Sian Gibson

Although Peter Kay has spent 2018 out of the spotlight due to what the comic has described as "unforeseen family circumstances", he has still managed to put out the final two episodes of his beloved Bafta-winning sitcom. The first, Car Share: Unscripted, was a hit-and-miss improvised episode that included a joke some viewers considered transphobic. Will this overall finale be a more decisive hit? And will John (Kay) and Kayleigh (Sian Gibson) drive off into the sunset?

It's the end of the road for Peter and Sian...

Expect an outpouring of grief. The Car Share Finale, with Peter Kay and Sian Gibson, will be arriving tomorrow. A nation of comedy fans will be entirely bereft.

Peter Kay's Car Share finale - the verdict

It was the final episode that fans had been hoping for - Peter Kay's Car Share drew to a close with the "will they, won't they" relationship between John and Kayleigh finally resolved. Sort of.

TV review: Peter Kay's Car Share, The Finale, BBC1

Well that was about as soppy as everyone expected Peter Kay's very last Car Share to be.

Peter Kay's Car Share, review: a perfect finale

So John and Kayleigh drove off into the sunset together in Peter Kay's Car Share. Well, no, actually they didn't, because Peter Kay had a nifty little joke up his sleeve for the last scene of this funny and poignant, but never icky, finale.

Peter Kay's Car Share reaches end of the road

Resisting the drive towards sentimentality, Kay delivers a high achievement in 21st century TV comedy.

Peter Kay's Car Share: The Finale, BBC Two review

Take that! John and Kayleigh get it together in a wonderful last road trip.

Peter Kay's Car Share risks harming its legacy

I still have enough faith in his comedic integrity for there to be several testing bends and large potholes in the road yet for John and Kayleigh. The course of true love never did run smooth, especially on the ring-roads of Greater Manchester.

The show [Peter Kay's Car Share] is known for its gentle observational comedy (gags about local commercial radio, street signs, workplace jargon) and romantic sub-plot about whether the couple will eventually cop off. The penultimate edition had a USP of being improvised, but it made a different splash when the trans community had a Twitter hissy about a chat in which the pair listen to a "Your Song" radio feature in which a woman requests More Than a Woman in priase of her husband, who transitioned. They barrack the story, leading objectors including Peter Tatchell to argue that the BBC was encouraging transphobia.

An obvious response is that the actors were in character, and it seems a reasonable possibility that two north-west retail employees would not necessarily have got with the gender fluidity programme. Also, Gibson, realising that Kay had thrown a nuclear spud into the discussion, is careful to, in modern parlance, call him out for being so "harsh" about people.

Even so, it seems extraordinary that the BBC, which traditionally sees its remit as caution, should have ended up being more provocative about the most controversial contemporary topic than C4 [broadcasting Genderquake the same week], which boasts a licence to provoke.

The solution to this conundrum lies in the BBC1 show's title. Being "unscripted", it missed out on the editorial phase during which the BBC bosses do most of their cleaning work. By the time they saw the trans gaff, the only option was to cut it from the finished product - a far more radical act of censorship than at script discussion stage.

So the subject proved expectedly controversial in an unexpected place, but the big question - of whether one community should be permitted a veto on media coverage of itself - remains stubbornly unresolved.