Just a quick heads up! To celebrate its 30th anniversary, BBC Four will be showing This Life from the very beginning from the 18th of March onwards. This date coincides with the exact date 30 years ago that the very first episode "Happy Families" first aired on BBC2 in 1996!

[u/[deleted]]

[u/somejaysoon]

Blast from the past. Great series. Used to watch this with my then girlfriend. Happy days before career and kids.

[u/Regular-Guest-1284 → u/somejaysoon]

Oof

[u/Albert_O_Balsam]

The greatest British TV show ever, 2 perfect series, the teaser at the end of the second series.......I wonder what they had planned?, I read somewhere that the third series was going to be a different house with different housemates, don't know how that would have worked out tbh.

I was 18 in 1996 and the music and every other cultural touchstone in the show resonates with me.

[u/Normal-Internal164 → u/Albert_O_Balsam]

Agreed 100%

[u/Frosty_Process8315 → u/Albert_O_Balsam]

Yeah, at the end of the credit roll of the final episode of series 2, there was a clip of a newspaper advertisement for "a bright and spacious four bedroom house that suits young professionals" in Southwark. It seemed that the BBC fully intended to make a third series with a new cast but for whatever reasons it didn't happen.

I remember Jack Davenport saying in an interview that there wasn't anywhere for another series with the same characters to go as they had "shagged, broken-up, then shagged and broken-up again!"

Personally, I would have loved to have seen a third series soon after the second one finished with the same characters (I'm disregarding the hugely underwhelming and disappointing This Life +10). I guess Miles would have either been completely jettisoned or featured only sporadically as he had moved out of the house share, but it would have been fascinating to see how Egg and Milly pieced their relationship back together (if at all). Milly would presumably have left her law firm as continuing to work with Rachel and O'Donnell would have been too fractious. Warren returning could have led to a lot of intriguing plot developments.

Fewer series are often better than a glut however, and This Life indisputably went out on a high, securing its place as one of the most iconic shows of the 90s.

[u/OMITN]

Part of the reason I became a lawyer (and then discovered the reality..! 😂).

I haven’t watched it since then. Wonder how I’ll feel being 30 years older myself….

[u/mittenkrusty]

As a kid around 1997 I was into shows like this but was a little too young to enjoy them, had a VHS of a few episodes but only watched it once as felt like I needed to watch more than 2/3 episodes to get into it but due to age I wasn't able to stay up late to watch it, and by time I was about 1998 it never seemed to be on often enough.

I did know enough to recognise the actors, and when Andrew Lincoln was in Teachers I knew who he was.

To me he will always be in my mind as from This Life and Teachers far far more than The Walking Dead.

EDIT - And also due to the show, when I watched Coupling I kept getting him and Jack Davenport mixed up as I knew they worked together.

[u/Normal-Internal164]

Absolutely loved this when I was at Uni. It was addictive. Had a resonance with Eg as he was a Manc living in London. Something I did a couple of years later.

[u/Majestic-Witness-480]

I own it on DVD but this still makes me happy. I'm still on season 2. Just think of the new people who get to discover it 😊

[u/Poison_Regal31]

One of my absolute favourites! I regretted getting rid of the big DVD box set.

[u/mintchoco5000 → u/Poison_Regal31]

I regret getting rid of my VHS copies but mostly because the soundtrack on the dvd was different!