Lovesick (Channel 4 UK – 2014, Netflix 2016-2018)
In Lovesick (formerly named Scrotal Recall before moving to Netflix), Dylan (Johnny Flynn) finds out that he has chlamydia and has to get in touch with all of his sexual partners to let them know.
This sets up a brilliant nonlinear narrative as he recalls time spent with each girl, and painfully recounts how his friend Evie (Antonia Thomas) was always the right girl at the wrong time for him. Along for the journey are Dylan’s best friend and roommate Luke (Daniel Ings), who is also struggling with life and love, but still finding time to be hilarious, and their entirely adrift friend Angus (Joshua McGuire) that quite possibly is the most enjoyable character to watch on screen ever.
The way that the show bounces around through the years and then back to present day is intensely impactful in gradually increasing the excruciating emotion of the love story of Dylan and Evie, as well as big moments for the whole group. In Episode 3 Luke acts out the movie Point Break in its entirety to Dylan in order to help him understand his reference to a girl being his 50-year storm. If you can’t appreciate how amazing that is, then I can’t help you.
There are tragically only three short seasons, with no promise of it continuing, but it makes the most of every minute.
-Ben Murchison
