Cold Feet (series 4)
Encyclopedia
The fourth series of the British comedy drama television series Cold Feet
was aired on the ITV
network from 18 November to 10 December 2001. Eight episodes were broadcast over four weeks and the final episode was extended to 72 minutes. The plot of the series follows Adam (James Nesbitt
) and Rachel (Helen Baxendale
) trying to have children, the fallout between Karen (Hermione Norris
) and David (Robert Bathurst
) after his affair, and the departure of Jenny (Fay Ripley
). Kimberley Joseph
is introduced as Jo Ellison, the new woman in Pete's (John Thomson) life; their fast-developing romance leads to their marriage in the eighth episode, set in Sydney.
The series went through a series of schedule changes, as ITV attempted to rebrand its weekday output, and episodes were broadcast on two consecutive nights of the week. The final episode won Cold Feet the BAFTA for Best Drama Series
.
and auditioned former Home & Away actress Kimberley Joseph, who was looking for work in America. Campbell soon hired her as Jo Ellison. Bullen had originally planned for Jo to be a "big fat truck-driving lesbian type", but the character was toned down when he met Joseph. Victoria Smurfit reprised her role as Jane Fitzpatrick for two episodes, while Sean Pertwee joined the series in the recurring role of Mark Cubbit for the last four episodes. Baxendale did not appear in the sixth episode, filmed in July and August; she took time off filming during the late stage of her pregnancy. Rachel's absence was explained away by having her visiting Jenny in New York.
Despite it being established in the third series that Rachel was unable to conceive a child because of her abortion, Helen Baxendale's pregnancy meant a "twist" was needed in the plot, and the apparently miraculous conception was worked into the storyline. Initially, the pregnancy was to be revealed in the sixth episode, but when Baxendale began showing early, the plot was moved forward by two episodes. Bullen wrote a scene showing the social worker crying after turning down Adam and Rachel's adoption application to show a positive portrayal of the profession, against what appeared in media at the time. While taking advantage of the location for filming, the eighth episode was written as a normal episode "about [the] characters who happened to be in Australia". The breakup of the Giffords' and Marsdens' marriages allowed Bullen to combine different characters in scenes who aren't often seen together, in particular the third episode, which saw Pete and Karen clubbing together. By this series Bullen was writing the characters as more like the actors who played them, compared to basing them on his friends as he did when Cold Feet began.
Filming was scheduled between April and October 2001, though did not begin until late May. Spencer Campbell produced episodes 1–3 and 7–8 and Emma Benson, a script supervisor on previous series, produced the other four. Between the third and fourth series, Bullen and Harries did a speaking tour in the Far East and Australia, where they decided to work a trip to Sydney into the storyline for no reason other than it was "a nice place to go". The main cast, Pertwee and a skeleton production crew were flown out to Sydney to film on location, filming for 18 days in Sydney in October 2001. A local film crew was hired as flying the regular production crew to Australia would have been prohibitively expensive. A stunt team co-ordinated the fight scene between Mark and David, but could not convincingly choreograph a headbutt between Mark and David. Pertwee, already experienced in stunt fighting, and the stunt coordinator agreed Pertwee would get a better reaction from Bathurst by almost hitting him straight on his face, instead of "hitting air". Bad scheduling meant the time for filming in Manchester ran out, so scenes depicting the characters at Manchester Airport were shot in Sydney. Banners promoting the 2002 Commonwealth Games
were hung up for authenticity. Scenes featuring Rachel's hotel room were shot at the Lowry Hotel
in Salford, while the exteriors used the GMEX Centre.
to Sunday nights, ITV's director of channels David Liddiment moved the series from Sunday to Monday, replacing it with two "upmarket" dramas. Shortly before the first episode was broadcast, it was rescheduled to both Sunday and Monday nights to compete with a BBC costume drama and Dalziel and Pascoe
.
adaptation of The Way We Live Now
. Episodes shown on Monday had lower ratings than the Sunday episodes, averaging only 6.9 million, due to the scheduling of the game show Shafted
as a lead-in. ITV moved Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
to Shafted' s timeslot and Cold Feet' s ratings picked up, with the eighth episode getting 8.5 million and a 37% share. The fifth episode was the series highest rated episode, with final ratings of 9.87 million, making it the 13th most-watched drama of the year.
