Dates (TV Series)

''Dates'' is a British television romantic drama series created by Bryan Elsley, who also created '' Skins'', which first aired on Channel 4 on 10 June 2013, at 22:00 ( BST), as part of its "Mating Season" programming, illustrating a series of first dates between online dating service users. The show's target audience is "ABC1".

Plot

Set in London, each episode focuses on one date.

Production

Creator Bryan Elsley conceived the idea of ''Dates'' between December 2011 and January 2012, stating "a date is a very complex and grown up interaction between two people. It's a complex language that everyone understands. Everyone knows the difficulty of spending an hour or so in someone's company that you haven't met before. It seemed to be that there was an almost infinite range of possibilities that could flow from that. So dramatically it became very attractive". ''Dates'' was commissioned and approved by Channel 4 in September 2012.

''Dates'' was filmed in London during the first quarter of 2013.

Cast

* Will Mellor as David
* Oona Chaplin as Mia ("Celeste")
* Sheridan Smith as Jenny
*Neil Maskell as Nick
* Ben Chaplin as Stephen
* Katie McGrath as Kate
* Gemma Chan as Erica
* Montanna Thompson as Ellie
* Greg McHugh as Callum
* Sian Breckin as Heidi
* Andrew Scott as Christian
*Jamie Di Spirito as Jason

''Dates'' features numerous up-and-coming and more established British and Irish actors and actresses.

To promote the series and to provide further background knowledge, Channel 4 has created a series of fake online dating profiles for each of the main characters.

Episodes

Reception

''Dates'' has been critically well received thus far. Tom Sutcliffe from ''The Independent'' wrote, "the writer who wants to leave an impression behind will always be tugged towards a gratifying finish. Credit due to Bryan Elsley, then, for ending the first of Dates, a series of dramas about modern relationships, with an ambiguity".

Of the first episode, Gerard O'Donovan of ''The Telegraph'' wrote, "It was enjoyable, I didn't just want more, I couldn't wait to see how successive episodes would link and weave into a format so unforgivingly dependent on great writing and acting. Suffice to say, in a game of snog, marry or avoid, ''Dates'' is definitely a keeper".

Lucy Mangan of ''The Guardian'' called the first episode "a little nugget of bliss" and commended the show for its realism and its "beauty" in its screenplay and acting.

Paul Naylor of '' Express & Star'' deemed that the execution of the first episode was "classy".

Of the first three episodes, ''The Scotsman'' wrote, "Elsley is attempting to say something meaningful about the guises we adopt at our most vulnerable and desperate. It's an unedifying portrait of human nature at somewhere near its worst: a cynical blast of rotten candour. Whether Elsley and his fellow writers actually like their characters is a moot point, but I can't deny the voyeuristic impact of these superbly performed chamber pieces".

Writing for ''The Spectator'', Clarissa Tan said that the show's "smartness gets wearying after a while". She criticised episode four on the basis that a lesbian coming out narrative "is quite thin as plots go, but not as thin as the sheets that she and her new lover Kate are under for most of the show". Tan concluded that the characters are "tropes rather than people", "a congregation of characteristic, a multitude of attitudes".

International broadcast

In Australia, the series premiered on 16 February 2015 on BBC First and was watched by 21,000 viewers.

U.S. Ratings

The CW aired nine episodes of the show in 2015.

Season 1

Spin-offs and adaptations

Entertainment One and Bryan Elsley have partnered to release a companion e-book to the television series.

In 2015 ''Cites'', a Catalan-language adaptation was first broadcast by TV3. Like its British predecessor, it follows encounters between couples who meet through an online dating app. However, the 45-minute episodes feature two separate dates, distinguishing it from ''Dates'', which focuses on a single couple per episode. With the exception of three episodes, the scripts in ''Cites'' are original. A second season aired in 2016.

In October 2022, Prime Video, in collaboration with TV3, announced a third season under the title ''Cites Barcelona'', which was released in June 2023 with six episodes. Series creator Pau Freixas returned as executive producer and director. A fourth season was confirmed in March 2024.

References

External links

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{{The CW programming

2010s British drama television series
2013 British television series debuts
2013 British television series endings
2010s British LGBTQ-related drama television series
Lesbian-related television shows
Television shows set in London
Television shows shot in London
Channel 4 television dramas