Lip Service (TV Series 2010–2012) Poster

(2010–2012)

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8/10
Good lips, good story
dortmin19 November 2010
If you are looking for a fresh and bittersweet lesbian series, well, this is the show to watch.

Lip Service can be compare to famous series like TLW but at the end its not the same, it has more than that.

Well done sex and love scenes, the characters are struggling a lot with self inner problems and life.

If you got to see this first season of Lip Service you sure want to wait until the next one.

The character of Frankie is so seductive and mysterious that makes you want to see trough her shocking "look" with those incredible beautiful eyes.

I cant help it, i just love the British accent, so there's another reason to see it.
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8/10
Just finished watching series 1
Tat-me-not15 August 2012
Warning: Spoilers
I give it ten points and would rate it even more if it were allowed here. To me, it is certainly the best lesbian show I have ever seen. TLW was good, but too glamorous and too 'hollywoodpalooza'. This show, on the contrary, is simple in the best sense of the word, as it portrays people that could easily be your friends or live next door. Perhaps, it's due to its European origin that the show sticks to life so much, except for the mother lost and found detective part. One can relate to the love and friendship issues shown, because this is practically what all of us had at some point - hearts broken, hearts mended, old love vs new love, joblessness, in love with a friend, etc. This is what makes the characters so believable and makes one like the show and crave for more.
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8/10
Great first season
sbz50023 August 2018
Warning: Spoilers
Great first season. Very entertaining. Killing off Laura Fraser's character was a mistake no matter how many seasons were intended
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9/10
Right amount of drama, love & lust
cheekygal8827 May 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Great series! The right amount of drama, love & lust! It was everything I thought it would be & so much more! There are real love scenes which is one thing I really loved, they looked real & looked like they weren't staged, everything looked so natural & right!

I am disappointed with season 2 though with 2 main characters leaving the show and also a supporting character! I really hope they can bring Frankie back! I wish they had kept Cat but changed the actress, due to Laura having other work commitments. It's been done in other series' and I wish they had done it with this one & continued the love triangle with Cat, Frankie & Sam.

I hope if a season 3 is made, they bring Frankie back as she was a key character for the series. As much as I love all the characters, it's not the same without Cat or Frankie.

But as an over series, I congratulate everyone involved! Well done, guys! I hope a season 3 is made!
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10/10
Gimme some Lip Service from Sam !!
reival0110 April 2012
I missed this great series the first time around!!..must have been ill !!.. This show and its story is very believable. The characters are normal do average type jobs and they are like your real life friends. Obviously there are some similarities with The L Word. The number of "friends the problems some characters have, but thats where it ends. It is a stand alone series and does itself justice. Emma Button is hilarious..and Heather Peace is very sexy. Frankie is just plain deranged !, yet you still want to mother her and take care of herself!! All in all its a great hours viewing and i personally cant wait for season 2..
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7/10
A Humanizing Drama about Seemingly Invisible Beauty
jneedleman31 March 2013
In the first episode of Lip Service, you'll notice a great deal of self-conscious dialog about political correctness -- what not to call people, how not to characterize them -- that suggests the writers are regurgitating their research and/or being didactic. At that moment, you might wonder whether you ought to keep watching.

But at the same time, the acting and characterization offer a connection to a group of friends whose real-life counterparts are often low-key and underrepresented, partly to allow for survival and a minimum of harassment.

So if you're like me, you'll so want to know and spend time with those characters that you'll keep watching. And if you do, you'll find the verbalized clichés become fewer from the second episode on, and the writing keeps getting better.

Some critics have complained of an absence of "butch lesbians" in the series, which they say favors the "lipstick" kind, but I think they're wrong. I wonder whether the people who say that understand what television representation is or what the culture really involves. First of all, not everyone is the same; some deliberately androgynous female wooers do wear lipstick (sometimes rock stars can be better role models than, say, truck drivers for a player -- if you doubt it, ask Joan Jett). Second, the figures whom one recognizes from real life, and who are often called butch by the very people who desire them, seem lovingly represented on this show -- though, like characters on all TV shows, they are of course conventionally attractive. That's only to be expected on any show: Heather Peace might have broad shoulders, but she also has an angelic face.

As in The L Word and many novels like *The Well of Loneliness* by Radcliffe Hall and others by Ann Bannon, the butch types often seem haunted and emotional behind self-restraint. One of them, Frankie, must come to terms with her life as she tries to care for the woman she loves in the way in which she herself was not cared for. The damage has just as much to do with prejudice, and others' rejection of her as a person, as it does the aftermath of childhood. Perhaps you can relate.

I was very happy to see butch women represented in Lip Service by two of the main characters, just as I was to see classically feminine characters suffer for being themselves as well. You feel for them, but you also understand that it's better to understand pain than overlook it.

