I fished out my DVDs last night because I was actually wondering if 00s Sam was as blandly dressed as I remembered, but he definitely was a stripes man all through the first episode, even in the present day. The muted palette of the show was probably a blessing in the end. ;)

And to be fair to the show, Manchester itself is basically a muted palette if you ignore Chinatown and the Village. I was a grad student at one of the universities there last year... so many lovely people but so many depressing buildings.