A marvelous six-part British comedy. .... Walker makes a magnificent wreck, though she is brilliant in every mood.

Alice And Steve gets funnier the more the tension between Nicola Walker and Jemaine Clement’s characters ramps up. But the effective way their friendship is established is what makes the tension work.

While often not exactly laugh-out-loud funny, Clement’s comedy background (Flight of the Conchords, What We Do in the Shadows) makes him a reliable source of dry one-liners, and the intergenerational conflict – like when Steve makes a cringeworthy debut to Izzy’s cool friends – will bring smiles of recognition.

Alice and Steve isn’t always perfect on a script level, but its challenging premise and a wonderful Nicola Walker performance allow the unconventional “wrong-com” to find genuine emotional sentiment at its core.

It’s all too tempting to wish “Alice and Steve” would settle into a slightly awkward yet easy-going sitcom. Instead, it’s intent on showing why such seismic relationship shifts don’t always settle into a viable groove.

If you’re able to tune in for this series in the same way you might with Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage — which arguably offers more jokes and a more conventional sitcom structure — you may get something out of Alice and Steve, but it still means sitting in an uncomfortable stew for the duration.

The ending is ridiculous but all of a piece with a main story in which nothing is convincing or authentic and nothing is earned or resolved. The ick is the least of Alice and Steve’s problems.