Friday Night Dinner

Friday Night Dinner (2011-) is a Channel 4 television series. Once a week, the Goodman family - snappy mother Jackie, half-deaf hoarding father Martin, and twenty-something sons Adam and Jonny - meet up for a Sabbath meal. The brothers' constant war of attrition, Martin's attempts to hold onto his precious back issues of New Scientist, Jackie's neuroses and the regular intrusion of the Stalker With a Crush neighbour Jim combine into elaborate Fawlty Towers Plots which always collapse at the climax of the episode.

Not to be confused with the similar "dysfunctional Jewish family meets for a meal" sitcom Grandmas House.

This show provides examples of:
"If something is introduced early in an episode of Friday Night Dinner, it will become important at a later point in the episode: For example, if a phone is stuck on speaker, you know that someone is going to have a private conversation that becomes a public one. I call it Chekhovian because every episode really does have about a half-dozen equivalents of Chehkovian guns, items set up to play a role in the climax of the episode."
 * All Jews Are Cheapskates: Martin eats out of the bin, spoons unused ketchup back into the bottle and saves back copies of New Scientist on the grounds that they'll be worth something someday as "collectables".
 * But You Screw One Goat: Subtly hinted at with Jim. When Jackie gently points out that it's unlikely someone would have raped Wilson, since he's a dog, Jim simply shouts "yes, exactly" and goes very quiet. There's also the "little game" Jim was playing with Wilson.
 * Chekhov's Armoury: As the AV Club review of the show says:

"Grieving guest: My dad's just died, why are you putting salt in everything?!"
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Jim has a habit of throwing non-seqiturs into conversation, decides to pop round to their house to tell them that their doorbell is broken (he knows because there's a sign on it), and when his dog runs away, he panics "What if someone's raped him?"
 * Drop in Character: Jim.
 * Escalating War: Between Jonny and Adam. Most of the time, it's adding salt to each other's drinks in increasingly elaborate ways. Generally leads to people getting caught up in the crossfire.

"We were playing a little game. (Beat) It went wrong."
 * Expy: Two examples. Jim is precisely the same twitchy, asocial pervert that Mark Heap played in Green Wing, Dr Alan Statham, though minus the ego that came with being a consulting radiologist. Adam meanwhile is Will from The Inbetweeners five years later.
 * Fawlty Towers Plot: Every single episode.
 * Girlfriend in Canada: Jonny's supposed girlfriend does exist... but she's going out with someone else.
 * In Series Nickname: Jonny and Adam call each other "Pissface" and "Pusface" respectively. Their dad's ex-girlfriend is known universally as "bitchface".
 * Literally Loving Thy Neighbor: Jim has a poorly disguised crush on Jackie, and turns up constantly at their door with the weakest excuse.
 * Ominously Open Door: The very first scene parodies this. The two boys arrive at their parents to find the door hanging open. Nervously, they approach it... and find their next door neighbour stepping out of the downstairs loo.
 * Noodle Incident: How Jim's dog ate his keys.


 * The Door Slams You: Jackie's mother, while trying on her bikini, finds the front door open. She walks over to check why... and is promptly thrown through it when Martin unknowingly knocks the door shut.
 * Yiddish As a Second Language: Largely averted, but to troll Jim, Jonny claims that "pusface" is a traditional Jewish nickname and that the eldest son should recieve a basket of green fruit (but not pears) called a "schmoygle". Jim dutifully turns up at the end of the episode singing "Happy birthday pusface" clutching his schmoygle.