My Family - Series Synopses

Series Synopses

The first series, Ben, a dentist, and Susan, the worst cook in the world, are certainly loving, caring parents, they just have a problem showing it. Ben seems to be confused as to how much time and money his kids demand from him. Susan has to juggle motherhood, a career and a husband and does not have enough time to manage everything including improving her cooking skills. Nick is always working on his next hair-brained scheme to keep him amused. Janey, like any normal teenage daughter feels that her parents are seriously embarrassing whilst Michael keeps his head in his books to get away from the noise.

The second series, Ben Harper, husband and father to three different and often difficult children has spent his working life as a dentist. Just as well as most of his life seems rather like pulling teeth. His wife Susan is usually busy showing foreign tourists around London, a place she knows much better than her own kitchen. Ben and Susan have been married happily enough to have three children. However, Ben has the feeling that most of the time his children seem to speak a different language. Nick (20) has persuaded his parents he would benefit from a gap year to see something of the world. To date, he has hardly seen anything beyond the confines of the sofa. Janey (17) is into boys, fashion labels (expensive ones) and getting her own way. Michael (14) is the brightest of the trio. He is seriously into computers, and, not so seriously (yet) into girls.

In series three, life in the Harper household is as hectic as ever, Janey has left for university and has been replaced in the house by their cousin Abi, who is more than a little accident prone. Ben sees this new addition to their home as a threat to the peace and quiet he's wanted throughout his married life, while Susan is happy to have another woman in the house. As for Michael, he is spending as much time thinking about girls now as his school work. And as if all this was not bad enough for Ben, Nick continued to work on his next hair-brained scheme, whether than means starring as Jesus in the local nativity play or dressing up as a drag queen!

In the fourth series, Susan is looking forward to the birth of her first grandchild, but dreading being a grandmother. Nick is getting fed up with living in his ghastly flat and trying to think of a way to move back into the family home. The gap between Michael's IQ and the rest of the family's seems to be increasing, but so is his libido. And Abi is still Abi, only more so! As for perennially put-upon Ben, what with a new arrival causing chaos in the surgery, being forced to take tango lessons and being officially declared dead, life is just one long major-league cirsis.

In Series five, Ben and Susan are enjoying some new-found tranquility, Nick has moved into his own flat, Janey is at university and Abi is usually out at evening class. Naturally the peace is not to last! Janey comes back home with baby Kenzo and Michael has been "born again" and is holding Bible study sessions in the living room. With Ben's famous dental patients, Susan's election ambitions and an unheathly obsession with Inspector Morse – not to mention the unlikely perils of house-sitting in a luxury modern apartment – domestic life is soon to be back to normal. So when Ben and Susan start being nice to each other it's no wonder Abi's suspicious; they could not be getting a divorce could they?

In the sixth series, Janey and son Kenzo spend much more time at the Harper house than is good for Ben, and Micheal moves from scam to scam with alarming ease. Add to that the ever-so-slowly blossoming of the Abi-Roger romance and the new cuckoo in the nest, wiser-than-he-looks Alfie Butts and the problems multiply. The family's hurdles include Ben joining a secret society (The Brotherhood of the Cockerel), Susan's new job leading her to a dinner date with a new man and an encounter with squatters. In other words, as usual, problems and situations constantly conspire to remind Ben and Susan that 'Family' is an 'F' word.

In the seventh series, a mystery man arrives asking for Janey – Susan finally discovers the identity of Kenzo's father. Roger and Abi's marriage announcement gives Susan the idea to renew her marriage vows despite protests from Ben. A death in the dentist's chair is not very good for business, but, as Ben discovers, it is not very good for your private life either. Michael succeeds in placing the whole family on The Weakest Link, but Anne Robinson raises more difficult questions than might have been expected.

In the eighth series, love is in the air in the Harper house. Ben is in love – with an extremely large television; Janey is in love with a new man; and Michael's current love has announced that she is pregnant. Meanwhile, Ben and Susan's credit card statement highlights each of their secret vices and an armed robbery at the local bank leads to Ben and Janey being taken as hostages. Michael and Alfie investigate the world of internet dating with mixed results and Abi realises her true vocation in life is to become a nun!

In series nine, chaos, paranoia and misunderstanding – yes, it's life as usual in the Harper household. Ben stands up to – and gets put down by – his own school bully and gets a little jealous as a rich business man falls for Susan – or is that Janey? There are new worries as they discover Michael's seeing a therapist and Ben fails his retraining exam – and, while the family is divided over mean Uncle Norris's inheritance and the acquisition of a puppy, Ben's delighted to discover he's the inspiration for a wealthy if unhappy, celebrity dentist!

In the tenth series, in the second episode ("The Son'll Come Out") Michael comes out as gay to his parents, first to his father after coming home drunk then later to his mother. He then tells them that he has been in a relationship with a guy for some time, a 25 year old solicitor called Scott Marsh, who later moves into the Harper residence, though he is later seen in gay clubs picking up guys and giving out his number, suggesting that he and Scott have broken up, but they later get back together. These comprise of a nine-part tenth series and a seven-part eleventh series.