TVScope: Where do people with learning disabilities find romance? Just like the rest of the date-seeking population, they complain about how difficult it is to meet someone. They consider how much a partner would add to their happiness. They wonder what they'd wear on a first date. They speculate about using other options to help them meet a partner.
Only there aren't that many options. Mate-finding devices of the modern, time-pressed age - dating agencies, personal adverts and speed dating events - are closed to people with a learning or intellectual disability, it seems.
This lack of options prompted 31-year-old Lolita Jones and her friend Pauline, who both have learning disabilities, to set up a London dating agency, Stars in the Skies, aimed at matching people with learning disabilities.
The first in a new run of the Only Human series, this programme tracks the romantic progress of four of the agency's clients over a period of five months.
First we meet Apu, a gentle, sheltered type, for whom a date is "a totally new experience". On his first date in a coffee shop, he meets Tamanna and they hit it off right away, although both are nervous. In a reflection of this dating agency's duty of care to its clients, most of the dates are unobtrusively supervised by a support worker.
Arrangements are quickly made for Apu and his father to meet Tamanna's family, so that subsequent dates can take place. It's striking to see the extent of the family support and protection enjoyed by both Apu and Tamanna.
But Micky is less successful in his efforts to find "someone to pull", as he puts it. His is a more challenging case as he suffers from a pervasive development disorder characterised by volatility and aggression.
He says: "I feel angry and mad and all that. I feel like doing crazy things." Micky eschews an agency speed-dating event in favour of a party, where he meets Ellen, a girl with Down's Syndrome. He quickly gets down to business, producing a condom and brandishing it in front of her once she agrees to kiss him.
Later, it emerges Micky has been dropped from the agency's books due to his aggressive behaviour.
Things go exceptionally well for Louisa and William on their first date. It's hard not to feel happy for them, as they clearly like each other. However, support worker Matt warns of a pattern of clients jumping into a relationship and then experiencing major upset when a small tiff leads to its breakdown. For Louisa and William, that's what happens.
Leeds supporter and office worker Raymond is probably the most independent of all the clients, but he's been on the books for 11 months and has yet to meet someone. Finally, he is paired with director Lolita, with whom he has had a relationship previously. This one looks like it has potential.
The clients have had varying degrees of success on the romance rollercoaster, but assuming the programme is bringing us a representative flavour of the agency's work, it shows how an initiative like this can work. Stars in the Skies meets the challenge of creating opportunities for people with learning disabilities to meet others, without stigmatising or patronising them.
DEIRDRE VELDON