Nikki and Jason really want kids. They follow ovulation schedules so actively that they even have to have sex on the bus in order to make it through the closing window.

But their dreams of having children do not seem destined to come true: Nikki does not have enough eggs, IVF is very expensive and seems completely pointless in their case. It just won’t help.

At these words of the doctor, the life of the couple collapses – they have already built castles in the air about their own children. It becomes incredibly difficult to accept a new bitter reality.

A few months later, Nikki and Jason are ready to become foster parents. And with this seemingly easy decision, they go to the center, where, in their opinion, they give away children left without parents.

In fact, everything turns out to be not so simple. So the look of Nikki and Jason was very naive.

Not on the First Try (originally titled simply Trying), produced by BBC Studios, was the first non-US project on Apple TV+. The first season was fully released on May 1 and consists of eight half-hour episodes, translation into Russian – only subtitles.

Trying perfectly captures contemporary London and the people who live in it. Of course, the characters are pretty stereotypical: here are Nikki and Jason’s parents who can’t come to terms with the fact that their children have decided to adopt. Here are the best friends of the main characters. They have two children and a complete lack of personal life – both are tortured by their own “vampires” with a rather indifferent attitude towards each other.

And the main characters are also somewhat stereotypical. This is not the British elite in the form of past and present dukes. Nikki works as a call center operator for a car rental service, and Jason teaches English as a foreign language. From our point of view, his work may sound like something good. However, this is not so: throughout the first season, it will be repeated several times that this is unworthy of an adult 37-year-old man.

Nikki and Jason feel like strangers at meetings of future adoptive parents – here is a well-known international columnist discussing US foreign policy for half an hour, here is an employee of the Department of Education, here is a black gay couple. The latter are discussed behind their backs: “You know, here they are trying to attach children to“ their own ”,” says an international observer. And, of course, he is not discussing the orientation of the characters, but their skin color. The most discussed couple, by the way, will turn out to be very cool parents, already raising one adopted daughter.

The series bluntly calls a spade a spade: children can be vampires. Being parents is difficult. Being worthy of the status of “parent” is difficult. Being a parent of adopted children is difficult. Relationships are hard too.

The series perfectly shows how the infantile desire to have a child is transformed into an adult and balanced decision. At the same time, “Not on the first try” does not try to talk about serious things in a serious way. The creators understand that they are talking about people for people. However, these nice and pleasant people are not without flaws: Nikki has severe anxiety and sometimes increased infantilism, and Jason was a bad boy in the past and is not very ready to change in the present to become a good parent in the future.

Comedy is not the main goal of the story “Not on the first try.” Yes, you will laugh a lot while watching. However, you will also empathize with the characters. You will understand them. They will be real people for you. Ordinary living people, of which there are a lot around.

And for this we must pay tribute to the cast: Esther Smith as Nikki and Rafe Spall, who became an excellent, but in places rather cold Jason. And Imelda Staunton is a real decoration of the series, she showed herself in the role of a charming employee of the guardianship authorities. And her heroine has experienced a lot of different and often negative things in her long career and personal life: “I would gladly give you my own grandchildren for adoption.”

But the show isn’t all perfect. First, there are many issues with the desire for idealization. Yes, social problems are shown: Nikki is not trusted by the boss, which is why she cannot get more. Yes, there is everyday racism of the older generation. But in general, all this is presented very easily: Nikki does not think about the career ladder for a long time and does not suffer. Racism of the main characters’ parents? Well, think! They do not go out into the streets demanding to evict all the inhabitants of Eastern Europe, whose unobtrusive personification, by the way, is the Russian actress Diana Pozharskaya.

The vacuum in which the characters live is not very clear either. Yes, they have their own little world and they are not very interested in politics. But sometimes Trying still touches on the topic of racism and attitudes towards the inhabitants of Eastern Europe. And with an eye on this, I don’t understand why the cherished word “Brexit” was not heard in all eight episodes. Is Apple afraid that it is so fed up with everyone? Or does the company simply believe that the global audience will not understand it?

This looks like a very strange decision, which is why you have little faith in the surrounding reality of the characters. And, oddly enough, this makes the second season of the series interesting: will the heroes live in a world where the coronavirus appeared? Or will it also be one of those annoying words that you should forget about?

Sometimes the viewer becomes uncomfortable. In each episode, at least once, I wanted to cover my face with my hand, hiding myself from the Spanish shame – starting almost from the very first scene on the bus. This did not happen often, rarely going beyond, and served, rather, as an illustration of the slight stupidity of the characters or the moment that is being told. But the fact itself.

All these shortcomings fade against the backdrop of touching history. Against the backdrop of the emotions that the main characters evoke in the viewer. This is a very good series. And with an eye to all of the above, I would give him an eight out of ten points.