Editing Coupling (British TV series) (section)

===Main characters===
''Coupling'' is almost entirely based around the antics of the six main characters. The show was inspired by Moffat's relationship with producer Sue Vertue, to the extent that they gave their names to two of the characters. ''Coupling'' features no other recurring characters that last beyond a few episodes. In the series, "the women are mainly confident and sexually quite voracious, whilst the blokes are completely useless, riddled with self-doubt and awkwardness."<ref name="bbc-jack">{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/coupling/cast/jack_davenport.shtml |publisher=BBC |title=Coupling - Jack Davenport |access-date=9 August 2010}}</ref>
[[File:Jack Davenport 1.JPG|thumb|right|[[Jack Davenport]] played Steve Taylor.]]
'''Steve Taylor''' ([[Jack Davenport]]) — He is in the lengthy process of breaking off his relationship with Jane as the series begins, while also trying to ask Susan out.<ref name="s1e1">{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/coupling/episodes/s1ep1.shtml |title=BBC - Coupling - Flushed Episode Guide |publisher=BBC |access-date=21 December 2008}}</ref> The remainder of the series shows the development of a relationship with Susan, from dating, proposal of marriage, and as the last series concludes, becoming father to her baby.<ref name="s4e6">{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/coupling/episodes/s4ep6.shtml |title=BBC - Coupling - Nine and a Half Months Episode Guide |publisher=BBC |access-date=21 December 2012}}</ref> No reference is made to Steve's job during the series, but in a DVD commentary, Moffat mentions that Steve is, like him, a writer.
Moffat had used the surname "Taylor" for [[Robert Bathurst]]'s character in his earlier sitcom ''Joking Apart''.

According to the BBC's website, Steve "tries to be the voice of reason while talking to his mates over a pint, but more often than not he stumbles into more complex and ridiculous situations than any of them."<ref name="bbc-jack"/> Writer Moffat says that:

<blockquote>"Steve can be just as erratic as Jeff can be, and certainly in the first part of the series, he remonstrates with Jeff for his madness. At the same time he tells Patrick off for being ruthless with women, and yet the evidence shows that Steve himself is a bit of a bastard. For example he asks Susan out on a date while he's having sex with Jane. He is quite typical of having all the same lusts and appetites as Patrick while also having the nervousness of Jeff and the new character Oliver. He forms a compromise of a politically correct weasel, which helps him to believe that he's a decent chap. Actually he's really too frightened of Susan to misbehave!"<ref name="bbc-jack"/></blockquote>

'''Susan Walker''' ([[Sarah Alexander]]) — Best friend to Sally, girlfriend/fiancée to Steve and ex-girlfriend of Patrick, Susan is one of Jeff's colleagues. Susan is usually very sensible and organised, a fact often resented by her friends Sally and Jane. Susan can be very insecure and often takes this out on Steve. When angry, she generally says "apparently", a habit first noted in the first series episode "Inferno" and shown to be inherited from her mother in "My Dinner in Hell". In the series one episode "[[List of Coupling episodes|Size Matters]]", Susan is implied to view [[Angus Deayton]] in the same way that Steve views [[Mariella Frostrup]], even keeping two pictures of him hidden in her bedroom. Steve and Susan's various arguments and differences of opinion make up a majority of the comic exchanges between them. Susan is a successful career woman, speaks French fluently, and takes her work life very seriously. Whilst Susan's job is never directly referred to, she works alongside Jeff, an accountant, and she reveals she has a degree in economics. In series four, she has a baby boy with Steve.

'''Jeff Murdock''' ([[Richard Coyle]]) — Best friend to Steve, he is a co-worker to Susan, whom he previously dated. Jeff's constant sexual frustration, ridiculous stories, and fantasies about women and sex make up a major part of the comedy. Scholar Jeffrey Griffin observes, "Jeff is known for his bizarre theories, one or two of which he outlines in every episode [... serving as] the defining element of an episode, with the plot unfolding in some way that tests one of Jeff’s theories."<ref>{{harvnb|Griffin|2008|p=54}}</ref>

Jeff is terrible at talking to women, often stumbling and unintentionally making up lie upon lie in an attempt to avoid looking stupid. These always backfire on him.  In one instance, he ended up asking Sally's surgeon boyfriend (actually a [[butcher]]) to amputate one of his legs, after spiralling into telling an attractive woman who he met on a train, that he only has one leg, so that she (now attracted to him) doesn't discover he was lying about the leg to get out of an awkward conversation, when she finally sees him naked. From titbits he occasionally lets slip, his problems apparently can largely be traced back to his eccentric and domineering mother, (who appears in series two's "Naked", played by Anwen Williams). Jeff works as an accountant in an office with Susan, and through him, Steve and Susan initially meet. Coyle quit his role as Jeff before the fourth series.<ref>{{cite web
|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/coupling/news/
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050706024251/http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/news/20031114.shtml |archive-date=6 July 2005 |date=14 November 2003 |work=BBC - Comedy - News |title=Jeff Becomes Uncoupled}}</ref> However, his character returns in a dream sequence in Steve's over-active imagination in the final episode, "Nine and a Half Months" — portrayed by [[Samantha Spiro]] — as "Jeffina" who has undergone sex-reassignment surgery whilst living on the island of [[Lesbos Island|Lesbos]], in a failed attempt to see another woman naked again. Jeff is also featured in the written epilogue published by Moffat online for the show.

