At the same time, Susan's best friend, beauty-obsessed Sally (Sonya Walger), fights her attraction to Patrick, who represents everything she abhors (she may change her mind in a future episode, when she learns about his unseen qualities).
The British version, which airs here on BBC America, has earned a reputation for witty banter, daring story lines and frank discussions about the sexual and emotional differences between men and women. The American version hopes to do the same, using some British scripts (modified for cultural content and trimmed for commercials) and some original ones.
Writer Phoef Sutton ("Cheers," "The Fighting Fitzgeralds") and Ben Silverman ("The Restaurant") are the American executive producers; representing the British side are executive producer and co-creator Beryl Vertue, and executive producers Sue Vertue (her daughter) and Steven Moffat (her son-in-law). "Coupling" is based on the courtship of Sue and Steve (get it?), the latter of whom writes all the British episodes.
"Steven, after they met, he just had this idea," Beryl Vertue says. "We said, 'Try to think of an idea for a series,' and he came in one day and laid a piece of paper on the desk with a word on it, 'Coupling,' and then went off.
"We said, 'What does that mean?' He was intrigued by, as indeed so was I, by how friendly they still were with the exes.
"At their wedding, it was full of exes," she recalls. "They're all still great mates. That's true to life, but you can also make a lot of humor out of it, as indeed we are."
Though the American fans of the British version are not exactly legion, they are dedicated and vocal.
"They haven't seen it yet," Harrington says, "but they hate the idea of it. One guy that's like the biggest supporter, he came to the taping Friday night and actually said, 'Let's give it a chance.'
"Honestly, I'm not worried about the things people are saying about Thursday night -- pressure, 'Friends' going off the air. I'm concerned that we live up to the original. It's a good show. I don't want to compromise a good thing."
By the time the taping of the first regular episode comes around, there is still a sizable contingent of producers and network types, but the atmosphere is more genial and relaxed.
"The way it's gone," Harrington says, "with the starting and the stopping and the firing and the hiring, to do the taping and be able to say, 'We get to come back next Friday,' it's so great."
"Lindsay, Jay and I were part of the original one," Ferguson says. "It's just sort of shocking -- it usually all falls apart when something goes wrong. That's a testament to how much they were into it, that they actually persevered."
As the series opens, Steve and Susan have already met (but he doesn't quite remember), and they run into each other in the ladies' room of a bar, where Steve is just about to have sex with Jane, after failing one more time to dump her (she derails his attempts by suggesting sex).
Having just dumped Patrick (who recovers quickly), Susan is free to move on.
"Patrick really fit her sexual appetite," Sofer says. "He was good for that. She enjoyed him as well. He made her laugh, and he was fun to be around, which is why she still hangs around with him. And he's a tripod." That's explained in the second episode, by the way.
Sofer continues, "Susan is just one of those women who is incredibly confident, smart, successful, sexual and isn't afraid of being all those things, is very comfortable in her skin and is getting into a relationship with a man who she is really ready to let her guard down with and get involved with, and see where it leads on an honest level."
So, despite an unpromising first meeting, things do progress. "The first time I meet her," Harrington says, "she tells me she was planning to hit on me and ask me out. Anytime a girl says that, it's flattering and exciting. She's attractive, and she came after him, right at a time when he was ready."
Since the number of episodes in the entire run of the British version would barely make one season of an American series, at some point the two shows are bound to diverge and go their separate ways.
That suits Sofer fine. "You see us all take these maps that these incredible British actors gave us for these characters, and we will dig our own paths and find our own way through the mountains. We might find different routes."
Sutton thinks Moffat already has given the American "Coupling" a leg up. "Just the way the stories are told and the universality of the characters and their attitudes, it didn't feel like it was a real stretch to move it."
