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Lee starts a job writing jokes for Christmas crackers. He is lodging in publisher Kate's (Megan Dodds) Docklands flat. She is the ex-girlfriend of his best friend Tim Adams (Tim Vine). Kate arranges a dinner date between Lee and author Lucy Moss with the intent to find his serious side, which fails. Whilst Lee is out with Lucy, Tim comes to the flat to apologise to Kate for cheating on her with 23-year-old Emma, but they end up insulting each other. Lee stops seeing Lucy when she overhears him insulting her. He is sacked from his job when one of his funeral jokes is accidentally put in a cracker. Kate starts a course to learn clowning skills, but struggles to find her "inner clown". She is expelled for throwing water over the instructor and sticking a custard pie down her trousers.

Tim's 94-year-old grandmother has died, and as Kate comforts him, the two grow closer. She and Lee accompany him to the funeral. Meanwhile, Lee is encouraged by Kate to visit a therapist (Lorelei King), who quickly begins to suspect that Lee is secretly in love with Kate, and suggests that he talk to her about it. Lee turns up unexpectedly at the funeral with the intention of telling Kate how he feels, but Tim interrupts before he can. Whilst Lee is getting drinks, Tim tries to rekindle his relationship with Kate, but she turns him down, saying that she does not want to get back together. Kate then leaves, and Tim suggests that Lee goes after her, but Lee instead decides to stay at the funeral with Tim. That evening, Kate asks Lee what he was going to tell her, but he says that it can wait.

Ruth, an Australian friend of Kate's, comes to stay. Kate persuades Lee to pretend to be Tim and explains that Ruth has never met Tim and that she has not told Ruth that they have split up. At the pub, Lee argues with Tim about how easy it is to impersonate a middle-class person, like Tim, but Tim finds it harder to the same with a working-class man, like Lee. When Tim visits the flat, he impersonates Lee badly with a strong Northern accent. Tim tells Ruth who he and Lee actually are. Lee's new job is handing out leaflets at a shopping centre whilst dressed in animal costumes. He is frequently kicked by a local youth and later sacked for throwing the youth in a canal.

Kate's friends are attending a wedding in the Caribbean, so their surly 14-year-old goth son Nicky is staying at the flat for a few days. He is hostile to Lee. He takes Nicky to the pub, where they meet Tim. Nicky and Tim share the same taste in heavy metal music. Kate takes her friend's Great Dane to the park, where it kills a swan. Nicky wants Kate and Tim to get back together, but thinks that Lee is attracted to Kate; Lee says that he is not.

Kate is pressuring Lee to find a permanent job. To prove a point, Lee is offered a job as a caretaker in the same block of flats, which involves moving into a room on the ground floor. He is hesitant to accept the job, but Tim encourages him to do so, claiming that Kate will have more respect for him. Lee accepts the offer and moves out. However, Tim's actual plan is to convince Kate to offer Lee's room to a new female flatmate, removing her from all male attention. Kate advertises the flat, but her first applicant is an intelligent and attractive man who would be a rival to both Lee and Tim. Tim urges Lee to move back in as quickly as he can. Lee puts off Kate's potential new flatmate by telling him that she likes to do something unpleasant involving fish. He asks Kate to move back in with her, which she does. She tells him that she has heard about Lee's fish story, producing one from behind a cushion and whacking him with it.

With Kate having gone back to America, Tim tells Lee he is going to sell the flat and hires Barbara (Miranda Hart) to clean it. Lee tries to get a mortgage so he can buy it, and in the meantime he puts off all the potential buyers, until Lucy (Sally Bretton), who unbeknown to Lee is Tim's sister, arrives saying she will rent the spare room when Lee buys it. Lucy soon decides she wants to buy it herself, and both offer to buy it from Tim. They are visited by a man called Hilary Alison (Stewart Francis), and both assume he is interested in the flat. Lee pretends it is "a burgled former asbestos mill" to put him off. Tim decides to sell it to Lee, but he cannot get a mortgage (Hilary was the surveyor) so Lucy buys it. On Tim's wishes, she rents out the spare room to Lee.

Lucy persuades Lee to pretend to be gay after she lies to a business acquaintance, Guy (Simon Dutton), a man in his early fifties whom she was told is gay, by telling him she lives with a gay lodger to prove she is not homophobic. However, Guy soon starts to get suspicious and tests Lee's sexual orientation by taking him to a gay bar. Later, Guy overhears Lee saying to Tim, who had started to think Lee was gay, that he is not gay. When Lucy then explains to Guy what happened, he reveals he is not gay and he and Lucy kiss.

When Guy's daughter Chloe (Cressida Whyte) gets appendicitis, Lee and Tim are left looking after her baby son Dillon while Guy and Lucy visit her. While in their care, Dillon swallows a Subbuteo football and Lee and Tim have problems locating it and try to think of ways to get it out of his body. Using a laxative of coconut milk, they wait to see if the football goes through his system but find nothing. Due to Dillon's surplus waste, they figure that coconut could potentially be harmful to him and go to see Chloe at the hospital. Lee, impersonating a doctor, asks her about Dillon. However, it later turns out Dillon did not swallow it after all but a figurine instead. Lucy spends her day worrying about the age gap between her and Guy, especially when the nurse assumes he is her father.

With Guy in Thailand, Lucy has several intimate telephone conversations with him. Lee is annoyed by this, but Lucy and Barbara think that he is jealous because he is not with anyone, and they persuade Lee to go speed dating. At the speed dating, Lee meets Daisy (Katy Wix), an extremely dim, but likeable, hairdresser. He invites her out for a date and then for a dinner with Lucy at his apartment. Meanwhile, Tim offends Barbara by calling her "the help" and invites her out for a drink to make it up to her. The "date" is unsuccessful and Barbara admits that she only agreed to come out with him because she felt sorry for him, and also to keep him away from what is happening at the flat. Tim goes back to the flat and meets Daisy, and they immediately hit it off. After the dinner, Daisy dumps Lee and goes home with Tim.

