Critical response to the first episode was not favourable; in "The Independent", Nicholas Barber called it the most depressing TV programme he had ever seen. He wrote of the six main characters, "Are we supposed to care about these people? The theory, I think, is that we should relate to them, because their lives are as prosaic as our own, and because "Cold Feet" is a portrait of urban life as it really is in the Nineties. This is another way of saying the writer hasn't bothered with research or imagination." He criticised the conclusion of Episode 1 but praised the other five, which he had seen on preview tapes. On "The Late Review", Germaine Greer and Tony Parsons singled out Nesbitt's acting; Greer called him "especially awful" and Parsons wished that he had plunged to his death from the scissor lift Adam appears on at the beginning of the episode. General reaction improved as the first year went on. At the conclusion of the first series, Andrew Billen compared it with "Vanity Fair" in the "Evening Standard" and was pleased that it offered a televisual outlet for the "forgotten" twentysomethings. Paul Hoggart for "The Times" wrote positively of the writing, directing, acting, and editing and looked forward to how Rachel's pregnancy plot would be resolved in the second series.