As recounted in flashback, Debbie had discovered William, who has Parkinson\u2019s disease, not breathing and unresponsive. Before he popped back to life \u2014 he had accidentally overdosed on his Parkinson\u2019s medication, from a combination of forgetfulness and poor thinking \u2014 he had been declared dead by a neurotic doctor in hazmat gear. (There\u2019s a reason \u2014 goofy, but a reason.) An inattentive mortician, under the impression that a different corpse is William, inadvertently provides a body; mentioning insurance, he plants an idea in Debbie\u2019s mind \u2014 that it might be profitable, which is not say practical, to leave William deceased in the eyes of the world. \u201cWho are we to argue with the NHS?\u201d she asks. To William, who rarely goes out anyway and is something of a cipher in the community, she notes, \u201cThe wonderful thing about you is that you might as well have been dead for the past 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Things will get more complicated, of course. Harry will fret over whether to tell his wife, Neha (Mandip Gill), a police officer, that his father is alive. (Debbie is against it, for Neha\u2019s sake.) William, who is addicted to sugar, will sneak out in search of the snacks Debbie denies him. And they\u2019ll learn that their secret is not completely secure when blackmail notes begin to arrive \u2014 at which point the series becomes a mystery.<\/p>\n
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Neha (Mandip Gill), left, Debbie\u2019s (Dawn French) daughter-in-law, is in the dark about William.<\/p>\n
(Alistair Heap\/Big Talk Studios\/BBC\/Paramount+)<\/p>\n
The humor can be low (not a criticism); pop-cultural references, of which there are many, may not necessarily make sense to an American viewer. There isn\u2019t much in the way of jokes, in the setup and punchline sense, but genuinely funny things are happening all the time. Each character seems to understand the others dimly, as through a language barrier; each vibrates at their own frequency. Conversations are built on disagreement; distractable brains flit from one thought to a barely related other. Arguing over the name of a great train robber, in the midst of more serious business, Debbie and William slide into what amounts to an Abbott and Costello routine<\/a>. They will go in circles over what day the trash bins go out, and what day it is at the moment.<\/p>\n British humor has its own flavor, naturally, born from that nation\u2019s particular history, culture, class, weather, cuisine (if you can call it that, ha ha), and it\u2019s one of which I\u2019ve been enamored with, at least since Monty Python albums first fell into my hands. Generally speaking, it\u2019s more angular, more acid, more morbid, more willing to let a protagonist stew in misery, more suspicious of sentiment than our comparatively genial homegrown brand. (Yes, there are exceptions.) You can measure it in the temperamental difference between the original \u201cGhosts\u201d and the CBS remake<\/a>, or in the British and American versions of \u201cThe Office,\u201d or of \u201cDoc Martin\u201d<\/a> and its recent translation here as \u201cBest Medicine.\u201d<\/a> (Even the new title tells you something about that difference.) \u201cThe Black Adder,\u201d \u201cBlack Books,\u201d \u201cBrass Eye,\u201d each of Steve Coogan\u2019s Alan Partridge<\/a> series, \u201cHuman Remains\u201d (Rob Brydon and Julia Davis as different unhappy couples), David Mitchell\u2019s \u201cUpstart Crow\u201d and \u201cLudwig\u201d<\/a> \u2014 I list these series by way of recommendation and as a hello to any fellow fans reading this.<\/p>\n Though he doesn\u2019t go in for mush, Mayhew-Archer does at least provide a sort of rationale for the fraud: medical insurance declined to cover William\u2019s Parkinson\u2019s drugs. \u201cWe paid our taxes, we paid our bills,\u201d says Debbie. \u201cWe haven\u2019t been arrested \u2026 much.\u201d They are \u201csimply taking back what we paid in.\u201d (\u201cPlus a little bit more,\u201d Harry points out.) The Fendons are not living large, and Debbie\u2019s instincts are basically charitable. And there are some incidentally poignant scenes surrounding William\u2019s condition, though \u2014 Mayhew-Archer\u2019s father, Paul Mayhew-Archer, who co-wrote French\u2019s popular sitcom \u201cThe Vicar of Dibley,\u201d has lived with Parkinson\u2019s for 15 years (and does stand-up about it).<\/p>\n The four principal characters are perfectly balanced, but above all, it\u2019s the players who make the magic. Roberts (seen here, playing American, in \u201cRed Oaks\u201d and as an agoraphobic insomniac journalist in the lovely import \u201cStill Up\u201d), is the bundle of nerves through which the others intersect. As the relatively sensible one, Gill, a constant companion to Jodie Whittaker\u2019s Thirteenth Doctor<\/a>, as in \u201cWho,\u201d is wonderful being astounded or upright. And Heap, who played Noel Fielding\u2019s father in last year\u2019s \u201cThe Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin,\u201d<\/a> is quietly hilarious as a tall, muddled old man-child, pranking his son by pretending to be dead (again), munching on food he\u2019s found while hiding in the pantry (\u201cBacon puff, anyone? \u2026 They\u2019re pre-9\/11, but still up to snuff\u201d) and playing a fictional German relation, in Lederhosen and a fake mustache, in order to see his grandchildren.<\/p>\n