Men Behaving Badly: Series 3 - Region 2 DVD

Yet, the series could easily have been cancelled when ITV viewers failed to respond to the original version, which featured Clunes sharing his flat with someone named Dermot, played by Harry Enfield. Indeed, it was only when the third series moved to the BBC and was then broadcast in a post-watershed slot--allowing writer Simon Nye greater freedom to explore his characters' saucier ruminations--that the show began to gain a significant audience.

By then, of course, Morrissey had become firmly ensconced on the collective pizza-stained sofa, while more screen time was allocated to the boys' respective foils, Caroline Quentin and Leslie Ash. Often glibly dismissed as a lame-brained succession of gags about sex and flatulence, the later series not only featured great performances and sharp-as-nails writing but also sported a contemporary attitude that dared to go where angels, and certainly most other sitcoms, feared to tread. Or, as Gary was once moved to comment about soft-porn lesbian epic Love in a Women's Prison: "It's a serious study of repressed sexuality in a pressure-cooker environment."

Series 3 includes: "Lovers" in which Gary becomes worried that he hasn't slept with enough women; "Bed" in which Dorothy and Gary experience problems in the boudoir ("What's the matter? We always have sex after I've cooked for us. That's why I do it."); "Casual Ties" in which a depressed Deborah decides to sell her flat and go travelling, while Tony fails to cheer her up by impersonating different types of Cheese; "Weekend" in which Tony gets a job at The Crown; "Cleaning Lady" in which Tony reconsiders his professional options ("I could be an escort." "What, a car?" asks Gary); "Marriage" in which Gary joins Dorothy for a candlelit dinner ("Why she couldn't find a restaurant with proper lighting I don't know"). --Clark Collis