Everybody, from time to time, will experience an annus horribilis, but this is the year that none of the family is going to forget in a hurry. Susan is locked in a custody struggle with her soon-to-be-ex husband Tom, who is perfectly prepared to play dirty if he has to. Because of her husband's sudden celebrity Debbie is faced with lifestyle changes for which she is unprepared. Oliver and Chel are on a terminal downward slide due to a pact that Oliver had thought he made with his wife years ago, and Dot's complacent life is disintegrating before her eyes. Only Jerry's path seems edged with primroses. Susan needs to find the courage to defend her children conclusively. Debbie must accept that two people make a marriage, and both have a right to a say as to what happens within it. Oliver will need to look beyond himself and his wrecked ambitions if he wishes to save his marriage. Dot seems to have blundered down a blind alley and must find her way out. Finally, answers must come from within, and finding definitive answers has never been a Nankervis talent. But family life has never been quite like this before either, so can any of them, even if not all of them, weather the threatening storms simply by behaving like a proper family?