It seemed pretty obvious, with Series One, that the British television comedy series Coupling was derived from the US sitcom Friends -- a wilder, sexier version -- friends with their pants down.

But any derivation has been left way behind, and Series Two, and now Series Three of Couplings, have presented us with a wildly funny and anarchic sitcom/comedy series which is just one of the most seriously delectable television offerings of today.

There are basically six characters in Couplings, Steve (Jack Davenport), Susan (Sarah Alexander), Jane (Gina Bellman), Sally (Kate Isitt), Patrick (Ben Miles) and Jeff (Richard Coyle).

Series Three picks up right where Two left off, with Steve and Susan splitting up. In a split-screen presentation, the girls go off to a beauty parlour, the 'Temple of Women', to discuss the difference between sexes .. the boys go off to a lap-dancing club to do the same thing. Enough said.

Sally continues through the series her ongoing slow and paranoiac nervous-breakdown, Jeff is alternately driven to desperation by the fear of either having not enough sex or too much, Jane keeps picking the wrong men to fantasise about having sex with, and in the final of the seven episodes, we find that one of the three girls is .... pregnant.

Running through the series is an ever-increasing sense of surrealistic absurdity, best expressed in the penultimate episode, of overheard bathroom happenings and misplaced lesbianism. Did I mention that sex seems to be the underlying theme of this show?

Lovers of the series will note with huge regret that this series marks the departure of my favourite character from Couplings, the obsessive, ultra-weird Jeff, played to freakish perfection by Richard Coyle. He's supposed to be replaced in Series Four by someone else, but, as we know, there can be no replacement.....

It's an exceptional transfer in anamorphic widescreen, better than broadcast format and quality, and the stereo soundtrack is just fine too.

The main extra is a refreshingly casual commentary track by writer Steven Moffatt and actor Jack Davenport for each episode.

All seven episodes are found on the first disc. The second disc has almost nine minutes of outtakes. These begin as a standard bloopers-reel but build up into genuinely hilarious stuff.

We then get a interview featurette of about 20 minutes, with all cast members and the husband/wife writer and executive producer team of Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue. This touches on what the actors think of their characters, favourite episodes, most embarassing moments, and a 'Would I hang out with Me?' analysis.

That's it for extras, apart from some fragmentary text-excerpts from unfilmed scripts.

The extras will please fans, but are basically pretty slight, apart from the nicely paced audio commentary.