Tony Gardner

Mrs Professor Shales gets suspicious and assumes her husband is having an affair - but with Vod, not Oregon. Josie's fiance Dave is moving into the house by stealth, much to Kingsley's chagrin. Under suspicion from Dave, Kingsley blurts out the details of Josie's indiscretion with JP. JP is in denial about his father's death, and diverts his grief into desperately trying to get out of doing his end-of-term exams. Meanwhile, Brian begs Howard to resume their friendship.

Shipping up as freshers at their shared house are: JP, public school boy with good teeth and an inflated sense of entitlement; Kingsley, charming and crushingly insecure; Josie, determined to experience 'new things'; socially-awkward know-it-all Howard, hard-living Vod; and Oregon, desperate to be cool and terrified of being boring. One by one, the six new students destined to be housemates congregate before term begins - although second year Howard has of course already been in solitary residence for some unspecified time.

Kingsley is forced to confess to Josie that he's a virgin, and she offers to 'cure' him. But the deal is undercut when Kingsley unexpectedly winds up having sex with drama queen Ruth. Unable to fess up to Josie, Kingsley nevertheless goes ahead with the plan. Oregon is unimpressed with Shales' cheap efforts at romanticism at a Travelodge, while Vod is forced to actually do some work and has an epiphany - enjoying the book she was meant to read. JP takes Howard under his wing in an attempt to 'humanise' him, but becomes increasingly dependent on him when they go on an expedition to acquire illegal substances.

JP finds out his father has serious health issues, and decides the best response is to take his first acid trip. Oregon is distraught to learn that her childhood horse is dying, culminating in the revelation that she isn't called Oregon at all, but Melissa. Meanwhile Vod has a drug overdose and starts to question her own lifestyle and behaviour. Kingsley and Josie compete with one another to become student journalists, with Kingsley unscrupulously using Vod's overdose as subject matter. Josie hits a new low and accepts a marriage proposal from Dave. And Howard has his first date with Geology Girl, but Brian jealousy resolves to sabotage it.

The housemates are in social Siberia so they decide to throw a party, spearheaded by Josie in the hope that she and Kingsley will get together - a plan scuppered when Josie's boyfriend Dave turns up unxpectedly. Josie is saved from further embarrassment when Kingsley steps in to prevent one of JP's 'nobhead' friends revealing that she slept with him. Meanwhile, Oregon continues to cultivate her 'alternative' image, dented slightly by the revelation that she has a car.