It has been eight years since the Brookmans last appeared on TV screens. They return once more for a Christmas Special, this time with the children all grown up.
Pete and Sue (Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner) have downsized to a terrace house and are preparing for their children’s return for Christmas lunch in November. Chaos ensues due to an extra guest, their neighbours’ parcels keep coming to their house, and Pete needing to share some important news with his children.
Outnumbered wasn’t the biggest hit for the BBC but it had developed a devoted audience. It lasted for five seasons, plus had Christmas Specials and shorts for Comic Relief and Sport Relief. One of the most famous shorts featured Karen mentally destroying Frank Lampard and Howard Webb. The appeal of the show was its grounded, relatable nature, especially to anyone who had young children. The creators used a semi-improved style of directing and plotting which allowed the younger children to have natural performances. Karen (Ramona Marquez) and Ben (Daniel Roche) spoke and acted like real children.
As the children got older, there was less need to improvise, but the kids’ antics weren’t as cute. The decision to end the show in 2014 was the right one. However, it was still intriguing to see what happened to the Brockman children as adults. Karen could be a force to be reckoned with, and Ben could be a crazy lad who gets up to loads of antics. Sadly, the Christmas Special was a disappointment.
The drama tension in this Special was the parents trying to find the right time to reveal Pete had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. This idea zapped out most of the potential humour. Cancer is a severe subject and it’s hard to mine comedy out of it. The special tries to mitigate the severity by saying the cancer was caught early and it could be treated, but the announcement resulted in stunned silence from the children. The depressing undertones extended to Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey) because he has become a father resulting in him being exhausted and child-rearing putting a strain on his relationship. These two storylines made the special into a low-energy affair which was the opposite of what Outnumbered was. This was meant to be the festive special but it was a downer of an experience.
When the Special did attempt humour it was laboured. The best running joke involved Pete and Sue’s increasing irritation with the parcel deliveries which pushed them to breaking point. Passive-aggressive Sue is usually fun to watch. When Jake’s daughter finally showed up, she brought a bit of energy and made the special feel like the older seasons. Her direction seemed to be to act like an animal and the young actress was allowed to have some fun. The idea that Ben became a health and safety officer was amusing considering what he was like as a child.
When Karen was a child, she was funny and loveable because of her intelligence and her ability to dissect nonsense. As a young adult she became unbearable. The episode made the expected joke that Karen was thinking about changing her name because ‘Karen’ has become the byword for entitled middle-aged women. Besides the middle age part, Karen lived up to her name’s stereotype because she quit multiple jobs because her work colleagues lacked ‘vision’ and she got arrested at a Just Stop Oil protest. It made me think she’s one of those people since the young version of the character would have pointed out the flaws in Stop Oil protests that annoying the public would turn the people against their cause. Pete got into an argument with Jake about 9/11 conspiracy theories. Surely, he would have questioned Karen’s logic.
The Boxing Day special was a disappointing return for the Brockmans. It lacked the drive and humour that made the show so enjoyable in the first place. As Selma Bouvier says, ‘The older they get the cuter they ain’t.’
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