Him, Her & I

They say all good things come to an end. I don't know who 'they' are, but I didn't fully grasp the magnitude of their message until very recently. 

When I was aged 14, I watched the last ever episode of Friends as it aired on television. I was too young to grasp the enormity of what was happening, but at the time I also had enough going on to distract me from the pain (emerging boobs, spots, Shout magazine). 

But last night I watched as the very last episode of Him & Her unfolded on BBC3, and I'm afraid I haven't been so lucky this time. Almost 24 hours have passed since, but I just cannot accept that such a good thing has gone forever. The writer behind the programme, Stefan Golaszewski, proves that a script can be everything to a programme. 

Stefan - you’re good. You’re very good. Not only have you entertained us with your writing, but with such talent comes the capacity to make people feel like you’ve ripped their heart out when you take it away.

Deep within the human condition there lies a desire for the things we love to last forever, which leads to disappointment. I fully accept that this is the case and I don't care if it leaves me unhappy - Him & Her must go on forever.

In a world of Bad Education and, well, pretty much anything else involving Jack Whitehall, we need hope. Not only do I need more Him & Her for entertainment purposes, but because watching it reminds me I have someone to aspire to.  

Television has a tendency to rely on deaths, untimely births and anything else that will catch our dwindling attention spans. Stefan, however, has mastered small, subtle, and understated. Because of the nature of the programme, it feels like there's so much more to the characters that we haven't seen. Watching an episode of Him & Her is like eating one Malteaser. It's not enough - not by a long way - but it exists in such a perfect form that you accept its taunting ways.

Every episode was a gentle relief from gaudy chat shows, over-dramatic soaps and convoluted dramas. It effortlessly depicted the beauty of typical human behaviour and showed the impact of a well-written script. It was an antithesis to every programme on TV that insidiously caters for our attention spans. 

The last episode was predictably unpredictable - there was no big conclusion, nor was everything happy. But in one scene I almost burst into tears just because of a look between two characters. Where else has a writer achieved that? (If you've seen the episode, I'm referring to the scene with Laura and Becky in the toilets.)

Never before have I watched something so quietly astounding, delightfully slow-paced and confidently non-conforming. Stefan, I implore you to write another series. And then another. And never stop. Just imagine eating one Malteaser, and you'll know what I mean.