Back to Life is a British sitcom that began in 2019. It has so far ran for two series.
18 years ago, teenager Miri Mattheson was sent to prison for the murder of her best friend, Lana Babcock. Now in her mid-thirties, she has been released from prison. Moving back in with her parents Oscar and Caroline, and regularly checking in with her parole office Janice, Miri must readjust to the world whilst forcing a new friendship with her neighbour Billy and dealing with the reaction from the local community in Hythe, Kent..
Tropes in Back to Life:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: Series 1 was filmed and set in 2019. Series 2 is set just couple of weeks later, but was filmed in 2021. There are references to the November/December 2019 setting, and this also allows the makers to not have to depict the COVID-19 Pandemic, which is still a few months into the future.
- Artistic License – Geography: As a result of the series filming across much of the Folkestone and Hythe district, a lot of the locations appear closer together than they are in real life. Folkestone Harbour Arm seems to be in Hythe, and many “Hythe” locations are actually in the nearby Romney Marsh.
- Ascended Extra: Miri's parole officer Janice has a lot more screen time in S2 and gets to interact with characters other than Miri.
- Asshole Victim: In S2, John Boback. A controlling husband whose wife lives in fear of him, who had an adulterous affair with a teenager and almost certainly used his influence to stop the investigation into Lara's murder from pursuing enquiries that would expose him. He's not even a nice guy to his colleagues, to the point of indulging in Malicious Misnaming of Tina, who idolises him. He also tries to intimidate Miri by running her off the road, and Mandy by outright threats - which finally cause Mandy to snap and kill him (or wound him allowing his wife to finish him off, it isn't made clear.)
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Oscar and Caroline have moments like this towards the end of Series 2. They had been drifting apart for years by this point but show signs of rediscovering their love for each other.
- Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop: It's hard to see how Tina ever got accepted into the police. She makes vague and (probably) empty threats to Miri, constantly misuses legal terminology, is completely out of her depth whenever she has to do any proper police work, and for a crowning non-achievement, lets a woman who has just confessed to murder visit the toilet unaccompanied, allowing her to simply walk straight out.
- Chekhov's Gun: The waffle-maker that Mark attempts to brandish as a weapon in S02E01 turns up later in the series when Mandy uses it to cosh John Boback.
- Crime of Self-Defense: Miri's crime is this. Lara attacked Miri first, and the fight ended with Miri pushing Lara over a cliff.
- Country Matters: Tossed around a lot, but most notably when Miri calls Gaia out on her treatment of Billy.
- Dirty Cop: It's suggested that Miri's claim of self defence was never properly considered because it could potentially have exposed DCI Boback's secret that he had been sleeping with Miri's friend Mandy.
- Driving Test: Miri takes her driving test and passes in Series 2. She quips that she has been learning for 20 years, but with a bit of a gap.
- Driving Question: In S1. Not, as you might expect, "Did Miri do it?" (there's no mystery: she did) but rather "What caused the fight?"
- Evil Is Petty: John Boback is such a jerkass that he even sinks to Malicious Misnaming of Tina as "Tuna". It's particularly egregious given that this is his response to her telling him how much she looks up to him.
- Extreme Libido: Mandy reckons her life is "80% pussy, 20% other stuff". This is initially Played for Laughs, but revealed to have a darker significance later on.
- False Confession: Norah Boback for the murder of her controlling husband John. She thinks she's protecting Miri, having seen her leaving the scene of the crime. She doesn't know the real killer is Mandy.
- Fictional Counterpart: Hythe police station is run by the fictional “South Eastern Constabulary” instead of the real Kent Police.
- First-Episode Twist: Despite the series' publicity making a particular point of not revealing what Miri's crime was, we quickly learn that she pushed a schoolfriend off a cliff to her death.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Miri, in a non time travel example. After spending 18 years in prison, she is unfamiliar with 2019 technology such as iPhones or the internet.
- Good Adultery, Bad Adultery:
- "Bad": Miri's ex Dom will sleep with anyone, including her mother and Miri herself.
- "Good": Billy, although it makes sense because Billy's wife Anna has dementia.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Miri's mother, Caroline.
- Karma Houdini: As of the end of S2, Mandy, for the murder of John Boback to which Norah falsely confessed. She had finally decided to do the right thing and confess, but the emergency services drove past her house and she made no further effort to turn herself in.
- Malicious Misnaming: Chief Inspector Boback calls Tina "Tuna", right after she's told him how much she looks up to him.
- My Beloved Smother: Billy’s mum Gaia puts him down at any opportunity, and frequently says about how he is wasting his life as gardener when he could be a surgeon by now. Miri calls her out in this.
- Mysterious Watcher: In S1, a mysterious man is seen to be snooping around Miri and her family. He is eventually revealed to be an Amateur Sleuth trying to clear Miri's name.
- Mood Whiplash: The town council meeting, where it appears Miri is being reintegrated into her town followed immediately by her discovering the truth about Lara's anger.
- No Communities Were Harmed: A striking aversion. The obvious thing to do would be to set the series in a fictional town, or at least give the place a fictional alias. But Hythe is a real place, and the exteriors are mostly genuine Hythe locations.
- Plucky Girl: This is Miri's main character type. Daisy Haggard, who co-wrote the series and plays Miri, describes her as "an eternal optimist", but she's realistic enough not to fall into being The Pollyanna or Wide-Eyed Idealist.
- Rhetorical Request Blunder / I Wished You Were Dead: Billy's wife, Anna, dies just after Miri finally snaps back at her after enduring a barrage of abuse.
- Stepford Smiler: Everyone, especially Miri’s parents Caroline and Oscar (who are both struggling with being alienated from the community), Miri (who is trying to move on from being in prison for twenty years), and Miri's best friend Mandy.
- Tell Him I'm Not Speaking to Him: Miri is like this with Caroline after her affair with Dom is revealed.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Hythe, Miri's hometown. It appears to be her crime, but it is later revealed to be her motive for her crime.
- Unseen No More: Thoughout S1 we learn quite a lot about Dirty Cop John Boback, but he doesn't appear on screen until S2.
- Villain with Good Publicity: John Boback is a pretty nasty piece of work all round: a Dirty Cop and a controlling husband who had an adulterous affair with a 17-year-old and almost certainly used his influence to stop the inquiry into Lara's death from pursuing lines of enquiry that would expose him. Nothwithstanding his genuine grief, he used Lara's death to paint himself as the wronged man - and despite having moved on from Hythe, was still using the murder to exert his influence there.
- Wham Line:Dom: The rumour was that Mr Boback was sleeping with Mandy, not Miri.
