I was sucked into the new Netflix adaptation of One Day in the first episode, grabbing the remote to pause it as Dexter sits on Emma’s bed after their first night together. “Look,” I said to my husband. “It’s our duvet cover.” It’s blue, with thin strips of bright colour, and I still have it, though it has faded and has lost its poppers. I think it came from Habitat back in the day, when Habitat was an aspirational shop with branches in provincial towns, not a subcategory of the Argos website.
Is “back in the day” the main draw of One Day, which focuses on a star-crossed couple on a single day each year of their relationship, from 1988 into the early 00s? No shade intended: it is delightful telly, the cast are great and the conceit is – always was – brilliant. But the reason gen Xers like me are watching with such rapt intensity isn’t the love story so much as the precision period detail, impeccably evolving year to year.
