Pulling Power

This was my TV review of the sitcom Pulling, first published on a now-retired blog on 19 May 2009.


Last night saw the final 60-minute special of the brilliant Pulling on BBC Three, after the channel announced it was, ahem, pulling the cult sitcom last year. For anyone who’s never seen the show, it follows the dysfunctional relationships of three female housemates, Donna, Karen and Louise. In the previous two series, episodes have mined some pretty dark areas for a sitcom (think Sex and the City as conceived by Joe Orton), including suicide attempts, copious drug abuse, stalkers, flashers and feline euthanasia.

The final episode continued in the same vein, with themes of obsessive love (Louise returns from abroad several pounds lighter but burdened with an unwanted partner, whom she discovers she prefers comatose to conscious), terminal illness (Karen’s ex Billy reveals he has cancer and wants to go swimming with dolphins before he dies) and domestic abuse (the result of which sees Karen exact revenge upon a chauvinistic ex through a flagrant misuse of tampons and Mini Babybels). Not to mention more suicide attempts and copious drug abuse.

It was very funny and makes the BBC’s decision to axe the show seem all the more egregious, as there seemed more mileage in the series as well as a growing audience. Still, the will-they/won’t-they saga of Karl and Donna was left somewhat open-ended, perhaps to give the makers an option of a return on another channel (à la Red Dwarf, which returned for a three-part special on Dave last month).

In the meantime, if you missed last night’s episode, you can catch up with it on BBC iPlayer. It’s also being repeated all week at various times on BBC Three.

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