Comparing the series to The Way We Live Now, Andrew Billen wrote in the Evening Standard
that Cold Feet was "the real way we live now", citing the emotional relationships in the series as examples of real-life behaviour. Despite this, the series was regarded as not on par with previous ones; Billen wrote in New Statesman
that the series was "running on half a tank" and James Nesbitt said it "wasn't great".
The series was awarded the BAFTA for Best Drama Series
for the wedding episode and Most Popular Comedy Programme at the National Television Awards
. The scene in which Pete meets Rod for the first time was voted "Best Dramatic Moment" at the BBC's annual "TV Moments" ceremony in 2002.
on 5 September 2002, with episodes 1–6 and 8 receiving a 12 rating and episode 7 a 15. Cold Feet: The Complete 4th Series was released on region 2 DVD by VCI on 25 November 2002. and was re-released in new packaging by Granada Media on 20 March 2006. A DVD of the eighth episode was made available in 2003 in a joint promotional venture between the Sunday Mirror
and Woolworths
.
Cold Feet
Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the...
was aired on the ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
network from 18 November to 10 December 2001. Eight episodes were broadcast over four weeks and the final episode was extended to 72 minutes. The plot of the series follows Adam (James Nesbitt
James Nesbitt
James Nesbitt is a Northern Irish actor. Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Nesbitt grew up in the nearby village of Broughshane, before moving to Coleraine, County Londonderry. He wanted to become a teacher like his father, so he began a degree in French at the University of Ulster...
) and Rachel (Helen Baxendale
Helen Baxendale
Helen Victoria Baxendale is an English actress of stage and television, possibly best-known for her roles in Cold Feet, Friends and Cardiac Arrest.-Early life:...
) trying to have children, the fallout between Karen (Hermione Norris
Hermione Norris
Hermione Norris is an English actress.Norris attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in the 1980s before taking small roles in theatre and on television. In 1996, she was cast in her breakout role of Karen Marsden in the comedy drama television series Cold Feet...
) and David (Robert Bathurst
Robert Bathurst
Robert Guy Bathurst is an English actor. Bathurst was born in the Gold Coast in 1957, where his father was working as a management consultant. His family moved to Dublin, Ireland, in 1959 and Bathurst was enrolled at an Anglican boarding school...
) after his affair, and the departure of Jenny (Fay Ripley
Fay Ripley
Fay Ripley is an English actress and recipe author. Born in Wimbledon, London, Ripley is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama . Her first professional role was in the chorus of a pantomime version of Around the World in 80 Days...
). Kimberley Joseph
Kimberley Joseph
Kimberley Joseph is a Canadian-Australian actress who is based in the United States. Joseph was born in Canada, raised on the Gold Coast in Australia, and educated in Switzerland. After returning to Australia, she began a degree at Bond University but dropped out at the age of 19 when she was cast...
is introduced as Jo Ellison, the new woman in Pete's (John Thomson) life; their fast-developing romance leads to their marriage in the eighth episode, set in Sydney.
The series went through a series of schedule changes, as ITV attempted to rebrand its weekday output, and episodes were broadcast on two consecutive nights of the week. The final episode won Cold Feet the BAFTA for Best Drama Series
British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series
The British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series is one of the major categories of the British Academy Television Awards , the primary awards ceremony of the British television industry...
.
