Despite a name and promotional materials that curiously suggest the new BBC show Daddy Issues might focus on more of a sugar-daddy set-up, it turns out the sitcom is about your standard father/daughter relationship. Well, standard-ish.
Aimee Lou Wood's (Sex Education) first scene as 24-year-old Gemma sees her about to hook up with a much older man atop the sink in an in-flight toilet on a plane taxiing into Manchester. Without a condom to hand, they agree to rely on said sink. Foolproof.
Cut to two months later and Gemma is pregnant, but she doesn't know it yet. She's also dating someone who wears the same deodorant as her dad, so there are certainly some daddy issues at play. Come to think of it, further down the line in this six-parter, Gemma agrees to go sugar-daddy hunting. The plot thickens.
Her actual dad is the recently cuckolded Malcolm (Sherwood's David Morrissey) who's shacked up in a bedsit with a bunch of other disgruntled divorcees. The mood there is about as buoyant as you would expect.
His angry best friend Derek (Am I Being Unreasonable's David Fynn) is first heard screaming through the walls and has an attitude to women that is a couple of bad knocks away from incel status. Gemma rebuffing his advances certainly helps him along the way.
In this messy menagerie there is also Gemma's incarcerated sister (My Mad Fat Diary's Sharon Rooney), her absentee mum off sojourning with a new lover, a charming meet-cute with one Xander (Count Abdulla's Arian Nik) and a flatmate who announces she's moving out.
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But not before Gemma comes home to find loads of their stuff gone and assumes they've been burgled. The pub hook-up she's bought back to the flat takes it in his stride ("But have they taken the bed…?"). It's around this point Gemma finds out she's pregnant.
In a slim-pickings rental market the only solution in classic odd-couple sitcom-style is for Malcolm to move in with Gemma. It very quickly becomes clear why her mum left her dad, because he's totally, ridiculously useless.
Each episode is punctuated by Malcolm doing something brainless and Gemma berating him for it, to not much effect. He's probably the perfect primer for a mum-to-be, given that he's essentially a child too.
Aimee Lou Wood is effortless as Gemma, with an easy eye-boggled look to meet the silliness all around. David Morrissey comes into Daddy Issues as one of our bona fide Serious Actors and fully commits to the bit of being a man-child, which is fun.
The six-parter was penned by Danielle Ward, in her first showrunner role after previously writing on Brassic. At a brisk 20 minutes a piece, the six episodes are well-plotted and beat the bloat.
Could Daddy Issues be funnier and a bit less clichéd? Yes. But it's a great sign for British comedy that the BBC gave this the go-ahead. Giving writers the chance to take a swing and try things out is how we get to the really good stuff. Worryingly, the pipeline is closing up behind newer creatives, with less funding and fewer opportunities out there.
But even gold-standard comedies like Seinfeld and Parks and Rec had uneven first seasons. They just had the good fortune to be on air when writers were given the breathing room to work out the kinks. If you're not a hit from the off nowadays, the axe swings.
If you have a dad who knows what a microwave is for and doesn't chuck teabags down the toilet, Daddy Issues will leave you hugely grateful. The show gets off to a quirky start and doesn't outstay its welcome.
Daddy Issues is available to stream on BBC iPlayer and airs on BBC Three.
Previously Deputy TV Editor at Digital Spy and, before that, a TV Reporter at The Mirror, Rebecca can now be found crafting expert analysis of the TV landscape, when she's not talking on the BBC or Times Radio about everything from the latest season of Bridgerton or The White Lotus to whatever chaos is unfolding in the various Love Island villas. When she's not bingeing a boxset, in-the-wild sightings of Rebecca have included stints on the National TV Awards and BAFTAs red carpets, and post-match video explainers of the reality TV we're all watching.