Guy is taking Lucy on a surprise holiday and buys her many expensive clothes. Lee becomes suspicious when a package is delivered to Guy and assumes that Guy is a gangster. However, when confronted, Guy claims it was only his passport. Lee and Tim break into Guy's office and discover several precious stones in the package. Guy admits that it was not a passport he had delivered, and says that the clear stones are white sapphires, which he is going to make into a necklace for Lucy. Still suspicious, Lee steals one and has it valued at £10,000 and confirms that it is a diamond. The surprise holiday is revealed to be to Sicily. When Guy and Lucy go to the airport, Barbara warns Lee and Tim that Sicily is famous for gangsters, and that Guy is using Lucy to smuggle the diamonds abroad. Lee and Tim run to the airport and confront Guy, but he explains that the sapphires are real and that the diamond is the only one, and has been made into an engagement ring. Guy asks Lucy to marry him, but Lee asks her to say no, saying he may not be a gangster but he is still not right for her. Lee returns to the flat alone, but Lucy later returns, saying she refused Guy as he was too controlling, and their relationship is over.

Lee decides not to go home for Christmas in the hope that the opportunity will present itself to seduce Lucy. Lucy and Tim's parents Geoffrey (Timothy West) and Wendy (Deborah Grant) invite themselves to the flat for Christmas, and Lucy persuades Barbara to work on Christmas Day for £100. On Christmas Day, Tim brings his girlfriend Daisy. Lee buys a murder mystery game, which they all dress up to play. However, the game ends abruptly when Wendy flirts with Lee and Tim and Geoffrey argue. Lee then manages to bond with Geoffrey, and they finish the game. Lucy (who was to sleep on the sofa whilst her parents had her room) appears to ask Lee to sleep in with her, but Lee realises she means just him, whilst she has his room.

When Lucy announces to Lee that she is pregnant, he wonders if the father might accidentally be him, as a result of him ejaculating in the bath before she took a bath in it soon afterwards. However, he cannot bring himself to tell Lucy how he thinks it might have happened, but Tim guesses, and he is infuriated at the thought of his friend and his sister together. However, Lee has started to warm to the idea of being a father. Lucy reveals to him that she did not think she was pregnant, and that she made up the story after seeing him masturbate in the bath.

Over-excited by the appearance of Amy (Melanie Gutteridge) and her lesbian partner Alex in their building, Lee and Tim ask them over for dinner, but when the day comes, Amy arrives alone, having split from Alex. When Amy meets Lucy, they instantly connect and begin to spend a lot of time together. Lee is worried that Lucy and Amy may become a couple, and eventually confronts Lucy. Lucy admits that she is having feelings for Amy but tells Lee it is none of his business. She later kisses Amy but realises that she is not interested in her. Tim tracks down a former girlfriend, Lola (Angela McHale), who is now openly gay. He is shocked to see that her online profile says she knew she was gay after one kiss and is convinced that she means him. He meets up with Lola and asks her but is relieved when she tells him she meant the first girl she kissed. However, he becomes worried again when it turns out that the girl was another one of his former girlfriends.

When Tim and Lee try to organise a surprise party for Lucy's 30th birthday, their ideas of what makes a good party differ widely. Tim likes a few games of charades while Lee likes a party with no competitors for Lucy's attention. So when Lucy turns up at the party arm-in-arm with another man (Ed Weeks), Lee makes it his mission to get rid of him... without causing a scene.

A new neighbour (Andy Linden) moves in upstairs and his constant loud music drives Lucy to distraction. She begs Lee and Tim to get him to stop but neither of them is man enough. Tim rushes off to join a boxing gym while Lee, in an attempt to impress Lucy, makes the mistake of confronting the man in his own flat, where he finds a creepy psychopath with the eyes of a cold killer.

Lee is horrified when he hears that Lucy is considering marriage to Pavlov (Aleksander Mikic), a political refugee from the Eastern bloc who is a local mechanic, just so that he can stay in the country. He initially gets Tim, Geoffrey and Wendy on his side, but, as Lucy's family meet Pavlov and hear his tragic tales of life back home, they are each persuaded that he is a perfect match for Lucy. Lucy and Pavlov plan their wedding, but Lee visits the Home Office to discover the questions that they will ask when inspecting the couple. When he warns Lucy of the cryptic questions she will be asked, she has second thoughts about the wedding. Lee goes to visit Pavlov himself, and Pavlov realises that the idea is bad and agrees to return to his home country. However, Lee comes up with the idea for Barbara to marry Pavlov instead, and the two drive off for their honeymoon in India.

Final appearance of Timothy West as Geoffrey Adams

After an unsuccessful Christmas dinner with her parents, Lucy is cross with Lee's behaviour, and Barbara tells him he should make more of an effort with Lucy. He arranges a special dinner for them, and it seems to go well, until his estranged father Frank (Bobby Ball) turns up at the flat unannounced, asking to borrow £500. Lee wants him out of the flat but when Frank announces that he is dying, Lucy tells Lee that if he really has changed, he will make an effort to get to know Frank before his death. Lee offers Frank a day out, and after a visit to a lap dancing club, Frank takes Lee back to the theme park where he once stole Lee a goldfish and later ate it for a bet. On a rollercoaster, Frank admits that he is not really dying, and soon after leaves the flat, giving Barbara a more emotional farewell than Lee. Lucy admits that Lee was right all along, and they share a brief kiss under the mistletoe.

Final appearance of: Barbara. First recurring appearance of: Frank

After a night out, Tim returns home from a nightclub wearing the wrong coat. After discovering a large quantity of cocaine in a pocket, he panics. When he returns the coat to the wrong person (Frankie McGinty), the real owner of the coat, Larry "The Butcher" Stubbs, sees him with the coat and angrily chases him. Tim and Lee buy what they think is cocaine from a street dealer to give to Larry, while Daisy thinks they have a drug habit after seeing them with the cocaine. They visit Larry, where they discover that what they think is cocaine is in fact washing powder, which Tim spent his £8,000 savings on. Larry hangs Lee and Tim upside down using rope. Daisy arrives with a malfunctioning nail gun which accidentally fires many times, hitting Stubbs and breaking the ropes, enabling Lee and Tim to escape.

Lucy is fed up of Lee treating her flat as if he owns it, especially after he has a barbecue in it. He promises to change but omits to mention that he has already let the flat out to a film director (Mike Wilmot), who is paying Lee £500 to use the flat while Lucy is out at work. It later turns out the film shooting is for a pornographic film, and Lee tries to get them out of the flat before Lucy returns. Tim finds out about the filming when he unexpectedly walks in on it, but Lee persuades him it is a thriller, causing him to ask for a bit part or he will tell Lucy. Tim finds out it is porn and leaves, after which the male lead Rod leaves, causing the director to pressure Lee to play the part. Lucy arrives home while Lee is hanging upside down.

Additional material: Simon Evans, Paul Kerensa, Dave Cohen, Simon Griffiths, David Isaac, Liam Woodman, Milton Jones

Lucy and Tim's parents, Geoffrey (Geoffrey Whitehead) and Wendy, are separating because Geoffrey would not let Wendy go ballroom dancing. After an unfortunate heart-to-heart with Geoffrey, Lee unintentionally makes him realise he wants to leave Wendy and he moves into Lucy's flat, banishing Lee to the sofa and causing Lucy to threaten to evict Lee if her parents do not get back together. Lee speaks to Wendy, who tells him that while she wants to dance with another man, what she actually wants is an affair. Lee tells the others about their conversation, using "dance" as a euphemism, but no-one understands and they all think Wendy just wants to dance with someone. They all decide Lee would be the perfect man to dance with her. Lee reluctantly agrees, but when the dance is in full swing, Geoffrey runs in and punches Lee, saying that he realised he could not bear to let Wendy dance with another man. Geoffrey and Wendy reconcile.

First appearance of Geoffrey Whitehead as Geoffrey Adams

An old woman, Betty (Vilma Hollingbery), wanders into Lucy's flat and sits next to Lee on the sofa. Betty does not know who or where she is, so Lee throws her out. Lucy makes him bring her back, though she thinks she had sex with him. Betty says that she has a rich son who always pays a reward to the person who brings her home, which Lee intends to use to buy fireworks. Lee and Tim take Betty around the streets to try to find someone who recognises her. A friend of hers (Morris Perry) tells them where she lives, which they discover is a retirement home. Lee is disappointed when he finds out that there is no reward; her son lives abroad and has little contact with her.

Lee invites Lucy to watch greyhound racing with him, but she declines. Shortly after, Lee is hit by a car which places him in a coma. As Lucy, Tim and Daisy gather around his hospital bed, Lee dreams of a life with Lucy, where in quick succession she declares her love for him, they have sex together, she becomes pregnant and puts on a lot of weight, they marry, Lucy gives birth to many children, Lee is forced take a menial job, they split up and Lee haplessly turns the flat into a lap dancing club. Throughout the dream, Lee's father, Frank, re-appears in various costumes. In the hospital room, as Lee shows no signs of recovery, Lucy calls Frank. In the dream, Lee reconciles with Lucy, but just as they are about to get back together, the real Frank arrives at the hospital and Lee wakes up. Delighted by his full recovery, Lucy accepts his racing invitation.

Lee's weekend is wrecked when Frank turns up unexpectedly. Having just come out of the hospital with his legs and arms in plaster, he needs somewhere to stay for the weekend, leaving Lee to care for him. When Lee realises that Frank needs a suppository inserting, he invites Tim, Daisy and Geoffrey round "to watch the cricket", when his actual motive is to get one of them to administer the suppository. Geoffrey eventually agrees to do the deed, but all three of them, plus Lucy, criticise Lee for his lack of care for his dad. Frank suggests he and Lee pretend to like each other in order to impress Lucy, and she is impressed by his new-found attitude. Frank manipulates Lee into agreeing to allow him to stay for longer, but instead reveals that he has been faking his injuries. Despite this, Lucy congratulates Lee on the care he showed for his father.

Lucy is working on a government initiative encouraging men to regularly check themselves for testicular lumps. Lee follows the campaign's advice and discovers they are swollen. He talks about it to Tim, who tries to convince him to see his doctor and tell Lucy, but Lee does not and lies to her that everything is fine. After Tim looks at them, Lee visits his doctor but is put off by the fact that she is female. Lee and Tim go to a sauna to look at men's testicles, but it does not go as planned. Lucy convinces Lee to re-visit the doctor after she finds him on a gay porn site when trying to see average testicle sizes, at first thinking he is gay. He agrees but realises the male doctor is one of the men from the sauna. Lee discovers he has a hydrocele.

Lucy had a kiss with a work colleague whilst drunk and claims to have no memory of the event, which Lee doubts. Lucy suggests that she and Lee embark on an experiment with a bottle of homemade potato hooch to prove that one can remember what happens when drunk. The next day they wake up naked in bed together and think they had sex. They decide not to tell anybody, but it transpires that Tim and Daisy visited and they may have made a sex tape with Tim's video camera. Lee and Lucy check the tape in the camera, but it is a video of Tim and Daisy's Spanish holiday. As Daisy was supposed to have taken this home, Lee and Lucy realise that she has taken the sex tape by accident. Lucy phones Daisy and convinces them to wait until the following day when they can all watch it together. In the middle of the night, Lee and Lucy sneak into her parents' house to steal the sex tape but are caught and her parents decide that they will all watch the tape together. The tape reveals that Lucy set up the premise of having sex together on purpose so that Lee would think that they did, thereby proving her point that one can forget things when drunk. Lee counters that he knew this, as he was sober all along.

When Lucy accidentally runs over a female pet rabbit belonging to Sophie, the daughter of important client Paul, she needs Lee and Daisy to help cover her tracks. Lucy asks Lee to take the blame. When Lee gives the rabbit's body to Paul, he claims it is not Sophie's. It turns out Lucy had hit the rabbit but gave Lee a dead wild rabbit that was nearby which she wrongly assumed was the pet. Lee tries to lighten the situation by jokingly claiming he is a rabbit thief named Warren Burrows, only for Paul to think he is a lunatic and threaten to call the police. Lucy and Lee buy a rabbit from a pet shop to replace it and attempt to place it in the hutch without anyone noticing, but Paul confronts them and realises that it is also not Sophie's, because it is male, forcing Lucy to finally come clean. Meanwhile, Tim has moved to Germany on a work placement.

Lee, Lucy and Daisy are on a skiing holiday in Eastern Europe. Lucy's arms are in plaster, having been broken in an accident with a luggage carousel. On a cable car, Daisy accidentally jams the mechanism with a ski whilst trying to get rid of a bird, and Lee accidentally jams it further with the other ski whilst trying to dislodge the first one. At this point, a heavily pregnant woman on board (Pooky Quesnel) goes into labour. Lee and Daisy successfully calm her down, but this speeds up the labour. As Lucy is unable to move her arms and the woman does not trust Daisy, it is up to Lee to deliver the baby. He eventually manages to deliver it, but she then reveals she is expecting triplets. Fortunately, help arrives before Lee has to deliver the other babies.

When Lucy enrols at night school on a training course in counselling, Lee takes advantage of her new-found skill to try to patch things up with his father Frank. This brings up bad childhood memories for Lee and Frank's revelation that he holds Lee responsible for the breakup of his marriage.

Lee attempts to stop Lucy from flirting with male delegates at a three-day annual trade conference, which she does in order to gain contracts. He takes obstructive action by posing as her husband, and then father. This pretence becomes more difficult to sustain when Lucy's mother Wendy, and later Lucy's father Geoffrey, turn up at the conference. Geoffrey accuses Lee of trying to seduce his wife and Lucy. A client whom Lucy invites to her hotel room is punched by Geoffrey when Geoffrey knocks at the door and walks in, seeing Lucy and Wendy in the room.

Lee decides that the best way to get Lucy to become attracted to him is to make her jealous. Daisy sets him up with Rachel (Joanna Bobin), a Fatal Attraction-style psychopath who proceeds to stalk him. Rachel soon discovers Lee's attraction to Lucy and threatens to tell Lucy if he does not go on another date with her very soon. Daisy showcases various superhero and supervillain outfits for an upcoming hen do. After Lee stops dating Rachel, she enters the flat and corners the pair with a large kitchen knife, leaving Daisy to step in and save them.

When Lucy's first love Scott (Simon Farnaby) reappears after 19 years and asks her to be in a play that he wrote for her, Lee has to fight for her attention, which ends badly. He believes that Scott is after her and created this play to win her over. After Lee is dismissed from the cast for being difficult, he appears on the night of the performance secretively taking back his role and ends the play with a shock that not even the cast knew about when Scott is accidentally dropped through a trap door.

Additional material: Simon Evans, Paul Kerensa, Dave Cohen, Simon Griffiths, Liam Woodman, David Isaac

Lucy's nine-year-old goddaughter, Nancy, is suddenly dumped on her by Nancy's mother on the night before her birthday party, after a fire at Nancy's house. Lucy and Lee have to arrange entertainment. Despite disliking Nancy, Lee arranges a magic show for Nancy and her twelve friends. He goes to a magic shop to get what he needs. The magician did not receive the cash which Lee sent Daisy to deliver, so he retrieves the equipment just before the show. Daisy placed a successful bet with the money, which Lee uses to take Lucy and Nancy to a JLS concert, where Nancy reveals that she started the fire.

On the way home from the cinema, Lee and Lucy go down a dark alley and run into three teenage muggers, led by Razor (Joshua Pascoe), who steal Lucy's handbag. To get it back, Lee is to fight with one of them and he is desperate to prove his masculinity to impress her. When the police are no help, he attempts to take up boxing. When Lee has a chance to show how well he is doing, he gets Lucy and Daisy to watch him try fighting someone but ends up against a young girl, who beats him. He once more tries to get the bag back (by bribing Razor with £100) but it ends badly and Razor steals the money without returning the bag. Razor's grandmother (Joan Linder) (who turns out to be the receptionist at the boxing club) takes him to the flat and makes him return the goods to Lucy, but when Lee comes in and sees him handing over the knitting needles, he attacks Razor, thinking that he is threatening Lucy. Razor's grandmother beats Lee up in retaliation.

Finding an appropriate gift for the Christening party for the baby of their new neighbours, Toby (Hugh Dennis) and Anna (Abigail Cruttenden), becomes problematic when their custom-made plate with the baby's footprint unexpectedly depicts six toes. Unaware of the child's real number of toes, they end up taking him out and realise it was a mistake and it was the wrong foot. But when it turns out that again the wrong foot was printed, they turn up to the party in a very awkward situation. Lucy smashes the plate before Toby and Anna are able to see it.

First regular appearance of Toby and Anna.

Lucy is getting more and more desperate for a baby, but instead of waiting for a relationship she decides to look for a sperm donor and become a single mother. Her original choice is a colleague (Timothy Knightley), but after she worries about not knowing him well enough, she chooses Lee instead. Lee feels uncomfortable about the offer but does not want to upset Lucy, so he agrees on the condition that her parents agree. Lucy eventually persuades them, as well as Frank. Lee turns up at the clinic in a nervous state ready for his donation, but when he puts the porn DVD on, he keeps imagining faces of people he knows speaking to him as the performer on the video, which puts him under more pressure. He then anxiously gives up and lies to Lucy that he has a problem and is unable to do the donation. Then it leaves Lee and Lucy with no choice but to have sex, but Lee ejaculates prematurely. Lucy ultimately accepts that it is not time yet, and she will wait until she is in a relationship.

When Lucy lies to impress and befriend Toby and Anna, the new neighbours, Lee has to do the same. So he organises a meal at the flat for them all and pretends he works at a bank and is quite rich. Then Anna invites Lee and Lucy to a night out at a posh restaurant with live music. The group go out for the meal, but Lee is acting strange about his fake job as a rich bank worker when Anna continues to ask questions. Then he becomes too drunk and admits he does not really have a job and is not rich.

Daisy signs up to be on the quiz show Pointless and is accepted. So she chooses Lucy to be her partner, but then she is tricked by Lee into allowing him to be her partner on the quiz show after he pretends to have a lot of knowledge. The pair appear on the show but are eliminated in the first round. On their second chance, Lee follows Richard Osman into his dressing room and finds the answer cards laying on the table, so Daisy and Lee memorise the answers. Lee and Daisy make it to the final but Alexander Armstrong and Richard are certain that they must be cheating, so they give the pair a question about Shakespeare (which Alexander earlier found out was a weakness of Lee's) in the final round, which leaves them both in an awkward situation.

Guest appearances of Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman as themselves.

When Lee and Lucy confront Lee's father, Frank, about his alcohol consumption, he returns the sentiment. Frank invites Lee and Lucy to go to Frank's club where people confront their alcoholism, after Frank gives them the impression that they might be alcoholics themselves.

Lucy organises a surprise party for her parents' wedding anniversary, and she insists it must remain a secret. Lee struggles to keep Geoffrey away from the flat while a party planner called Mario is organising the arrangements with Lucy. Lee cannot hide it any longer and tells Geoffrey about the surprise party, and he insists that it is cancelled. Lee tries to stop the surprise party from taking place and things become awkward.

Lee, Lucy and Daisy are all going abroad together. However, Lee's fear of flying is causing him to overreact to various situations, earning him the disapproval of Olga, the stern air stewardess, before the plane has even taken off. Lee's paranoia gets worse when he notices a passenger who he suspects of being a terrorist due to his nervous disposition and refusal to let go of his bag, even taking it to the toilet with him. When confronting the passenger, Lee notices that he has a box in his bag labelled "Cartridges" and reports this to Olga, who investigates and reports back. Later, when Lee is trying to steal a drink from the fridge, he overhears the passenger having a private conversation with Olga about a secret plan and reflecting on the fact that they managed to shake off Lee's suspicions. Lee spots a gun in the passenger's bag, but accidentally alerts the pair to his presence and has to return to his seat. He alerts Lucy and Daisy to the fact that Olga appears to be in on the terrorist threat together, and they hatch a plan for Lee to steal the man's bag whilst Lucy and Daisy distract him. The bag in hand, Lee runs to the cockpit to warn the captain but only succeeds in appearing to be a terrorist himself. When the suspicious passenger comes to confront him, Lee attempts to reveal the gun, only to pull a banana out of the bag instead. The passenger draws the real gun and appears about to shoot Lee before it is revealed that he is, in fact, a member of the Secret Service who is on board the plane in response to the terror threats, and it is Lee who has come across as a terrorist. With everything cleared up, the Air Marshal punches Lee in anger. The episode ends with Lee and Lucy returning to the flat, Lucy and Daisy having spent the whole holiday being looked after by the British ambassador whilst Lee was in custody.

In real life, Lee Mack has a fear of flying, and travels by car to overseas holiday destinations.

After being pressured by Frank, Lee gets drunk on the night before his and Lucy's wedding, and both he and Frank end up in a police cell. With no other options, they ring Geoffrey, but it turns out that, although they were arrested for their drunken misdemeanours, the police uncover that the family ring that Geoffrey had given Lee for Lucy is extremely valuable and was stolen many years earlier. Geoffrey joins them in the cell and after Lee realises that it must have been stolen by Geoffrey's father, Geoffrey eventually agrees to tell the police, despite fearing it will bring shame on his family. Meanwhile, Lucy is having her own "bad hair day". They all make it to the church just in time for Lee and Lucy's wedding service.

Final cameo appearance of Tim.

Additional material: Simon Evans, Paul Kerensa, Dave Cohen, Simon Griffiths, Liam Woodman, David Isaac

One year on from the wedding, it is Christmas Eve and a heavily pregnant Lucy is three days overdue with their first baby. Lee is excited about being a father, but worries about his ability to do a better job than his own father. Lee and Lucy arrive at a department store where Frank is working as an elf to pick up Daisy, with whom they are planning to spend Christmas. Lucy had intended to wait in the car but has to go into the store when Lee refuses to buy her Vagisil. Whilst there, they bump into Toby and Anna, who are doing their Christmas shopping whilst baby Jack is in Lapland with his grandparents. Frank invites them all to join him for a drink, even though the store is about to close, as he has an arrangement with the security guards, Bill and Mike. Unbeknownst to the group, a robber wearing a Father Christmas latex mask has taken the security guards hostage.

Final appearance of Daisy

This episode was not filmed in front of a live studio audience, but the audience is added in as sound effects

After eight years of marriage, Lee and Lucy disagree over how to keep the romance alive.

Reluctantly, Lucy allows Lee's father, Frank, to babysit and, surprisingly, he does a good job, until Lucy and Lee believe that he swore in front of Benji, who repeats it outspokenly to Anna. Lucy then wishes she had not had Frank round to babysit and asks Lee to confront Frank with using that language in front of the kids, but Lee does not. Later, Frank returns to the house to thank Lee and Lucy but when Lucy thought that Lee had told Frank about the concern, he denies swearing. Geoffrey and Wendy also arrive, and Benji tells the family that it was Geoffrey whom he heard say it. Toby and Anna arrive, and Lucy rants and swears at all of them, not realising that the kids are standing behind her.

Lucy's cousin is marrying in France so the family set off in the car to catch a ferry with plenty of time to spare, or so they think until the traffic slows things down and the satnav says they will miss the last check-in if they do not find another route.

Lee and Lucy play Hot Tub Fantasy Date with their best friends Anna and Toby, with Lee and Toby visiting Emma Bunton for a charity campaign. Lee tries to make Lucy jealous by getting close to Bunton, while Lucy tries to make Lee jealous by flirting with her local dentist (Jack Chissick). Then Toby, Lee and Emma end up in a hot tub together.

Lee is worried that Charlie is getting a reputation at school for being the class clown. So Lee and Lucy organise a meeting with Miss Anstis. But after managing to stop Charlie from being the class clown he writes a story which is really boring and never-ending. Unfortunately, Miss Anstis chooses him to read his story in front of the school and parents in a bid to win a trip to LegoLand. Lee is desperate to not let Charlie humiliate himself in front of the school with the boring story and has an idea.

It is Christmas Eve, and Lee and Lucy face a possible yuletide disaster when they discover the perfect present they have bought for their children has already been given to them by their grandparents.

As a surprise for Lee's birthday, Lucy invites Geoffrey and Wendy, Toby and Anna, and Lee's dad Frank to join them in an escape room. This proves to be something none of them will easily forget, with Lee being handcuffed to a bomb, a "traitor" in the room, and Toby's work life called into question. Geoffrey and Frank argue over class superiority and intelligence, even though Frank solves most of the clues in the room. It appears that the bomb is about to explode; when it does not, Lee reveals that he set it all up. Everyone leaves the escape room afterwards, except Lee, who Lucy refuses to release from his handcuffs.

Anna brings Charlie back to Lucy and Lee's house, having taken him to a party. Charlie is delighted with his prize for having won the party's ugly face competition. When it goes missing, Lee and Lucy think that Toby and Anna's son Jack stole it, and go to their house to accuse him. Jack says that he did not steal it, and his parents support him. Lee goes into Jack's bedroom and takes an identical key ring from there. Anna calls at Lee and Lucy's house, where she tells Lucy that she bought an identical key ring for Jack, that it is now missing, and that she thinks that Lee stole it. After Anna leaves, Lee admits to Lucy that he did steal it, assuming it was Charlie's. Lee and Lucy sneak into Toby and Anna's house using their spare key whilst the house is empty and plant the key ring in their bedroom. Toby and Anna come home early from their date, so Lee and Lucy hide under the bed. Toby and Anna have sex. Toby and Anna look under the bed and see Lee and Lucy there. Back home, Lee notices that he accidentally brought Anna's knickers home.

After a comment from a saleswoman in a clothes shop, Lucy expresses to Lee her unhappiness with her sagging breasts. After talking to Anna, who tells her that she had a breast augmentation after Jack was born, Lucy contemplates having her breasts surgically improved.

For the first time, Not Going Out is broadcast live on BBC One, in a festive special where Lee and Lucy participate in a local Christmas variety show, entitled "Ding Dong Merrily On Live". Lee and Lucy book famed knife thrower Juan as an act, but when Juan flirts with Lucy, whom he plans to make his assistant during his segment of the show, Lee writes fake bad reviews to damage Juan's popularity. During the show, Toby and Anna reluctantly perform the elements song, but cannot remember the words, make many mistakes and become angry with each other. When Juan discovers Lee was behind the fake reviews, he quits the show, and Lee is forced to take his place and throw knives at Lucy without any experience.

Toby has pressured Lee, Lucy, Anna, Frank, Geoffrey and Wendy into taking part in a sponsored skydive with him to raise money for their local children's hospital, despite most of them being terrified at the prospect. However, when they discover just before the jump that one parachute has gone missing, they each try to make a convincing case for why they should or should not take part. The power struggle escalates when Lee revealed he did it all on purpose. Wendy, Toby, Anna and Lucy jump individually. The pilot says that the plane is going to crash. Frank jumps, and Geoffrey lets Lee use the remaining parachute. The pilot and instructor reveal to Geoffrey that there was no problem with the plane and that it was a ploy to make them jump. Geoffrey is pleased that he will seem heroic and will not need to jump. The pilot gives Geoffrey his parachute.

Lee and Lucy have gone on what is supposed to be a relaxed weekend away in a countryside cottage with Toby and Anna, but the couples are very unsuited to holidaying together. When they start trying too hard to get their way, followed by acting too nice to make up for it, Lee and Lucy decide to play them at their own game, framed by a series of lies about their relationship. Lies have never treated Lee and Lucy well, however, and it is not long before the facts begin to unravel.

Lee is outraged to find out that the twins have already started sex education in school and so, despite the urgings of Lucy and their teacher, he determines to teach them what he knows about the subject instead. His attempts fail due to his lack of knowledge and discomfort at telling them, causing the twins to repeat misleading things from Lee at school. Lucy tells him she is disappointed with his sexual performance with her, so he studies the subject. When the twins walk in on the couple during sex without the couple realising until afterwards, it is discovered that they have assumed that their parents' sexual roleplay is a usual part of sex.

When Lee sits down with Lucy to join in watching a TV programme she enjoys, she is quickly driven mad by his constant talking. However, Lee is most concerned about how he cannot remember the name of one of the actors, and his initial concern turns to genuine panic when Lucy mentions a history of dementia in his family.

Lee is accused by Lucy of breaking a vase which was given to her by Geoffrey's mother. Lee invites Anna, Toby, Frank, Geoffrey and Wendy round to find the real culprit. As Lee questions them, various revelations are uncovered about each of their associations with the vase, discovering from Geoffrey that he substituted it for one of similar appearance which he bought for £8.99. Toby reveals that he broke the vase that Geoffrey bought. Lucy and Toby reveal that she was going to sell the original vase to a friend of Toby's for £3,000. Lee is relieved and pleased at finding out the truth, until seconds later he accidentally knocks the vase to the ground, shattering it.

Lucy and the kids are staying at Geoffrey and Wendy's house whilst Lee is left in the house with Dave (Steve Oram), a builder whom Lee and Lucy have hired to refit their kitchen. However, Dave is lazy and it is clear that the job will not be completed in time. Lee's attempts to persuade Dave to speed up fail. Lee persuades Anna to pose as Lucy. Anna pressures Dave to speed up his work, which Dave reacts to by quitting. Lee and Toby finish the job themselves, but due to their severe lack of building skills many things in the kitchen collapse shortly after Lucy arrives home.

Lee loses his phone when out trick-or-treating with his family and goes back alone, dressed as a zombie, in the middle of the night, to retrieve it. However, when Lee ends up locked in the imposing old manor house, in which a mysterious old woman (guest star Marcia Warren) lives alone, he quickly realises that not only could he be mistaken for a burglar, but the slightest shock could kill her. Frank arrives and becomes trapped alongside him. As they are about to leave, the two men see two burglars in the house. After a confrontation between them, the police arrive and arrest the burglars.

A New Year's Eve party at Lee and Lucy's turns sour, as, under threat of the traditional celebration trifle being turned into a weapon, and in an attempt to start the new year without conflict, everyone is encouraged to come up with resolutions, but for each other.

The closing credits feature a tribute to Bobby Ball, who died weeks after filming. The children are absent from this episode.

Lee accidentally opens a package for one of his neighbours and finds a penis enlarger inside instead of the mobile phone he was expecting. The simple task of uniting the package with its rightful owner becomes increasingly difficult as his guilt and embarrassment get the better of him. Soon, Lee is lying that Lucy has a twin sister, only to end up with his hands full when he orders a replacement item to pretend he had not opened the first one.

Anna, Charlie and Benji are absent from this episode. Molly can be seen in the window, and Francesca Newman is credited in the cast list at the end of the episode. However, she does not speak.

To celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary, Lee and Lucy take part in a pub quiz with Toby and Anna, but the foursome splits into rival teams: Lee and Anna versus Lucy and Toby. Lee is desperate to prove his intelligence, which he does by cheating using his mobile phone to find the answers on the internet. Lucy and Anna want to humiliate their husbands. Toby deliberately gives wrong answers to avoid Anna hitting him, until Lucy threatens to tell everyone in the pub that Toby routinely chooses to play badly against Anna in games. The two teams end as joint winners, until Lee's cheating is revealed when his phone loudly vibrates and moves across the table.

The children are absent from this episode.

Frank visits; he tells Lee and Lucy that for several months he has been dating Carol (guest star Susie Blake), whom he met through a dating site for older people. Frank tells them that Carol suggested they become engaged, which Lee is baffled by. Finding it difficult to believe that Carol would want a relationship with Frank, Lee tries to find out what is wrong with her. When the couple visit Lee and Lucy, Lee is surprised that she is attractive, intelligent, well-spoken, kind, caring, thoughtful and rich, everything Frank is not, which makes him suspicious of her. Lee follows her and discovers she meets many other men. Lee suspects that she is a confidence trickster or is cheating. He has Lucy's friend Emma, a local prosthetics artis, to make him look 79, ready for his date with Carol to uncover the truth. He discovers that Carol talked Frank into agreeing for her to find another man for them to have a threesome with. Frank changes his mind and ends the relationship.

At Lucy's suggestion, Lee joins Facebook for the first time. Karen, (guest star Katy Cavanagh), who was Lee's girlfriend for 18 months when he was about 19, contacts him. Lucy is angry and jealous, so she takes Ben, whom she had a relationship with when they were at university together, to the same restaurant at the same time as Lee and Karen are there. Both dates quickly walk away from them; Lee and Lucy go home together.

As the family prepares to leave for a visit to the World War Two war graves in Normandy, their true family history comes out. Wendy reveals to the family that she was born in March 1945 rather than 1947 as she claimed. She also reveals that her father Jack, who was a prisoner of war in Colditz for years, did not, as she and he had claimed, escape. Her March 1945 birth date means that he could not have been her father, as he was not released until after then. She tells them that she was the result of her mother's one-night stand with an American soldier. Frank then tells them that his father was a German airman with whom his mother had an affair whilst he was a prisoner of war.

A few days before Christmas, Lee is in the bad books for not doing any work for his family Christmas party. When he complains that Lucy has booked tickets to the Christmas Eve pantomime purely to see her teenage crush, Jason Donovan, his attitude comes back to haunt him when he wakes up trapped in a performance of Cinderella as Buttons, with his family and friends in all the other roles.