Episodes
| # | Episode | Writer(s) | Director | Original airdate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Production
The final episode of the third series drew 9.1 million viewers, the highest audience figure for the programme. By then the fourth series was already in pre-production, and it was decided by the production crew and the cast that the show should end after the fourth to stop it from "going stale". Fay Ripley left Cold Feet during this series, not wishing to spend months away from her home filming the series. She believed Jenny had nowhere left to go in terms of character development, having already given birth to a child and separated from Pete. During the development stage of this series, she encouraged Bullen to write Jenny out by severely maiming her, though they both came to the agreement that Jenny would take a job in New York, leaving open the possibility that she could return in the future. To fill Ripley's place in the cast, the producers scouted for a new actress. Spencer Campbell went to Los AngelesLos Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
and auditioned former Home & Away actress Kimberley Joseph, who was looking for work in America. Campbell soon hired her as Jo Ellison. Bullen had originally planned for Jo to be a "big fat truck-driving lesbian type", but the character was toned down when he met Joseph. Victoria Smurfit reprised her role as Jane Fitzpatrick for two episodes, while Sean Pertwee joined the series in the recurring role of Mark Cubbit for the last four episodes. Baxendale did not appear in the sixth episode, filmed in July and August; she took time off filming during the late stage of her pregnancy. Rachel's absence was explained away by having her visiting Jenny in New York.
Despite it being established in the third series that Rachel was unable to conceive a child because of her abortion, Helen Baxendale's pregnancy meant a "twist" was needed in the plot, and the apparently miraculous conception was worked into the storyline. Initially, the pregnancy was to be revealed in the sixth episode, but when Baxendale began showing early, the plot was moved forward by two episodes. Bullen wrote a scene showing the social worker crying after turning down Adam and Rachel's adoption application to show a positive portrayal of the profession, against what appeared in media at the time. While taking advantage of the location for filming, the eighth episode was written as a normal episode "about [the] characters who happened to be in Australia". The breakup of the Giffords' and Marsdens' marriages allowed Bullen to combine different characters in scenes who aren't often seen together, in particular the third episode, which saw Pete and Karen clubbing together. By this series Bullen was writing the characters as more like the actors who played them, compared to basing them on his friends as he did when Cold Feet began.
Filming was scheduled between April and October 2001, though did not begin until late May. Spencer Campbell produced episodes 1–3 and 7–8 and Emma Benson, a script supervisor on previous series, produced the other four. Between the third and fourth series, Bullen and Harries did a speaking tour in the Far East and Australia, where they decided to work a trip to Sydney into the storyline for no reason other than it was "a nice place to go". The main cast, Pertwee and a skeleton production crew were flown out to Sydney to film on location, filming for 18 days in Sydney in October 2001. A local film crew was hired as flying the regular production crew to Australia would have been prohibitively expensive. A stunt team co-ordinated the fight scene between Mark and David, but could not convincingly choreograph a headbutt between Mark and David. Pertwee, already experienced in stunt fighting, and the stunt coordinator agreed Pertwee would get a better reaction from Bathurst by almost hitting him straight on his face, instead of "hitting air". Bad scheduling meant the time for filming in Manchester ran out, so scenes depicting the characters at Manchester Airport were shot in Sydney. Banners promoting the 2002 Commonwealth Games
2002 Commonwealth Games
The 2002 Commonwealth Games were held in Manchester, England from 25 July to 4 August 2002. The XVII Commonwealth Games was the largest multi-sport event ever to be held in the UK, eclipsing London's 1948 Summer Olympics in numbers of teams and athletes participating.After the 1996 Manchester...
were hung up for authenticity. Scenes featuring Rachel's hotel room were shot at the Lowry Hotel
Lowry Hotel
The Lowry Hotel is located by the River Irwell in Salford, Greater Manchester, England. Although the five star hotel named after the artist L. S. Lowry is within the boundaries of the City of Salford, it is promoted as "The Lowry Hotel, Manchester"...
in Salford, while the exteriors used the GMEX Centre.
