Outnumbered Xmas special

[Rollergirl11]

BBC1 9:40 pm. Who’s watching?!

To be fair, though, the children were never cast because of any pure acting talent that they may or may not have happened to have; they were chosen based on their personalities and ability to be the catalysts for chaos and hilarity - and now the actors are just the adults that they've ended up becoming.

Karen and Ben in particular often stumbled over their delivery - but that's because they were very young children, still finding their way in the world, and a lot of it was improvised. It added to the charm and the essence of it all; if they'd been stage school kids who looked a lot younger than they actually were and who could learn a fixed script and deliver it with clipped clarity, it simply would not have been the same show at all.

we enjoyed it.

laughed out loud at some bits, fully related to others, didn't find the cancer story line 'off' (pete even said 'cancer isn't very christmassy') and loved the bit about Ben delivering health and safety training at work.

i agree the tired parents story line would have been more realistic if they had a baby as well as just the 3 year old but i liked Rani as a new character. the competitive tiredness was so relatable from when i had 2 under 2.

jane is meant to irritate and i groaned when she came back in which is exactly what sue and pete would have felt.

i liked the reference to karen changing her name and her straight talking which sorted some problems out quickly.

sue trying create the perfect christmas in november was so similar to me trying to do the same with my far flung family some years. and when she dropped the meal and pete was instantly very kind to her was so lovely.

ben was just delightful all round. i'd like to see him have a really well behaved and sensible child while the other kids have the nightmare offspring.

i'd happily check in with the Brockmans every couple of years.

Yes he was meant to look tired but he looked like he’d developed a drug addiction and spent a week living in a squat.

One thing that seemed obvious to me - they kept taking in parcels for their neighbours and storing them in their house. They could hear the builders next door.

Why not take the parcels along to the neighbours house , and ask the builders to take them and store them inside the house? Probably that would have been too sensible, and ruined the stupid storyline of throwing them over the fence!

We were very disappointed with this 'special'.

Yes! When he first appeared in the special our teens thought there must be a big drugs storyline.

If Jake's appearance was down to make up then they overdid it, plus wouldn't he have looked a bit better once he had some sleep.

I liked the way they developed Ben, he seemed like such a real person and we laughed at the eggs as our rugby playing DS does the same thing.

I found Sue very odd in this episode, particularly when the DGD arrived, she didn't act like most DGMs would and just seemed awkward and tense. I get she was meant to be stressed about the meal and what it represented, but it all felt very forced, and for two people who are together in real life there was no natural chemistry between the pair. Unlike Wallace and Gromit who are together for life !

It was a bit odd how Jake and his wife were on the phone talking about separation and in the space of a day it was all sorted.

I laughed out loud when Pete said “it’s not as if disaster is appearing from round every corner “ and Jane came round the corner.

Simple old fashioned gags.

Hugh Dennis’ scenes with the granddaughter demonstrated the basis of success in the old series: a skilled funny actor able to improvise and get the best out of loosely scripted children

Yes. At first, I couldn't work out whether the little girl was Jake's daughter or if she was his partner's from a previous relationship.

I'm so sorry.

I laughed at many of the jokes and really enjoyed seeing where the kids had ended up, but overall it felt like a weak mid-series filler episode and not a special.

I didn't see the point of the cancer plot. The dementia plot with Sue's dad was really well done and poignant but there were zero observations about cancer and its impact on a family.

Jake and Rani's issues were interesting but also went nowhere. Okay so Karen convinced Rani to come for dinner, but that's not going to fix anything long term.

Jane was criminally underused. "You're seeing what happens when all the confidence is knocked out of a person" has stuck with me for years, and her at the neighbour party was brilliant. In this episode, Karen tells her to go away and... that's it?

It just felt unfinished, like the first part of a two parter.

It was…fine. I’m not comparing it to any other programme as it’s always been a bit different. I did enjoy it overall though, was just hoping for a bit more, well, something.

Only Pete, Ben and Rani put in decent acting performances in my opinion. Ben’s was particularly natural I thought. Rani was strong on the few lines she had.

As for Jane (whatever possessed them to bring her back??), I think I recognised her from many an MN CF thread.

If it was setting up for another series, I'd watch but having the house look like something out of Deck the Halls, was an exaggeration too far.

Rani will be a proper actor though. I’d expect her to be good. The ‘kids’ have been doing this since they were little but that doesn’t make them actors.

Oh yes you’re right about Ben should have a sensible child. We were saying Jake should have had 3 children, one like Karen who finally puts Karen in her place, and Ben should turn out to be brilliant at getting them to behave,

Trouble with their new house - they wouldn’t have space for all those characters (obviously why they had an unrealistically expensive house in the first place).

I thought it was absolutely dire. Worst thing I’ve watched this Christmas. I was really looking forward to it, very disappointing. Should have left it in the past. The whole cancer thing was off, didn’t laugh once.

100% this. ^ One of the worst things I have seen on TV for many years.

All these people on here thinking there needed to be loads of grandchildren, that would be completely unrealistic. Very few people nowadays have children in their early 20s, let alone a bunch of them old enough to be able to have a significant role! Karen is only 23 and Ben 25! Even at 27 (Jake's age) many are only just thinking of having their first. And yes, I know there will be people who will respond that their 27 year old has 4 children, but it really isn't the norm now, especially in middle class London families.

Well I loved it. I always did. Interesting it's been largely panned on here. I had quite a few belly laughs at some of the quips. I never saw it as comedy per se - more a tongue in cheek reflection of the chaos of parenthood. I think it nailed it again in this episode with the change in dynamics between them all. It was perfect!

I didn't really like it but I'm going to give it another go. Too many wishy washy bits that seemed to go nowhere. The cancer storyline didn't seem to add anything. I remember Only Fools & Horses handled the miscarriage storyline perfectly. Touching but also hilarious in turn

I ended up watching this as I was so bored. It was incredibly depressing. It was just negativity piled on negativity. There wasn’t a single heartwarming moment. It was just flat, not funny, not emotional, nothing. Weak and had none of the charm of the earlier series.

Utter crap !

I tried to watch it today but I only lasted for 10 minutes and going by your post it obviously didn't get any better.
I loved the first two series but it lost its value after that as it became more polished and the children grew and became started "acting" more, as opposed to the early series when it was obviously so much more improvised.

The difference with g&s is that they were all adult actors and the characters were all equals. The outnumbered kids aren't great actors and it doesn't have the same charm watching them as grown ups.

It's a shame but it should have stopped at the first Christmas special.

@Funkyslippers that OFAH scene in the lift is a masterpiece 😭😭.

Isn't it just! Nicholas Lyndhurst is phenomenal. Very underrated.