The battle of the sexes as drawing room social satire. Philippe, a middle-aged newspaper editor, has lived for six years with Paulette, a successful stage actress. He tells her friend Claudine, a realistic and enterprising reporter, that he's thinking of proposing. Into the mix steps Carl Erickson, a charming Hollywood matinée idol in Paris briefly. He meets Paulette, sees her act (his box seat compliments of Philippe), and sets out to seduce her. The next two days bring talk, tears, separation, despair, surprises, and, perhaps, reconciliation as characters speak "exactly half the truth." It's a quadrille of changing partners.

Jules Daly is struggling to raise her orphaned niece and nephew (Maggie and Milo) alone, but it isn't easy after getting downsized out of her antique sales job while Milo rebels against the death of his parents through petty theft. With things looking bleak for Christmas, an English butler named Paisley arrives with an invitation for all to come see the kids' emotionally distant grandfather who lives in Castlebury Hall, somewhere near Liechtenstein. With nothing to hold them back, they go, but the grandfather - Edward, Duke of Castlebury - is rather cold over their visit to his castle. So is his other surviving son, Ashton, Prince of Castlebury. Before long, they're all having a good time and looking forward to hosting a Christmas Eve ball, but Jules overhears a conversation from which she draws a wrong conclusion.

Lenny and Amanda have an adopted son Max who turns out to be brilliant. Lenny becomes obsessed with finding Max's real parents because he believes that they too must be brilliant. When he finds that Linda Ash is Max' real mother, Lenny is disappointed. Linda is a prostitute and porn star. On top of that, she is quite possibly the dumbest person Lenny has ever met. Interwoven is a Greek chorus linking the story with the story of Oedipus.

Four men pull off a daring daytime robbery at a bank, dump the money in a trash can and go their separate ways. Thomas Crown, a successful, wealthy businessman pulls up in his Rolls and collects it. Vickie Anderson, an independent insurance investigator is called in to recover the huge haul. She begins to examine the people who knew enough about the bank to have pulled the robbery and discovers Crown. She begins a tight watch on his every move and begins seeing him socially. How does the planner of the perfect crime react to pressure?

Luke, a GP is about to get married to vivacious Katherine. On the surface everything is perfect, but as the wedding preparations intensify Luke is plagued by nightmares that throw him into chaos. Unable to sleep he visits a hypnotherapist. They travel down deep into Luke's subconscious mind and a mysterious world of forests, witches and fire is revealed. He attempts to reach out to Katherine but she is lost in the fever of the preparations and is blind to his disquiet. In the midst of this chaos, Amelia enters his life, she seem so familiar and something deep in him unravels.