Television series

Goodnight Sweetheart

Name: Goodnight Sweetheart
Genre: Comedy, Romance, History
Released: 1993
Cast: Nicholas Lyndhurst, Victor McGuire, Elizabeth Carling, Dervla Kirwan, Emma Amos

A sitcom about infidelity with a time-travel twist: a bored TV repairman discovers a portal to 1940s London and splits his life between his shrewish modern wife and a winsome barmaid in the Blitz. It's a high-concept premise grounded in painful domestic reality—funny and genuinely touching, with an edge of genuine melancholy beneath the laughs.

TVMaze rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like a sitcom whose time-travel premise is played for domestic comedy, with a warm, slightly wistful undertow about being torn between two lives.

Skip it if you want fast, gag-packed sitcom rhythms, because this is a gentle, character-led series that runs across six seasons of half-hour episodes at an unhurried pace.

What it asks of you: Half-hour episodes that run to six seasons, paced slowly enough to keep returning to the same two households and their small, repetitive domestic squabbles.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

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Blackadder1983

Another British ensemble comedy where the setup—a pompous officer and his scheming subordinate—matters less than the writing. Quick, clever, and genuinely painful when it needs to be, especially by the final series.

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Only Fools and Horses....1981

The greatest British sitcom ever made: two brothers, working-class London, romance and failure and schemes that never quite work. It's funny but it's also desperately real about money, family, and wanting better.

But Seven series across thirteen years means commitment. Some episodes feel more like character dramas than sitcoms, which can feel slow if you want constant gags.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Goodnight Sweetheart

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Golden Compass2007

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But It's a children's fantasy, which might feel tonally distant from domestic sitcom. Also criticized for its religious allegory being muddled in adaptation. Some find the CGI dated.

A Bit of Fry and Laurie1987

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QI2003

Stephen Fry hosting a panel show about fascinating things. It's intelligent without being smug, warm without being soft. The tone is closer to sitting in a pub with clever friends than watching a quiz.

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Have I Got News for You1990

British topical comedy panel show with real wit underneath the fast jokes. There's an intelligence and affection for good writing that might remind you why sitcom mattered as a form.

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The League of Gentlemen1999

Dark British sketch comedy with recurring characters and genuine narrative arcs. It pushes past where sitcom usually goes—angrier, weirder, willing to break the form.

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Spaced1999

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Pennies from Heaven1978

Both explore infidelity not as a punchline but as a genuine moral and emotional trap—a character trying to live in two incompatible worlds and the cost of that attempt. Both use a sense of period romance as the lure.

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But It's a drama, not comedy, and it's genuinely bleak in places. Also quite explicit about sex and infidelity in ways that might feel uncomfortable. The pacing is deliberate, almost novelistic.

Back to the Future Part III1990

Both center on a time portal as the gateway to romance with someone from another era, and both are ultimately asking what it means to choose between worlds—between the life you have and the life you want.

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But It's the third film in a franchise; you absolutely need the first two. It's also a blockbuster, lighter and breezier than *Goodnight Sweetheart*, which might feel tonally jarring if you want something thoughtful.