger alive you really need to have a sense of humour bypass if you do not laugh at least once.

The episode sees Kate trying to find her inner clown by going to clown school. Tim looking to get back with Kate and Lee going out with a date as a favour to Kate with a writer called Lucy. As Lee discovers. Lucy has had a life that is far from being a barrel of laughs, if Ken Dodd ever met Lucy he will be ringing up the Samaritans!

Both Tim Vine and Lee Mack come out with fast one liners, some will make you laugh, others might make you groan.
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1/10
I'd go out just to avoid it
studioAT16 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers
How was this show made? How is it funny? BBC, answer these questions please.

Lots of quick jokes can't hide the fact that the characters on display here are paper thin, and the set up is weak. It's almost as if they are trying to do an American style sitcom (right down to the token American) and forgetting all the things that make successful sitcoms work.

It's ironic that there's a set up about making Christmas crackers, because that's where perhaps most of the jokes came from.

How this show is still being made to this day is a mystery.
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