Not Going Out - abysmal

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Staying with the folks at the moment. Had an episode of Not Going Out inflicted on us the other night. Could not get over how bad it was. It was like something out of the 1970s. Wife says she has made a special meal. Husband makes a face to the audience because she is a terrible cook. Audience in stitches. Why?

Electrified to see it's the second longest running sitcom in UK TV history, after Last of the Summer Wine. Again, why? What am I missing?

Oh my goodness, I never even knew there was a pre-marriage series of this! I've only ever seen them as a married couple.

I'm sure the first couple of series were good.
It's dreadful these days.

I liked the first few series with Katy Wix, Miranda Hart and Tim Vine, and even the first series with the Amerian Flatmate, but it has gone sadly downhill since they got married and had children - although I like Hugh Dennis in it. I really like Lee Mack, and one of my favourite shows is WILTY. My idea of torture would be being tied to a chair with Mrs Brown's Boys on loop though.

It used to be brilliant.

It got crap after they married and had kids. The kids were dreadful actors (very stilted delivery and very obviously waiting for cues) and didn’t work as the foil for Lee’s jokes as kids wouldn’t have the wit for the one-liners, like Tim/Miranda/Lucy/Guy did. It’s also really dull to have to write storylines around them as they have to be so much tamer.

Lee wrote a British version of ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ but it wasn’t picked up. He’s obviously decided to just use the plots/ideas in this instead.

What also doesn’t help is the time jump. We never saw Lee & Lucy as newlyweds. It went from not even the slightest sign of attraction (from her) to them getting married, which I could just about suspend my disbelief for. We got one Christmas episode with Lucy heavily pregnant and that was it.

To then put them years in with full grown kids with them seeming to hate each other is disappointing. I do think Lee listened to the criticism of the kids as they appeared a lot less in the last 3 series.

The coffin episode was a blatant rip off of Peter James ‘Dead Simple’ too.

I used to like the really old ones. With Tim Vine and Miranda Hart. The new ones are just awful. And I usually think Lee Mack is good on "Would I Lie to You"

I found My Family pretty awful. The characters aren't very likeable and it takes quite a lot for me to dislike someone.

I did really like 2 point 4 children. I was a 80's/90's kid and expected it to be awful when I recently watched it and it was pretty good.

I can’t get on board with Lucy’s character. In the ‘before’ episodes she was an intelligent, career driven, successful, independent woman. Then she married lee and appears to have chucked all that. Those things are not mutually exclusive with being a wife and mother and it would have been far better to see her balance that than reinforce the either/or that turned her into a naggy (and that phrase give me the rage) women dependent on a stereotypical bloke.
i just don’t believe that her original character would have given it all up, she’d have found a way to make it work.

Yes Tim Vine was excellent in it

The ages of the kids annoy me as the time line doesn't work

Also it bugs me that they never seem to go to work

Also Lucy character is so self righteous

I agree with everyone else, those early series were really funny and I much preferred the old “will they won’t they” and all that cliche vibe - now it’s just “when will they all just fuck off.”

I think it's alright, easy watching as others have said. My favourite character is Toby. Don't like the xenophobia that seems to be a regular feature in it. Also the kids are truly awful actors, in particular the girl; no talent whatsoever.