'''Sally Harper''' ([[Kate Isitt]]) — Best friend of Susan (and the girlfriend of Patrick by series four), Sally is obsessed with her own appearance and constantly worries about the effects of ageing and life in general on her looks, with particular emphasis made of the tautness of her skin under chin and her supposedly ever-expanding buttocks. Her worst fear seems to be of dying alone, but she seems totally inept at relationships due to her frequent paranoia, which tends to make her out as a very mean-spirited woman. Sally runs her own [[beauty parlour]] and is a successful businesswoman, but of the entire group, she is the most insecure and resentful. A [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] supporter, she finds reconciling this with her attraction to Patrick, a [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]], to be very difficult.

'''Patrick Maitland''' ([[Ben Miles]]) — Susan 's boyfriend she dumps in at the same time Steve is dumping Jane in the first episode, who goes on to be Sally's boyfriend by series four. Patrick has a one-track mind: sex. This gives him a very narrow view of women, but he is great at courting them. He cannot comprehend meeting a woman and not having sex with her and he  is very good at getting women to bed, but generally leaves them in the middle of the night. Frequent references are made to his rather large penis — Susan nicknames him both "donkey" and "tripod". In one episode, unknown to him, a woman from his past made a [[Vibrator (sex toy)|vibrator]] from a plaster cast of Patrick's erect penis and marketed as the Junior Patrick; the box clearly has a 10-inch measurement on the side when seen later in the episode. Knowing he is well-endowed sparks much of Sally's initial interest in him despite her objections to his political beliefs — Patrick is a [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]], which radically conflicts with Sally's left-wing attitudes.<ref>These attitudes are overtly explored in "Size Matters", Series 1, Episode 2</ref> 

Patrick is a successful businessman and is very competitive with others in the same business, but he does have a vague sense of loyalty to his friends. Patrick has a habit of saying things without thinking that give the impression that he is rather dense. Two explanations for this given in the series are his own claim that he "doesn't have a subconscious" and thus "nothing is going on" in his head and Sally's remark that there is not enough blood in his body for "both ends", (making reference to his abnormally large penis). Patrick's attraction to women often backfires, and the series frequently features story lines about his possessive lovers and ex-lovers. He collects videos of nights with his girlfriends in his rather large "cupboard of love" that becomes the topic and title of the last episode of the first series. In the last episode, Sally finds an engagement ring in this cupboard that results in a big row, which presses Patrick into proposing, but her answer is left unknown.

'''Jane Christie''' ([[Gina Bellman]]) — Ex-long-time partner of Steve, Jane is a [[histrionic personality disorder|histrionic]] who is very possessive, and despite breaking up with Steve in the first episode, she never truly seems to let go. Jane is the female equivalent of Patrick, but has a problem talking to men, often coming on much too strong and appearing desperate or rude to others in her pursuit of a man. Her character also seems not to be too bright, perhaps even disturbed, and is known to be incredibly self-obsessed, as shown in a second series episode when a "subtext detector" shows that the only thing she ever really means when talking is the word "me". Jane's self-obsession and obliviousness to others' considerations ends up with her managing  to manipulate her pyscho-therapist, Jill, into going to dinner with her, even Jill has stopped seeing Jane as she can see that she is not changing her behaviour. In the fourth series, everyone starts referring to her as being "mad". 

Jane claims to be [[bisexual]], although she is never seen dating a woman. Susan time and again expresses scepticism, so this claim may be a ploy to entice men. However, Susan (for her own reasons) [[French kiss]]es Jane in the fourth series and Jane seems to be overwhelmed but enjoys it. However, her claim is also successfully challenged by Oliver Morris in the fourth series, where he points out that she is indeed not bisexual. 

Jane works at a local [[radio station]] as a [[traffic reporter]] in a helicopter and is popular mainly due to her flirtatious nature and sexually explicit reports. She was once briefly fired for telling all the drivers to close their eyes to centre themselves and changing the names of streets for her own amusement, among other things, but was rehired due to her popularity.

'''Oliver Morris''' ([[Richard Mylan]]) — Introduced at the start of the fourth series, having been out of a relationship for several months, and eventually becomes involved with Jane. In a case of mistaken identity, he is initially believed to be a gynaecologist, but in fact runs a local [[science-fiction]] media store called "Hellmouths" instead. The geekiness of his job is also used for comic effect. Oliver often has a very cynical outlook, but is prone to accidents, often making a fool of himself in the process. He is sometimes shown gearing himself up to meet women and have sex by thinking to himself, which the audience can hear. Oliver also seems to have inherited Jeff's inability to talk to women, however, unlike Jeff, he believes himself to be a ladies' man, or in his thoughts' words "a woman-killer, I mean lady-killer...". Oliver has a tendency to use the word "craziness" frequently in conversations, usually as an attempt to alleviate tension when he starts blabbering. Richard Mylan has said in interview that people took a long time to accept his character due to Jeff's popularity.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/coupling/interviews/richard_mylan_video_2.shtml |publisher=BBC |title=Coupling - Richard Mylan interview 2}}</ref>