Outnumbered

So here's the situation chez Brockman as we pick up from last week's surprises (spoiler alert for those who haven't seen the last episode - although, to be fair, it's a sitcom not a conspiracy thriller): Auntie Angela is staying, because her American husband turned abusive, but his lawyers are pursuing her because she brought his teenage daughter with her. Does this mean Sue and Pete are now harbouring someone guilty of child abduction?

Plus Jake has started dating a 19-year-old pole dancer, which is also technically illegal as he's only 15. And there's one more rogue element: an unexpected arrival at the door that produces a brilliant reaction from Claire Skinner as Sue.

Tonight in the semi-improvised family sitcom, another guest arrives to stay, just as the Brockmans are trying to get rid of Auntie Angela (Samantha Bond). Mother Sue (Claire Skinner) has to make a decision about the girlfriend of eldest son Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey). Meanwhile, stars of the show Ben and Karen (Daniel Roche and Ramona Marquez) discuss dreams, the Mafia and trampolining bears. As one does. This is the last in the series but fans shouldn't despair - the Brockmans will be back for a Christmas special.

BBC Writersroom: Outnumbered script

The Series 4 Episode 5 Outnumbered script can be found in the BBC Writersroom archive.

There are points in a good episode when Outnumbered picks up enough farcical momentum to snowball into something glorious. Tonight it happens when three storylines intertwine. Revealing what two of them are would spoil things, but the third and funniest involves Ben trying to work out an act for his school talent contest.

Should he try sword swallowing? Or singing? (Daniel Roche does a fine Louis Armstrong.) Perhaps he should juggle lobsters and crabs? Or conduct a choir of parrots? The idea Ben finally settles on sends Roche off on a minor tour de force with some lovely old-school gags and comedy business that's all his own.

Screened a day early to accommodate Strictly Come Dancing's launch tomorrow, tonight's episode centres on Sue's tiresome sister Angela (Samantha Bond), who raises Sue and Pete's ire when they discover she has criticised them in a book. Angela's line in self-indulgent mumbo-jumbo makes her more of a cliché than other characters, so the laugh count tonight is lower. But Karen's (Ramona Marquez) dismissal of a cold caller at the front door is both brutal and very funny.

There have been sceptical noises made about the latest series, suggesting that it's lapsing into self-parody and dull convention. However, it remains by a long distance the finest mainstream British sitcom of recent years. Tonight's isn't the strongest episode, mind, revolving around the parents' evening for Ben, who at 11 is emerging as a distinctly unusual boy. Meanwhile, we see Karen undergo a rare moment of hurt. Stick with this series; it ends magnificently.

It's the usual deal: as the Brockman parents flounder in a mire of uncertainty (largely of their own making), their children find fresh ways to embarrass them.

Occasionally, you wish Sue and Pete would stop being so feeble, but that's the point: they're trapped by their own niceness, forever circling in over-anxious little middle-class loops. So when they get wind of some drug dealing at Jake and Ben's school, they're not sure whether to make an accusation or - given that the tip-off comes courtesy of Ben - ignore it entirely.

Meanwhile, the biggest laughs come from Karen, who either gets the best lines or has a way of delivering them that upstages all-comers. Since her friend became a Catholic (to get into a better school), Karen is wondering if she should do the same. Sue points out that Karen has stopped believing in God. "But I only stopped believing in him because he was annoying me," replies Karen with airy logic, before investigating Catholicism online. "Hmmm, lots of candles and lovely spangly costumes..." She likes what she sees.

This semi-improvised comedy continues to assert itself as top dog of British comedies, delivering more laughs per minute than perhaps any home-grown sitcom of the past decade. A bold claim, perhaps, but week after week Outnumbered brilliantly captures the essence of family life today, in which a generation of middle-class parents are in thrall to their bossy children. We all know a Sue or a Pete (Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis), who tie themselves in knots trying to do right by their impossible offspring.

The programme also packs in a remarkable number of throwaway jokes. Tonight, for example, Pete is late home from work. "Passenger action on the trains," he says. "I think they were lynching the driver." And the children's quirky interpretations of the world are impressively relevant. The flights of fancy from Karen (Ramona Marquez) tend to be the funniest, thanks to the juxtaposition of solemn observation and her adorable voice. Tonight, when Karen is quizzing her mother on terrorism, Sue mentions that when she was young, the terrorism threat came from Ireland. "The Irish? Are you sure?" squeaks Karen. "You mean people like Graham Norton and Jedward?"

For once, an eerie calm descends on the Brockman household as all three sprogs are out of the house at the same time. Suddenly, Pete and Sue get a glimpse of an empty nest life as they try to remember what they did before child rearing took over their lives. Pete: "We used to have sex in the afternoon." Sue: "Did we?" Meantime, Jake is hiding something (at least in Sue's estimation), Ben causes mayhem at adventure camp, and Karen is seriously impressed by a friend's abode: "It's much bigger than our house. And much cleaner." Expect Labrador-driven mayhem, too.

It's eerily quiet in the Brockman household. Karen's staying overnight with her fashion-mad friend Tanya, pretending to be the new Gok Wan; Ben's terrorising the other kids and their teacher at an activity camp; while Jake's out with his band mates, doing whatever teenage boys do. "It's not natural!" whimpers Sue, visualising how empty life will be when it's just her and Pete. Even the prospect that they could have sex during the day isn't helping.

Except that they're not completely alone. Archie is staying with them and although he doesn't argue or answer back or ask impossible questions as the kids do (after all, he is a dog), he's a bit of a comedy star, acting as a wonderfully doleful, four-legged straight man to Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner.