Second Thoughts

- Season 1

(1991)

Divorced magazine illustrator Faith Grayshott is dating her boss, editor Bill McGregor and arranges for him to meet her teen-aged children Hannah and Joe in a café. Unfortunately his interfering ex-wife Liza finds out and visits him at work, also demanding he returns a jardinière he has given to Faith. He takes her out for a platonic lunch but Faith gets the wrong idea and, when Bill turns up at her house, expecting to move in with her, she calls the plan off.

Faith is still annoyed with Bill but he wins her round by cooking her a dinner at his flat. At the same time Liza visits Faith's house on the pretext of wanting to assure Faith that there is nothing between her and Bill but Hannah correctly surmises that she has come to pry. Bill is annoyed when he finds out about Liza's visit but Faith is even more annoyed that nobody told her whilst Bill also manages to antagonize Hannah by criticizing her new hairdo and Joe, after he has been acting as linesman at the boy's football match and awarded the other side a penalty.

Bill and Faith plan a night of passion at Faith's house, which involves sending the children out on sleep-overs at friends' houses. Unfortunately the night is ruined when the dog refuses to get off the bed, the football pools collector calls and Joe is taken ill at his friend's. By the time Bill is ready for his night of love Faith has fallen asleep and he trips over the dog's bone and falls downstairs.

Bill is moving in with Faith and he wants to take her out to celebrate but she has her Keep Fit class and wants to cook Joe a meal so declines the offer. Bill arrives home very late and very drunk and they argue when he accuses Faith of not being spontaneous. However, when he rings her from work claiming to be in Paris and asking her to jump on the next plane to join him she calls his bluff.

Bill is off work with food poisoning though Faith is not a very sympathetic nurse. To make matters worse he gets a call from the office to tell him that Liza has started work there as an interior decorator. To keep the two women apart Bill suggests to Faith that she gets another job elsewhere - which she does, with better conditions and pay. She also goes down with food poisoning.

When Bill complains that Hannah and Joe are borrowing his belongings without asking Faith is not sympathetic, pointing out that he is now part of a family, where such happenings are the norm. But when Hannah comes in very late with a boy when she has school next day Bill believes Faith is taking the family ideal too far when she wants him to play the heavy stepfather.

Bill and Faith decide on impulse to have a secret wedding on a special licence but word gets out and their relatives all turn up. Unfortunately the wedding cannot go ahead as Liza had never applied for a decree absolute and therefore Bill has nothing to prove that he is not still married to her. The couple decide to have the reception anyway and to' honeymoon' at home having sent the children to their father in America.