Searching is a sitcom by Carla Lane that aired for one series on ITV in 1995. It concerned the residents of Sunfield Voluntary Therapy Centre, designed for women with special psychological needs. It is run by Mrs Tilston (Prunella Scales), a slightly odd but enthusiastic woman who holds a candle for Mr. Gillepsie (David Gooderson). Her patients consist of Chancy (Julia St. John), a thrice-divorced man-hater and aggressive husband-beater who soon begins to house a crush for visiting therapist Daniel Carter, Mily (Regina Freedman), a skimpily dressed kleptomaniac trapped in a dull marriage, suicidal Dora (Claire Cathcart), who is facing issues regarding an unfaithful boyfriend, Hetty (Amanda Bellamy), who obsessively hides under umbrellas, and Lena (Victoria Carling), an aristocratic woman who is obsessed with pulling train emergency cords. Together, they all try to deal with their issues, seeing the centre as a refuge against the outer world. Being that this is a Carla Lane sitcom, there is also much sentimental discussion of men and women, with men for the most part being portrayed much less sympathetically than the women.
Tropes in this series:
- All There in the Script: Inverted - the name of Chancy's father is Conrad, but he's only credited as "Chancy's Father" in the credits.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Chancy finally admits her feelings for Daniel as he's being wheeled away for his injured eye. Although he seemingly admits it back, Chancy is disappointed to learn that he wasn't saying it in the best state of mind and probably wasn't being serious, until Episode 6 reveals that he was.
- Awful Wedded Life:
- Mily is trapped in an absolutely boring marriage to her husband Gerald, one where the most interesting thing is his incompetence in retrieving the dead body of their gerbil. It's enough that the others actively wonder why she remains married to the man.
- The marriage between Chancy's parents has whittled down Chancy's mother to the point that even when Conrad is out of earshot, all her mother can do is make comments regarding the issues facing Conrad regardless of what anyone is saying. Episode 7 has her finally leave with the intention of divorce, although Conrad's reaction suggests that this isn't even the first time she's attempted it.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Chancy's interactions with Daniel Carter usually end with her beating him up, but she clearly has some romantic interest in him as well.
- Big "NO!": Mrs. Tilston's reaction when she comes across a "Dear John" Letter from Mr. Gillespie is to shout a large "No!".
- British Brevity: Only one series consisting of 7 episodes was ever made.
- Broken Record: When Daniel Carter is being wheeled away for a situation involving his eye, a worried Chancy starts continually saying "I Love You" to him. A commercial break later and we still see her saying "I love you" to him as he's being returned to his bed, now minus a bandage around his eye.
- Character Catchphrase: Mrs. Tilston's "Up and Dashing", usually said to get her patients to start doing activities.
- "Dear John" Letter: Mrs. Tilston finds a letter from Mr. Gillepsie whilst trying to look for him, discovering that he has decided to move on and leave her. She takes it very poorly.
- Death Seeker: Dora, whose suicidal tendencies lead her to throw herself out of windows.
- Does Not Like Men: All of them have a distaste for men to some extent, but Chancy fits the bill the most, hating men so much that she is prone to fits of rages upon seeing one. Oddly enough, this doesn't stop her from gaining an obsession for Daniel Carter.
- Domestic Abuse: The reason Chancy is in the home is because she has a habit of beating up her husbands, and she wants to resolve her anger issues and hatred of men.
- Dysfunction Junction: It is set at a Therapy Centre after all, which means that none of the women can be considered sane - Chancy has a seething hatred for men, to the point of violence, Mily is a kleptomaniac, Hetty obsessively hides under umbrellas whilst claiming that she didn't do anything, Lena has a thing for pulling train emergency cords, and Dora is suicidal. Even Mrs Tilston is not quite right, obsessively mothering the others and dashing around the place.
- Extreme Doormat: Chancy's mother, who can't even get a whole sentence out before being interrupted by her father. Chancy sometimes blames her behaviour from this personality display of her mother's.
- Eye Scream: Daniel Carter spends Episode 4 with an injured eye, which Chancy blames herself for. Carter claims he simply just bumped into the filing cabinet and that Chancy wasn't even there to inflict the injury on him, but this doesn't convince her and it's eventually made clear that he was lying to her to try to make her feel better.
- Florence Nightingale Effect: Chancy falls into a romance on Daniel Carter, a therapist who occasionally does work on her and the other women.
- Freudian Excuse: Chancy certainly suspects that her violent behavior could be caused by the poor marriage of her parents, with her mother being an Extreme Doormat to her more dominating father.
- The Ghost: Lena has a complex relationship with a man named Eddington, but he never appears in the flesh.
- The Inspector Is Coming: Episode 6, which features a visit from the council to check that things are going well. This ends up going not as smoothly as expected, as the inspectors come across Lena shouting at her boyfriend down the phone and Mily making food with one of her outlandish outfits, but the Centre is implied to have passed.
- Mickey Mousing: In Episode 2, the patients end up falling into a mass shouting of "Down With Love! Down With Men!", to which Mrs. Tilston plays her piano to. Considering how shouty the girls end up, the piano tune comes across more as a collision of noise than anything resembling music.
- Mondegreen Gag: The start of Episode 6 features Chancy having a conversation with her mother over the phone, with said mother mishearing the word "therapist" as "the rapist" and having to be corrected.
- Musical Chores: It's a sign of Mrs. Tilston newfound joy in the wake of being with Mr. Gillespie that she can happily go around cleaning whilst singing a romantic song.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever situation caused Hetty to constantly hide under her umbrella. All we get from her is her insistence that it wasn't her fault and that "they" know who did it.
- The Quiet One: Hetty says the least amongst the patients, preferring to stand or sit in the corner under an umbrella and occasionally mutter how she wasn't to blame for an unspecified Noodle Incident.
- Serial Spouse: Chancy has been divorced three times. The fact that she regularly abuses her husbands might have something to do with that.
- Sticky Fingers: Mily, who has a habit of nicking things. Shame they tend to be completely useless...
- Team Mom: Mrs Tilston acts like a mother to her patients, constantly encouraging them to do specific acts and criticizing them for their occasional mishaps.
- Two-Timing with the Bestie: Dora's boyfriend Duncan cheats on her with her best friend. When Mily hears about this, she laments that her husband didn't go off and cheat with her best friend, as it would have at least been interesting.