Broadcast
In an effort to draw the ABC1 demographicNRS social grade
The NRS social grades are a system of demographic classification used in the United Kingdom. They were originally developed by the National Readership Survey in order to classify readers, but are now used by many other organisations for wider applications and have become a standard for market...
to Sunday nights, ITV's director of channels David Liddiment moved the series from Sunday to Monday, replacing it with two "upmarket" dramas. Shortly before the first episode was broadcast, it was rescheduled to both Sunday and Monday nights to compete with a BBC costume drama and Dalziel and Pascoe
Dalziel and Pascoe (BBC TV series)
Dalziel and Pascoe is a popular British television crime drama based on the Dalziel and Pascoe books by Reginald Hill, which was first broadcast in March 1996. It is set in Yorkshire, and is about two detectives...
.
Reception
The first episode had 8.9 million viewers, beating a BBC OneBBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
adaptation of The Way We Live Now
The Way We Live Now (2001 TV serial)
The Way We Live Now is a 2001 four-part television adaptation of the novel by Anthony Trollope. The serial was first broadcast on the BBC and was directed by David Yates, written by Andrew Davies and produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark...
. Episodes shown on Monday had lower ratings than the Sunday episodes, averaging only 6.9 million, due to the scheduling of the game show Shafted
Shafted
Shafted was a British quiz show on ITV, presented by Robert Kilroy-Silk, based on game theory.- Format :The quiz begins with six players. In the first round each must declare how much money they would like. This is important as a lot of money is needed to bet on questions during the show...
as a lead-in. ITV moved Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (UK game show)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a British television quiz show which offers a maximum cash prize of one million pounds for correctly answering successive multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty...
to Shafted
Comparing the series to The Way We Live Now, Andrew Billen wrote in the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
that Cold Feet was "the real way we live now", citing the emotional relationships in the series as examples of real-life behaviour. Despite this, the series was regarded as not on par with previous ones; Billen wrote in New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
that the series was "running on half a tank" and James Nesbitt said it "wasn't great".
The series was awarded the BAFTA for Best Drama Series
British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series
The British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series is one of the major categories of the British Academy Television Awards , the primary awards ceremony of the British television industry...
for the wedding episode and Most Popular Comedy Programme at the National Television Awards
National Television Awards
The National Television Awards is a British television awards ceremony, broadcast by the ITV network and initiated in 1995. The National Television Awards are the most prominent ceremony for which the results are voted on by the general public. Because of the way the awards are decided, winners are...
. The scene in which Pete meets Rod for the first time was voted "Best Dramatic Moment" at the BBC's annual "TV Moments" ceremony in 2002.
Home media
The series was rated by the British Board of Film ClassificationBritish Board of Film Classification
The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...
on 5 September 2002, with episodes 1–6 and 8 receiving a 12 rating and episode 7 a 15. Cold Feet: The Complete 4th Series was released on region 2 DVD by VCI on 25 November 2002. and was re-released in new packaging by Granada Media on 20 March 2006. A DVD of the eighth episode was made available in 2003 in a joint promotional venture between the Sunday Mirror
Sunday Mirror
The Sunday Mirror is the Sunday sister paper of the Daily Mirror. It began life in 1915 as the Sunday Pictorial and was renamed the Sunday Mirror in 1963. Trinity Mirror also owns The People...
and Woolworths
Woolworths Group
Woolworths Group plc was a listed British company that owned the high-street retail chain, Woolworths, as well as other brands such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK and book and resource distributor Bertram Books...
.
Further reading
- Smith, Greg M. (2006). "A Case of Cold Feet: Serial Narration and the Character Arc" (subscription access). Journal of British Cinema and Television (Edinburgh University Press) 3 (1): pp. 82–94. doiDigital object identifierA digital object identifier is a character string used to uniquely identify an object such as an electronic document. Metadata about the object is stored in association with the DOI name and this metadata may include a location, such as a URL, where the object can be found...
:10.3366/JBCTV.2006.3.1.82. - Staff (23 May 2001). "'Cold Feet' shoots in Oz". Encore Magazine (RBI Australia).