There are infinite variations and additions to archetypes in any community of individuals, as anyone with an imagination will have guessed. But I would support any TV show that presented *any* of the wonderful lesbians I've met in real life, so that everyone can have the chance to love and admire them. Lip Service seems to present them to the general public without insulting the demographic it represents. I did find the show titillating as its creators intended — "let's excite our gay audience in a way that also excites straight viewers" — but I see that as a way to introduce the idea of shows like this, so that women in relationships that exclude men — even when they aren't gorgeous and in their 20s and 30s — can become accepted and included more often in mainstream shows over time.

Pity there were only two seasons. I'd have loved to see a third.
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9/10
Deserves a wider audience, insightful and compelling...
stephenph-213 May 2012
Just seen my first episode, and as a mere man, I thought it was great! Superb acting, great music, it was moody, gritty, filmed in a fly on the wall "cinema verite'" way. It deserves a much greater audience; the scenes of a sexual nature are filmed with tact and discretion that shows the passion without too much gynecological detail (quite a challenge!). I can't wait to see more episodes of this thoughtful,insightful, appealing series. There have been so many references to male gay friendship, yet until "The L Word" and now "Lip Service it has been undercover. Lip service is an intelligent, and well thought out drama series that deserves a award, and better publicity.
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7/10
Super hot drama
venisefillies9 May 2016
Warning: Spoilers
In a nutshell it's fantastic but I was annoyed that one half of a super hot couple Laura Fraser had to leave and so her character was killed off. I wanted to scream. In my view Ruta and Laura stood out from the rest,no offense to the rest of the cast. They had absolutely superb chemistry I just don't know how straight people pull off gay characters with such conviction. I know it's just that they are good at their jobs I am just so happy that they can do it because then we would not waste our time watching them represent.

In conclusion I liked it very much just not as much after my two favourite girls left.
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10/10
Thi dismiss the best L show I've seen ! Bring it back !!!
bound-nico1 May 2016
I loved This series ... The cast the development of the characters ... The sorry lines ... It's the best series ! Why did they Cancle It in the middle Of Nowhere ? Bring it back !!! I just watched it on TubiTV and it's amazing !!! Loved it .. Cried laughed etc... Very well written and an actual show not just soft porn ... Loved it in every sense ... I couldn't wait to see the next episode and was lost When it ended ... Please bring it back ? Maybe it was ahead of its time !? I want To see more and find out how they all get on and there are to many loose ends to leave us like this ... Please bring it back ... Maybe try America ? I couldn't get enough ...
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7/10
There once was a great show...
moov_e_c_er22 June 2022
Warning: Spoilers
First season the chemistry between all was wicked and amazing. Second season went downhill and flew over the cliff edge quickly. I understand "Cat" (Laura Fraser) didn't really understand what she signed up for and ultimately left the show. I think "Frankie" felt much of the same and worried to be limited to similar roles and nothing else so she left as well. But the process in and of season 2 is what killed this show. First season there were many moments for each character. Season two Cat and Frankie leave and instead of focusing more on Tess, the new and sexy Lexy all of a sudden we are supposed to give a crap about Sadie? She should have been a few scenes of Frankie's indulgences and never be seen/heard from again ( I found her dramatically boring and rather gross and empty - it was like the show knew Cat and Frankie were leaving and asked her what she would be willing to do instead of getting someone new or focusing on the other geniuses they had already). Season 1 was simply amazing. Season 2 was totally unbalanced and should have been fixed before released (remove Sadie, keep the same for Frankie and Cat - of course we would have loved to keep them both on- bring in another sexy lady to drive all the other characters either crazy or giddy, and make a third season). Yes this show is more than 10 years old but was well worth watching most (first season of course, second season cut it up to make it better).
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9/10
Great start, bad end.
anne-every-12-30269111 August 2019
Warning: Spoilers
I enjoyed these two seasons, but Season two went downhill fast after Cat was killed and Frankie left. To me, they were the stars of this show. To not give Cat and Frankie a happy ending ruined it for me.
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2/10
Kill one of the main characters; kill the series
gary1313612 January 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I really enjoyed this series up until the point of Cat's death, which was a real downer. That completely killed the rest of the series for me; I never finished it. I can't help but think that many others felt the same way.

How very, very sad.

I believe that I would have been happier if Frankie had been the one who was killed off. She had so much emotional baggage that she tended to drag down the series anyway. She was an interesting character, but she struck me as being very self-centered. She couldn't stand the thought of Cat finding happiness, and look what a sad ending this brought about for everyone else.
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9/10
I highly recommend this show
valinvancouver30 August 2012
This is a great show. The first series/season, while not ground breaking, is very enjoyable. With an attractive, talented cast and lots of sex, what's not to like? I was hooked by the end of it. It was the second series that really blew me away. It deepened my respect for the writer, actors and production team, as I feel it was very brave of them to take it in the direction they did, and the acting was superb. It's an entirely different animal from the first season though, so I can understand why the show lost viewers. Still, I think they did a good job balancing out the intensity of the main story line. Hopefully there will be a third series.
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9/10
UK clarity and humor make this show a gem
hollymcaird29 May 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Because it's made in the UK, Lip Service gives a much more nuanced, honest, but also jaw dropping passionate look at the lives and loves of a group of young people. Each character is a recognizable archetype: Cat, the Type A, overachieving, self effacing fem me; Frankie the arrested development Romeo; Sam, the confident, simplistic butch; Ed the comic con /sci-fi sweetheart; and, Tess, the lovable, bumbling girl that floats through life from near miss to near miss. But it's detailed writing - always honest, never caving to sentimentality - and actors talented enough to flesh it out that makes this show more than what you'll see on US television.

