Perhaps a different duo might have helped in that regard because the lived-in chemistry these two need to convince us is nowhere to be found which makes the pair hard to buy as best friends and impossible to believe as a couple. Michael Mayer, a Tony award-winning theatre director, has made a competent background watch that does what it needs to do without really trying to do anything else, passable on a base-level but lacking a certain spark. The overwhelming conventionality of Single All the Way is kind of the point here, a comforting film-by-numbers designed to soothe rather than surprise. But as the two start dating, the family becomes focused on trying to make a real relationship happen between Peter and Nick. He concocts a lie, that he and Nick are now in a relationship, but the facade soon drops when his mother (Kathy Najimy) sets him up with a handsome local trainer (Luke Macfarlane) instead. Peter is devastated but determined not to be the only single person at the table so he brings Nick back with him. But Peter’s best friend Nick (newcomer Philemon Chambers) discovers that his new man has been lying to him, forgetting to share the tiny detail of his heterosexual marriage. Peter (Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie) is preparing to enjoy his first Christmas with a boyfriend, who has unexpectedly agreed to join him back in New Hampshire to see family.
