Outnumbered Xmas special

[Rollergirl11]

BBC1 9:40 pm. Who’s watching?!

Not all the way through. The kids mobiles and tracking all over, Karen's namechanging, her inability to get along with colleagues, friends, flatmates, inevitable pita Jane (if overdone), Ben picking up random strangers on his journey. Tbh it was probably too long an episode and ironically Daniel Roche, who left acting for rugby, was the most natural actor.

I thought it was awful. It's not comparable to g&s but the programme it made me think of as an example of how it could have been so much better is Friday night dinner. That's about an all adult household where every episode is just the 2 adult sons coming over for a meal and it's (in my opinion) brilliant.

Friday Night Dinner is genius! Girl
Favorite in our household!

Here we go, also great

Aw wouldn't a reunion special of Friday Night Dinner be amazing? 🥹

Paul Ritter has now sadly passed away

Tom from Friday night dinner is one of the celebrities on the Pottery Christmas show this Christmas which is a lovely episode

Impossible without Paul Ritter. He was the show in my opinion.

Exactly. Hence the teary face.

I know. Hence the teary face.

I really really loved it

I thought it might be crap because I think so many things are after they've come back after so many years and it used to be so good

But it really wasn't.

Just watched this and it made me quite sad to be honest. I have watched all the episodes previously and found them funny/mostly easy watching - a big fan of the show. My mum has cancer though, so it really hit home and was hoping for some light entertainment at Christmas (should have read the reviews). Really disappointed for a ‘comedy’.

Probably all or most of the stuff you're supposed to find funny. It's not like we can list it all is it

I don't get this question. There must be so many things you watch or find funny that I don't because it's quite obviously down to different tastes isn't it. Nothing more nothing less

I quite enjoyed it. It wasn't laugh out loud but was well observed and had many bits that reflected our own situation. We have had 'discussions' about putting tinsel all over the place, have a daughter who knows it all. I thought the partially when Sue slipped on spilt oil was well done, and the annoyance with neighbours parcels being not collected was spot on. Yes. It was OK, not earth shattering, but OK.

Well yes, if you laughed at something specific it should be quite easy to list it?
The question of whether someone else would also find it funny is quite irrelevant?

I laughed at lots of moments in the programme to be honest.
It was a 42 minute programme so no I don't think I can list them all off the top of my head.

I thought the poster was asking the question to understand what people found funny because that poster didn't find the programme funny. Hence me not understanding how the answer would really make a difference

I actually liked it but maybe that was because my expectations were low, having seen the reviews. I am at the same life stage as Sue and Pete (albeit divorced) and could relate to much of it. My dad also announced his cancer diagnosis at a family dinner when I was 21 and I was struck at how less catastrophic that is 30 years later as it is now no longer a death sentence, my dad died 4 years later.
All in all I liked seeing the kids grown up, they overdid Jakes tiredness/appearance and it did feel it should have been Angela imposing other than Jane.

I felt it was a bit... unfinished? There were some wry-smile moments of recognition (eg, the phone contracts), but they didn't really go would have turned the smile into an actual laugh, the way older scripts built jokes over the course of the episode. Maybe, I don't know, if there'd been some funny consequence of Mum and Dad still paying the phone bills? The one time I laughed was when the family chatted oblivious to Pete finally snapping, and hurling the boxes over the fence in the background... but what if there'd been something important/hilarious/explosive in one parcel? Or if those girls lift-sharing with Ben had taken Jane out? As it was, the main narrative through-line was 'Pete has cancer' and 'parenting is tiring'. Downsizing, or an evening of chaotic babysitting would have been a richer seam of actual jokes - Sue slipping on oil was just so lazy.

I didn't think the last Christmas special was great at the time, but it had far more actual jokes, and constructed plot than this. And Karen's now borderline unpleasant.

I agree it wasn't very funny, but I enjoyed it for the nostalgia value. Neither Jake nor Karen are particularly good actors as adults, and Jake looked like a heroin addict. Ben was great, and I've always enjoyed Jane.

I didn't have any problem with the cancer storyline - that's the reality of parents getting older and, as evidenced by this thread, is a common scenario for many families. Outnumbered has never been about escapism, but the very opposite - the sometimes gritty reality of day to day family life.

We’re just watching the first series (for the millionth time, DS aged 15 put it on). And I was laughing so much I was crying. The farm visit one - “stranger stranger! I’m not called Ben!” And “…he’s got a rabbit!”.

Classic.

This Christmas episode was very much not a classic.

I really liked the episode where the German exchange student kept insisting that Boris Johnson was a comic actor who played the Mayor of London, little did they know that he'd soon be playing Prime Minister.

I agree, so many of the previous episodes were funny. They also did touch on difficult subjects like Sue's dad having dementia, but the chemistry glued them together. It felt like a real family dealing with life. I don't know how they all fell so far apart!

This.

Was expecting to not enjoy it but I laughed and cried, my two are grown up now, writing was spot on and superb acting ❤️

Underwhelming. The acting from more than a few was ropey and the cancer story was unappealing. A pp says the kids reactions were unrealistic to the news and I agree - some realism and poignancy in that scene would have elevated the entire episode. Jane is such a watchable and credible character, she was the best thing about it. All in all I was like ‘who gives a shit?’ about it.