While browsing through Netflix over the past month or so, you may have inadvertently stumbled across the title, Scrotal Recall and wondered why Netflix was streaming a Total Recall porn parody. However, though there is a scene in which a woman breaks her finger after sticking it up her boyfriend’s butt, there is nothing particularly porn-y about Scrotal Recall. In fact, it’s one of the funniest, sweetest new series of the year, and believe it or not, it’s more in the vein of a rom-com than porn, akin to a grown-up version of brilliant coming-of-age series, The Inbetweeners.
When How I Met Your Mother ended its run, the networks all rushed to find the next great rom-com sitcom, and as is often the case when the networks attempt to clone another series, they all failed (A to Z, Manhattan Love Story, Selfie, etc.). Scrotal Recall is the series that may finally fill that void. It’s a British sitcom from relative newcomer Tom Edge, and it’s about a guy who is diagnosed with chlamydia and must contact all his former lovers in order to inform them of the disease.
That takes Dylan (Johnny Flynn) back through the last several years of his ssex life, where we see he and his “soulmate” Evie (Antonia Thomas) weaving around each other. They’re best friends, and though they both have strong romantic feelings for one another, the timing never seems to work out. One of them is always in a relationship, and they both hesitate to confess their true feelings to each other for fear of ruining their friendship. The series essentially begins with Evie on the verge of getting married, and Dylan trying to work up the nerve to confess his feelings for her. From there, we also backtrack through all their missed connections in the context of Dylan’s other relationships.
There’s also Luke (Daniel Ings), the perfect British cad, trying to sleep his way through a wish-list of his own, as well as Angus (The Hour’s Joshua McGuire), whose marriage and subsequent break-up bookend the series.
If you’re not into rom-coms, however, don’t let the romantic elements dissuade you. It’s also a very raunchy, hilarious tour through a lot of sexual misadventures and escapades more befitting the title of Scrotal Recall.
Being billed as a Netflix Original, it actually aired originally in Britain in 2014, and it’s kind of the perfect show to watch in between other shows. There’s only six episodes in the first season (and I’m very hopeful that a second series will be ordered, though I suspect it will largely depend on how successful the series is on Netflix), and each episode clocks in at under 25 minutes. I banged out the entire series in one night, and it’s totally worth the quick three-hour investment. It’s funny, it’s irreverent, it’s tawdry, and it is unexpectedly sweet, and it has a really excellent soundtrack. It’s definitely a show more people should be talking about, and the ideal summertime series.
