Outnumbered Xmas special

[Rollergirl11]

BBC1 9:40 pm. Who’s watching?!

They knew what made it funny so could easily have recreated that with grandkids. It was very poor all round.

I think you've missed the point - people saying 'they should have left it in the past' watched it thinking it would be funny and then came to that conclusion!

I am actually old! We haven't owned a VCR in 20 years. I'm just surprised that there are people who don't have access to iPlayer but do have the equipment to record a programme, in the digital broadcast era. A VCR records off the broadcast signal, not off the TV itself, and I don't know if digital receiver VCRs were ever made.

Yes not particularly young either but haven’t had any of that old equipment for years even dvd players now superseded its all just available on the streaming services sooo much less faff.

We found it relatable, even though I never used to. Liked Karen's plain speaking interventions and 'have you considered it might be you' and the urge to cover the house in lights and get everything tidy and try to get them all back home (first year of empty nest here). 30 minutes is pretty brief, I am guessing they cut it short.

Even if she did still own one it wouldn’t be able to record anything other than the freeview channel you were watching at the time and then a lot of fiddling around with scart leads would be involved.

I switched off as soon as Jane returned with her suitcase. It was predictable from the start and I hate the character who sums up cringe TV.

Disappointing because it could have been funny.
Still supporting adult kids and them turning out nothing like you'd think. I agree with a PP who said downsizing the house would have been better than the cancer story ( which didn't contribute anything)

The grandchild was a brat rather than having childish eccentricities. Also the "sleepless nights" is more about babies surely. By three, it is more poor sleep routines as demonstrated by getting the child back downstairs.

Didn't get why oldest son and Hugh Dennis looked so ill and why they didn't gel as a married couple.

Ffs! Jake is supposed to look tired and ill because him and his wife aren't getting any sleep because of the daughter! Don't people follow the storyline?

Yes, that's what I thought they were going to do, not so much with Ben and Karen as they are quite young but with Jake, I thought the humour would come from the issues with Grandchildren.

I haven’t watched it but articles about it have appeared on my Facebook feed. Apparently the oldest son looked poorly on purpose- they put make up on him to look like bags around his eyes so he looked exhausted

He looked on deaths door, not tired. And his wife looked fine.

Yes, he looked very ill not just sleep deprived.

I really enjoyed it.

I liked seeing the characters again and they felt recognisably the same but older

I found it funny but not a laugh a minute or very complicated plotting - which is how the show has always been

I would have preferred Angela to Jane but the actress playing Jane is great at being really irritating

Painful,isn't it?! Same on the Gavin and Stacey thread, people follow these comedies and either miss the whole point or follow them so intently picking holes in them like they are documentaries 😂

Ffs! Jake is supposed to look tired and ill because him and his wife aren't getting any sleep because of the daughter! Don't people follow the storyline?

He looked more tired and ill than that though.
I was tired when I had children, but no one thought I was on drugs

I enjoyed it... Thought it was v poignant and relatable

I take your point, but lots of folk are saying that the humour that did it for them, and that actually made the programme what it was, was from the kids being kids.

Everybody knows that the kids are now grown up, so they clearly aren't going to be doing hilarious and crazy little-kid things anymore (even if they did try to, they'd be so annoying and fake at any rate).

I don't know how people thought it could be any different - any more than the boxing fans who seemed surprised and/or disappointed that Mike Tyson at nearly 60 was no longer the top-level fighter that he was 30 years previously.

I suppose some of it might hang on the script - which I agree could have been sharper - but if they'd just gone from a position of having two considerably older parents with three grown-up children (and grandchildren) and started again from scratch, it wouldn't really have been the Outnumbered that we knew and loved in any meaningful way: just five adults who happened to have the same names and familial relationship, and two of whom happened to live in the same house.

Maybe he's the one who's been doing all the nights and run ragged whilst his wife has been catching up on her beauty sleep and leaving him to it?

Nobody would question it if it were the other way around, as in the vast majority of cases, so it must very occasionally happen that way!!

I loved the early shows of Outnumbered. But this more scripted version with the kids all grown up was just cringeworthy. I thought the whole thing was totally dreadful unlike Gavin and Stacey which I loved every minute of.

I enjoyed it, there were some quite funny bits. My Dad has prostate cancer so it was relatable as just another part of Christmas.

I enjoyed it, it was nice as a catch up to see what’s happened to them all. The delivery thing for neighbours absolutely is true here, no safe spaces round our houses, although it was over-egged, as was Jane, she could have just left and come back again not all the faffing about. Jake did look awful but I assumed that was as a result of his WFH in a demanding job with a demanding 3 yo giving him sleepless nights and relationship difficulties, it was nice to see them all together at the end. Ben had grown up into a lovely young man, Karen hadn’t changed much apart from appearance. I didn’t mind the cancer storyline, we had to give the same news to our DC last year and it is meant to be about the ups and downs of family life rather than a laugh out loud comedy. Never seen Gavin And Stacey so can’t compare with that.

I could never have imagined Karen turning into a JSO fanatic, that was completely unbelievable. It would have been funnier and more in character if she'd gone against the grain and had very outspoken un-Gen Z opinions on things. I did smile at the thought of Ben delivering health and safety training at work though.

All of this (except I have watched G&S).

It has always been there as a 'snapshot of family life'. Not an out and out laugh out loud comedy.

Lots of brilliant comedy series address difficult challenges in life - illness, and bereavement. Royle Family anyone ?
I thought it absolutely fitting in with the programmes (and yes, I have had cancer, as well as losing my Mum to Cancer). Humour is how lots of people deal with all life throws at them.

Oh no, the acting apart from hugh dennis was cringeworthy.... story line boring, so unfunny. Could have been great, if only they had used different writers. Shame