Cat and Sam's first date, after meeting online, is awkward and cringe worthy, especially when Cat, who has already arranged an out if the date isn't going well, is showed up by Sam, pulling the same trick. There is a naturalness to the beginning of their relationship with each feeling both drawn to the other and hesitant.

Ed's love for Tess is pained, true and sweet: we watch him help her to find the confidence to ask out a talk show host,;arrange an epic Country and Western birthday party for her; try, diligently, to direct his attention onto a more appropriate candidate(even from whom he can not mask his true desire); but, then blurt out his feelings in a tender and vulnerable outburst.

Frankie and Jay appear to be birds of a feather: both "snatch hounds", both party animals. In the end, however, we see that they have both been swallowing their true desires: Frankie - Cat, Jay - Freedom.

The story line is never accusatory; life rolls on and the blame changes hands. The hardest peak in the drama is Cat's struggle to balance her younger self's obsessive love for Frankie with her present self's relationship and, perhaps, love for the seemingly more appropriate Sam. Sadly, this costs her her life and the other two, their sanity.

Glasgow - its old buildings, bridges, its river, housing projects, affluent suburbs,coffee shops, pubs, theaters and rain are an integral part of the supporting cast that fleshes out the story.

Laura Fraser's( Neverwhere, Breaking Bad)eyes and eyebrow movements walk the viewer through the path of Cat's emotions in ways that words could never do.

Heather Peace - Sam - has sultry eyes, but it is her capture of confidence, arrogance and ruthlessness that make her stereotypical sport loving butch cop so believable.

Ruta Gedmintas ( Keira Knightly's long lost sister?)does a solid job of playing the "Shane"-like Frankie, the chic tomboy caught in a skirt-chasing time warp. However, she really begins to show her true colors in the second season, as Frankie unravels her armor: first for love then by grief.

Fiona Button gets to have fun playing affable Tess whose romantic foibles in season 1 are sweetly predictable, but, nonetheless, charming. Cat's death and Frankie's rash departure in season 2 open new depths in Tess that lead her to boldness in her career and her love life.

Ed, too, becomes more clearly focused after his sister's death and James Anthony Pearson walks him gently and believably to the threshold of self confidence.
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8/10
Some writing could be better, but I'm still addicted! Great realistic characters, and lovely sarcasm
ingrid-504-51688316 October 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Through the season one it took a bit too long to establish the characters. I like everything else about the series, the characters are solid, complicated and they appear sympathetic, comparing to the similar series L-word as with similar comparisons between American and British acting, British actors have more and better mimic, and the whole production is more lively.

I disagree with the above person about the character Sam being acted so bad, I think that the acting is improved in season two, and it also feels very good to have some action (X person dying). This is a very emotional series, it's nice how there are so many circumstances, even though I think it's a bit too much that the new flatmate happens to be doctor Y moving in with characters A and B. But oh well. I also wished to see a more realistic portraiture of the actual society the series takes place. Is this a gay universe, are there ever heterosexual friends or co-workers around them?

I can't wait for season three! Ps, I agree though that the last sex scene in season two was a bit awkward. And rushed. It happened too fast.
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8/10
Excellent Drama/Comedy
mcjensen-0592426 April 2020
As good as this is, it ultimately only confirms they lesbians are selfish and promiscuous.!I hate to say it but the main characters are so driven by desire nobody else matters. Great city shots. Superb acting and dialogue.
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10/10
Lack of Jocks in this one!
xmal-187476 September 2021
I liked it very much, except one thing. In all of the main charcters there's actually only two sweaties. I wanted to hear some real Glasgow accents. It might as well have been filmed in any city in England, for the amount of local Glasgow accents we got to listen to. Bring in old Rab C Nesbitt!!! Lol.

I recommend though, well worth watching.
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2/10
Season 2 is disappointing
kkccoo27 May 2012
In season 2, I felt writing is very disconnected after Sam became a much more prominent character. The strengths of Lip Service in season 1 tended to be in the group/friendship scenes like "Friends".

The acting from the actress who play Sam is so bad that I have to skip all her scenes. There are no chemistry between Sam and Lexy and their sex scene is too awkward to look at. Other actress gave the strong acting though.

This show had great potential but the writing and the acting ruined it. I heard the rating is not strong this season so maybe there won't be season 3. If it has season 3, I hope writing gets improved.
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