Outnumbered

[startail]

Why another series? The kids are too old and they've run out of ideas.
Even DD2 was playing on her iPod during yesterday's.

[slalomsuki]

Mine were laughing at it last night and got some of the adult jokes. They seem to have picked up a whole new vocab since changing schools a week ago.

[buttons99]

We love this programme and relate to so much of it. Fab! Fab!

[kitya]

Really? I just dont get it at all. I dont know any children like that!!

[noddyholder]

The BBc representation of typical family life makes me sick. It is soooooo far removed from most peoples daily existence and is how the tories imagine the 'average' family when they are thinking up their ridiculous manifesto! And don't get me started on My Family

[turnitup]

I quite liked the bit with the Dad on the wii but yes I agree - its had its day

[Zoggsrus]

i'm so mad, I didn't realise it was a new series!

[suburbandream]

I keep forgetting it's on! I DO know families and children like that but I think it's a very small minority of people within certain parts of London and not at all representative of 99.9% of British people's lives.

[basildonbond]

One of the reasons why it's been so popular is precisely because the family is typical of vast numbers of middle-class households

if you drive through the leafier 'inner' suburbs of south, north, west London (don't know about east, it's a foreign country!) you'll find street after street of houses just like the Outnumbered house, and the same goes for Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham etc etc

There are millions of families like that all over the country - not particularly well-off but not cash-strapped, parenting skills are well-meaning but a bit ineffectual, concerned about education, usually voted Labour but possibly flirted with DC and/or the Lib Dems last time round, trying to juggle jobs & family and dropping a few balls while they're at it - I'd imagine a substantial tranche of MNers are like that ...

Yes, it's definitely past its sell-by date, mainly because the children are now too old to get away with the mix of innocence and knowingness, but not because it's not typical ...

[going]

The kids are too old. Ben has grown up, the writers need to realise this as he long longer seems cute and funny just plain stupid.

[PuppyMonkey]

She needs to get pregnant again doesn't she? A surprise late pregnancy and then we'll have another little one to laugh at for the next five or six years.

[reckoner]

I have only started watching from last week. I like it.

[PuppyMonkey]

Reckoner, it was so much better when Karen was about five, and she used to just sit there and talk nonsense for ages and it would all just be left in the show. Genius. Try and look out the first series on DVD.

[WillieWaggledagger]

it' not as good as it used to be but i do still enjoy it

watching last night's episode where ben is talking to jake, who is trying to watch television, in real life jake would just have told him to fuck off!

[reckoner]

Puppymonkey, DH and I were just saying we will have to catch up.

[BrigitBigKnickers]

I think Karen still works on this show and Jake but the Ben character is just trying too hard and not at all funny.

The kids stuff used to be largely improvised- I wonder if that's still the case?

[runnyhabbit]

It has lost something, but is still definitely watchable.

Lol at suprise pregnancy. Though I've thought they could re-visit in about 20 years, with grandchildren

[vmcd28]

I dont get why anyone finds Ben cute at all
I just find him irritating, and in need of a clip round the ear. I just dont get what's "funny" about that.

[wantadvice]

I also have never watched it until this series. I think it's funny but have nothing to compare it to in the past. Will have to buy earlier series.

[pigsinmud]

I watch it with my 2 boys (11 & 13) and they love it. I don't think it's as good as the earlier series, but still worth watching. Seems alarmingly like our house at times - especially the 2 boys. I don't think either of my girls are like Karen.

[DilysPrice]

Early series with Karen and her dollies were brilliant but I do think it's still very true to life (in a sitcommy way of course), much more so than most other sitcoms (other than Rev, which is brilliant). Karen and her bitch "friend", and her trip out to the shops with mum rang bells for me.

Obviously it only represents a certain slice of society, but that's not a flaw, any more than Eastenders' underrepresentation of the middle classes is a flaw.

[strandednomore]

I still enjoy it and actually think Jake has come into his own a bit in this series as he is not so overshadowed by Karen and Ben. The parents are still good. I really must look out the old episodes to watch again, though, now my eldest dd is finally the age Karen was at the start. I suspect I will find them funnier now than then.

[Hulababy]

I am still enjoying it. Karen is the age DD is now, but Karen does seem much younger in some ways.

I don't get why it is on so late though, after the watershed?

[SybilBeddows]

'I don't get why it is on so late though, after the watershed?'

well I certainly don't want my children seeing the episode where Ben is the shop and shouts 'Stranger! Stranger!' when his dad tries to take him away. They might get ideas.

I love Outnumbered.