TV Show of the Week: Outnumbered Christmas Special

I was going to talk about the Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Return of Doctor Mysterio, but Outnumbered seemed to have automatically become more prominent because of it being a one-off special, and the impact the show has had over the years with the development of the Brookman family over the years.

Nothing marks the passage of time better than seeing the kids from Outnumbered all grown up. In a Christmas Special, the Brookman family are on their way to honour Sue’s dad wishes by scattering his ashes where he first met Sue’s mother, although the entire family are sure he said it was a several different places. Along the way, they let Ben drive a short distance, ultimately ending up crashing the car and forcing another car off the road in an attempt to swerve out of the way.

The family along with Jake’s girlfriend, Kate, find refuge in a pub where they can organise for their car to be towed, hopefully get in contact with the insurance company, and apologise relentlessly at the person in the other car. A forty-minute special episode after a few years off the screen was as funny as it has always been. Now that the children are grown up, they are allowed to tackle topics previously forbidden, which gave the special a fresh take on the family, instead of it being just another episode.

There were a few good moments of clever script writing. Jake instantly figuring out that his father has gone against his word instead of having that explained to him was one example. The majority of the episode took place in a pub, with the last few minutes at the park to scatter grandad’s ashes. It would have been nice to see the house one more time, but I did enjoy the new scenery, because it did allow the characters to interact differently, and show the audience that the kids have grown up: Karen being on her phone, talking to her friends, Ben in college studying philosophy, and Jake has some big news which he has yet to tell his parents, and indeed his girlfriend, Kate.

Outnumbered has room for many more specials in the future, to show the development of the family one step at a time. The series ended with regular episodes because the children had grown up and their antics had died down considerably. A one-off special now and again to show some big steps in their lives is perfect.

When Outnumbered was on TV as a regular series, the kids were allowed to improvise most of their lines, and some of the things they were saying, you just knew that an adult wouldn’t have thought of writing that, which ultimately made it funnier. As the years went on, and the kids grew up, that instantly-knowing-it’s-being-improvised knowledge slowly died away, giving it the feeling that the entire episode was scripted. That may not be the case, but it does cement the fact that the kids have grown up. The episode being difficult to detect improvised lines, or indeed being entirely scripted, is a good representation of maturity, which is exactly what any family goes through. Seeing that development, then the couple of one-off specials over the years, makes this show one of the greats, and will live on for much longer than anyone could possibly have imagined.

It may be a couple, or even several years before another special airs, or one may never come around again, but that doesn’t matter what happens afterwards. If another episode is made, that’s awesome, but if not, I believe we’re not that disappointed because the regular series ended brilliantly, and the one-off specials do capture that one-offness, so when the episode ends, we’re given that sense of completion, instead of disappointment.

Overall, it’s a fantastic episode and needs to be watched immediately on BBC iPlayer.