Outnumbered returns

The beloved sitcom’s days are numbered.


With all the doom and gloom of returning to the library after six long weeks of freedom, surely there’s got to be something to banish the semester two blues. Thankfully the BBC has been kind to us and Outnumbered is back, with a twist.

When I say a twist, I’d usually mean something along the lines of “they’ve written out the dad”, “Karen’s only got one leg” or “they’ve moved to Portugal.” The truth is more shocking than these scenarios: the kids have aged. Upon seeing Karen for the first time, my heart sank. I thought they’d replaced her with a new actress and I was getting out my pen and paper to write a nasty letter of complaint to the BBC, until I realised she’d just aged dramatically since the last series.

Ageing is a bit of a problem in programmes like this one. In Downton Abbey decades can pass and everyone’s still in their mid-twenties, but in a programme like Outnumbered – which started out with children aged eleven and under- you can’t really hide the fact that they grow, change hair colour and end up with broken voices.

The cast in the good old days

There’s no questioning that when the kids were younger, the programme seemed much more spontaneous and gave you a feel for the comedy value in hectic family life. Luckily for fans, the show has still got the general magic of those golden moments in the first series. It helped that the new series started with Karen beginning secondary school as her brother Jake did in series one, which added a bit of familiarity for those of us who were pining for the old days. Thankfully parents Pete and Sue are just the same: Sue’s still addicted to sending emails that destroy her kids’ social lives and Pete’s still battling his racism problem (that’s worse than it sounds).

Although Karen seems to be one of the most shocking changes, middle child Ben has changed quite a bit too. He’s gone from being a socially troubled boy to starring in his school musical, though whether he’s telling the truth or not we’ll find out later!

It’s frightening to think we’ve gone through Jake’s entire secondary school journey with him (well, sort of). As he was the oldest sibling he was never one of the more interesting characters but he has always perfectly represented the typical teenager of today: antisocial and a tendency to be a bit stupid.

All in all it is good news that Outnumbered has made a return. Despite the fact that it’ll take a few months to get us used to the now ancient looking children, the old jokes are still funny and the new ones aren’t bad either. The only way the BBC could increase the popularity of the programme is to concoct some sort of anti-ageing potion (if ITV can do it with Downton, the BBC can too).

 

Images courtesy of comedy.co.uk and mirror.co.uk