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BOY MEETS GIRL |
Veronica - Rachael Stirling Danny - Martin Freeman Jay - Paterson Joseph Fiona - Angela Griffin Pete - Marshall Lancaster 
OFFICIAL SITE ITV.com 
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Episode 1 - First transmitted 1st May 2009Danny is a bit of a loser. He works at a DIY store, lives in a pig sty flat on a diet of coke and breakfast cereal, believes in UFOs and owes some money to some gangsters. As a result, he ends up having to pull a robbery in the middle of rainstorm. He comes face to face with Veronica, a successful fashion journalist whose car has run out of petrol. When lightning strikes, Danny wakes up in Veronica's body. Understandably confused, he fails to deal with Veronica's boyfriend Jay, high heels and bras, but does discover the joy of vibrators. Veronica, on the other hand, suffers amnesia and is left wandering the streets not knowing who she is. The idea of the bodyswap is familiar from the likes of BIG, FREAKY FRIDAY, ALL OF ME and a dozen other movies not to mention countless tv show episodes where regulars swap bodies with others. Most of these are played for laughs, for the fun of what someone could get up to in the body of someone else. BOY MEETS GIRL is different. For one thing, it's not a comedy, though you might be easily misled into thinking that it was by the presence of Martin Freeman as the headliner. He's better known for his comic everyman roles and he's another everyman here, though not such a pleasant one. That's not such a problem, though, as he doesn't actually appear all that much in this episode. This opening hour is all about the character of Veronica, or rather Danny in Veronica's body. That means that the focus is on Rachael Stirling and she does a fine job of conveying the idea of a man trying to come to terms with a woman's body. Her walk, the way she holds herself, her general comportment are all indicative of the man inside and she impresses as the trapped Danny. Unfortunately, not a lot else impresses. The usual dilemmas (high heels, the boyfriend's advances, discovering sex female style) are all pretty much par for the course and then they are overlaid with a running internal commentary from Danny, just in case anyone was in any doubt as to who was inside the girl at the time. Since neither Danny nor Veronica appear to have been that great as people before the accident it's pretty hard to care about them afterwards. The travails of Danny/Veronica as he/she tries to deal with the situation he/she finds him/herself in aren't very dramatic and certainly aren't very funny either. It's the opening episode and Martin Freeman's not been on screen much so there is the potential for this to perk up in later episodes, but this isn't off to a great start. Written by David Allison Directed by Alrick Riley Top Episode 2 - First transmitted 8th May 2009Danny is still trying to come to terms with Veronica's life. He is completely unable to make her job as a fashion journalist his own, his failure taking him to the point of getting her fired. His only chance is to come up with a fantastic article after attending a fashion show. The interest of a fashion journalist in a missing person draws the interest of the police whilst that missing person, Veronica in Danny's body, is still walking the streets, finally gathering the courage to face Jay and tell him the truth. This second episode is an improvement on the first, but it is still struggling from an identity crisis not unlike its characters. It really doesn't know whether it wants to be a drama or a comedy, but this time around it errs much more towards the drama and is more consistent as a result. Unfortunately, most of the people in the show are not particularly likeable and so it's really hard to care what happens to them. The main plot is also not advancing very far as Danny/Veronica spends a lot of time getting nowhere in finding Veronica/Danny and she/he is just wandering around looking lost before finally doing the obvious thing. Rachael Stirling's performance as Danny/Veronica is still impressive, really conveying what's going on inside and that makes the sparse voiceover all the more unnecessary. Written by David Allison Directed by Alrick Riley Top Episode 3 - First transmitted 15th May 2009Danny is still locked in Veronica's body, but he has determined the only way to deal with it is to challenge everyone to deal with the truth. Unfortunately, that tactic gets him put straight into an asylum where they want to slap electrodes to Veronica's head. Veronica, trapped in Danny's body is put in the same asylum, but manages to escape. Desperate to avoid the electrodes, Danny pretends to be cured of his 'delusions' and tries to take on Veronica's life and finds that there are some fringe benefits. Just when you think that the narrative is going to go somewhere with Danny and Veronica both in the same mental institution, Veronica escapes and everything is back to square one. Sure, Danny's second attempt at living as a woman is more effective, but it really is just running over the same ground all over again. Rachael Stirling continues to impress as Danny stuck in Veronica's body whilst Martin Freeman continues to barely appear in the show. The show is rambling around and getting nowhere, going back over old ground and perhaps is showing that it could have been much better if it was half the length. Written by David Allison Directed by Alrick Riley Top Episode 4 - First transmitted 22nd May 2009Danny takes Veronica's body into a lesbian relationship with the girl that he fancied at the DIY store where he worked. He finally gets his mate to understand what has happened and he finally meets his own body, being driven by Veronica. She is keen to re-enact the accident that caused their body swap, something that he considers to be suicidal. After two weeks of circular ramblings that went nowhere, the show finally tries to get everything sorted out in a last hour that is just too short. At the start, Danny and Veronica still haven't managed to meet, but by the end there's been a lesbian love affair, an engagement party destroyed, an eviction, a robbery, another relationship breakup and a trek to the site of the accident, after which it all just sort of...stops. Had the contents of the last two weeks been cut in half and the contents of this episode spread out to fill the space left then the show would have been all the better for it. Everything is rushed through (with the exception of the break up over dinner scene), nothing is properly resolved and the whole experience is just unsatisfying. Martin Freeman gets more screen time and the show is better for it because his impression of a woman in a man's body is as good as Rachael Stirling's impression of a man in a woman's. Every single supporting character is wasted and with the exception of Veronica's boyfriend Jay we want to see more of them. BOY MEETS GIRL had the potential and the cast to be so much better than the final product and that's a shame. Written by David Allison Directed by Alrick Riley Top |
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