It has been over a year since Lee's father Frank died, so Wendy and Geoffrey give Lee a gift to remember him by. Wendy, who has recently reacquired her love for oil painting, paints Lee a horrible picture of Frank. Lucy and Lee have to pretend they like it as to not hurt Wendy's feelings. Wendy suggests they should hang it on a blank wall, but Lee says he should put it in the shed. When Wendy isn't around, Geoffrey admits he hates it as well. After they had gone, Lee takes the photo down and puts it in Molly's room. When Geoffrey and Wendy return the next day, Lee tells them where the painting is and how much it means to Molly. Obviously hating it, Molly screams from upstairs and Lee pretends she has accidentally ruined it when instead she was screaming about how hideous it was. Lee draws some glasses and a beard on it to make it look like Molly had done it, so Wendy goes to get it repaired where she decides to keep it at her house instead. She and Geoffrey give Lee and Lucy another oil painting, but this time it is a picture of Geoffrey and Wendy naked.

Lee accidentally sends Anna an offensive message about her meant for Lucy, so he and Lucy are on a mission to delete the message before Anna reads it. They steal her phone and attempt to delete the message, but Anna finds out. Lucy tells her that Lee had accidentally sent her a picture of his penis. Anna says the message must have been sent to her on her other phone, so Lee goes round her house to try and delete it. He deletes the message and takes a picture of his penis to make it look like nothing had happened. Anna catches him half-naked in her bedroom. Lee then accidentally sends the picture of his penis to Lucy's mum Wendy.

Lee promises Lucy he will make more of an effort to chat to parents in the school playground. When Lee is picking up Molly the next day, he meets a man called Keith (Joe Wilkinson), a taxi driver, and makes an effort to chat to him. He then meets him for a coffee the next day where Keith orders a hot chocolate with marshmallows, and he subsequently takes them all out with a wooden stick. Lucy is annoyed that Lee did not even find out his name and makes him go on another meet-up to learn more about him. He learns that Keith's wife works at an abattoir and her name is Pauline. Later, Keith goes to see Lee back at the house to give him his driving license which he dropped in the cafe. Lucy is suspicious because she had not seem him in the playground before, and then they find out Keith is not a parent, he was just there to pick up somebody in his taxi. Lee talks to Toby in the cafe and Keith finds him there. He said he hated Lee's small talk and that he found it a bit peculiar. Another man comes to sit next to Lee and tries talking to him, but Lee just tells him to "sod off".

Recovering from knee surgery, Lee is confined to a wheelchair and is staring out the window at everyone through a pair of binoculars to pass the time. He begins to think his neighbour, Stuart, has a killed a local cat called Mr Snuffles belonging to an elderly woman living in the street because of his hate for him, such as chucking water at him when he was urinating on his flowerbed. He consults a local police community support officer (guest star Jocelyn Jee Esien), but she is no help. Lee goes out in the middle of the night to dig up Stuart's garden, thinking he might have buried Mr Snuffles there, and he finds the cat's body. He is nearly caught by Stuart. Stuart comes round the next day and tells him it was his cat and accuses Lee of killing him, when it was actually the elderly woman (also Stuart's mother-in-law), who ran him over with her mobility scooter. This episode is a reference to Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window.

Lee takes part in jury service, which leads to an investigation about who scratched his car and resulting a bunch of arguments about whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. He accuses the other eleven jurors of scratching his car, which inevitably leads to tensions, especially when the foreman (guest star Colin McFarlane) says the verdict is to be unanimous, and Lee is initially the only one who votes not guilty. In the end, a note from the defendant reveals that his crime (stealing 200 tins of food) was well intentioned as he was going to donate them to a food bank; consequently, the jury find him not guilty. However, the note makes Lee realise that the defendant was in fact responsible for damaging his car.

Lee, Lucy, Wendy, Geoffrey, Toby, Anna, Molly, Benji, Charlie and Jack go on a camping trip in the woods together, but the bad weather threatens to interrupt their fun. However, things get worse when Lee and Lucy find a bone in the woods and then they find a knife and a suspicious-looking bag the next day. They take the bag back to the tent and find out it belongs to a tree surgeon. When Lee is relieving himself in the woods, he finds a man chasing after him with the same knife they found earlier. They then find out it was Geoffrey; the medication he had earlier to treat the pain of his twisted ankle had an effect on him.

When Lee and Lucy are asked to cover for Anna on more than one occasion, so that she can go out at night and have secret Italian lessons, they suspect that she is having an affair. Lee decides that it is up to him to tell Toby that his marriage is in jeopardy and sets about finding the evidence.

Lee's sedentary lifestyle catches up on him and he is forced to wait on a hospital ward for routine surgery on his gallbladder until his blood pressure comes down. But visits from the parents-in-law and Anna and Toby, who arrive to ask him a question he does not want to hear, ensure that his stress levels remain dangerously high.

To take advantage of three free tickets to Adventure Canyon Theme Park, Lee takes his daughter Molly out of school for a day and gets into trouble from Miss Anstis, who has since been promoted to head teacher of Molly's secondary school. Now all he has to do is think of an excuse to justify Molly's absence, and what could be simpler than a trip to the dentist?

This episode was shown on BBC Two due to coverage of the 2023 Wimbledon Championships being shown on BBC One at the same time.

Lee wakes up inside a coffin and cannot remember how he got there, until a phone call from Lucy reminds him what he had been doing that afternoon. Now all he needs to do is keep Lucy in the dark as to his exact location and work out how to escape.

It is Lucy's birthday. To celebrate, Geoffrey and Wendy take Lee, Lucy, Toby and Anna for a trip on a vintage steam train. But Lee decides to play Poirot when a stranger turns up unannounced in their carriage and Lucy's special day is ruined.

Lucy has cooked a special meal so that she and Lee can spend an evening in without distractions, talking about the state of their marriage. But Lee is obsessed with a beeping noise in the house that he cannot find and the food is soon forgotten.

When Lee goes to watch his son Benji playing football for a local Under-13s team, he is unable to restrain himself on the touchline and becomes the competitive dad that all the other parents avoid. Undaunted by the disapproval of Toby, who coaches the team, Lee sets about rigging the vote for the Player of the Year.