Him and Her in a Bottle

While watching this week’s episode of Him and Her, I couldn’t help but constantly be reminded of a Friends episode entitled “The One Where No One’s Ready”. That episode took place in real time, solely in Monica and Rachel’s apartment, and Ross struggled to get everyone ready and out the door. This “bottle episode”, like others on American TV series, exist due to plans to save money and production time. They require clever writing, events contained to a singular area with problems conceivable yet entertaining within that area. Him and Her seems to be a “bottle series”.

We know that UK television production works differently than US television, with a more constrained budget and less writers. A smaller enterprise, these series only last as long as the creator deems necessary, striving to never get predictable or drawn-out. Him and Her epitomizes that, taking familiar circumstances and making them endearing through the vision of a single writer. By having every episode in the same space, it requires out-of-the-box thinking to broadcast something new and enticing (It’s a fun sort of irony knowing that two characters stuck in an apartment get all their inspiration and purpose from a man equally trapped in his own workspace…all the responsibility of the world on his sequestered shoulders.) The level of reflexivity within in the show adds a certain spark as well, including lingering shots on negative space, confirming what we already know: the characters will always return back to this playing space. What changes is how they choose to use it.