Outnumbered

This is one of the funniest episodes to date. Last week, you may remember, Dad (Hugh Dennis) had woken up with a crippling hangover after a night out that involved green cocktails. It gets worse. It turns out that he danced with a woman called Mimi who kissed him - and he kissed her back - and now his wife (Claire Skinner) has found out. One way and another it could hardly be a worse time for the unspeakable sister (Samantha Bond) to arrive for a visit with her new boyfriend, an American therapist with a ponytail called Brick (Douglas Hodge). They all go out for a meal and the evening degenerates into a classic middle-class bloodbath, during which little Karen (Ramona Marquez) dissects the ponytail's psychobabble with lethal precision.

Pete has disgraced himself. In a moment of drunken folly he has brought shame on himself, on Sue and possibly on the whole family. As you'd expect, the scene tonight where Sue confronts him about it is one of the best in the series so far. Claire Skinner does simmering rage better than most - just look at the way her eyes shoot daggers at Pete. And look, too, at the way Hugh Dennis saves Pete's most panicky look for when he realises he'll have to discuss the whole thing with 13-year-old Jake. This little contretemps serves as backdrop for the return of one of Outnumbered's old hands - Samantha Bond as Sue's infuriating sister Angela. Since we last saw her, Angela has married a pony-tailed American therapist (Douglas Hodge) and become mother to his children: "We have five kids," she announces to Sue, with classic sisterly oneupwomanship. The comedy in the awkward restaurant meal that follows is a teeny bit forced, but there are plenty of choice moments in the episode. As Angela says, annoyingly, "There's such wonderful energy in a big family."

There's never a calm moment in the Brockman house but then that would ruin Outnumbered, which is in fine form for this episode: in the first ten minutes, Pete confesses to an office party misdemeanour, Ben causes typical chaos with a garden hose and a scarily funny Karen makes absolute mincemeat of a door-to-door saleswoman.

The family-centred improv' comedy has been a bit patchy of late but this episode is a corker. Tonight it's not just the kids who have been misbehaving, as Sue (Claire Skinner) discovers when she checks Pete's (Hugh Dennis) mobile for messages. But there's no time for a heart-to-heart when the kids are about.

If it's not Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey) turning the garden into a watery war zone, it's Karen (Ramona Marquez) asking if it's ever OK to hit a classmate.

Meanwhile, Pete's worried about the impending clash as Sue's sister Angela (Samantha Bond) turns up with her new husband (Douglas Hodge). While the adults struggle to remain civil, the children call a spade a spade - or, in Jake's case, reel off 18 names for a part of the male anatomy. Nudity and toilet habits also feature - but that's kids for you.

Indeed, some families might see this comedy more as a documentary. A funny one, mind.

Last Night's TV: Outnumbered

Some feel that the charm of Outnumbered is fading as the children get older and more knowing. I disagree, but it is interesting to see the older boy, sarcy Jake (played by Tyger Drew-Honey, poor chap) subside into adolescent taciturnity.

Outnumbered was good, too. The Brockmans were selling their house and last night they had the first viewers. Predictably, it didn't go too well; Pete woke up hopelessly hung over after a work do, and Karen refused to go to school, on the (not unreasonable) grounds that it was Friday 13th. Ben, meanwhile, was doing his best to charm the heavily pregnant viewee. "Our neighbour had a home birth," he told her. "There was so much blood they had to redecorate." Not that any of it mattered, in the end: a pigeon got trapped in the kitchen and put them off buying entirely. Something to do with birds bringing bad luck. Nice touch, that: having a superstition-themed episode on the night of the election.

Radio Times article: Outnumbered

Sitcoms about families tend to be teeth-strippingly awful, brain-achingly twee affairs - see My Family and the pitiful Life of Riley. But the brilliant Outnumbered has managed to usurp the whole genre.

The fourth episode of what has been an inconsistent third series of the sitcom following the travails of the Brockman family. Sue (Claire Skinner) is trying to prepare the house to show around potential buyers, at the same time as Pete (Hugh Dennis) gets ready for his colonoscopy while hung-over from a drunken night out. The children are up to their usual mischief, with Karen (Ramona Marquez) refusing to go to school and Ben (Daniel Roche) in trouble for playground antics. Though the show feels as if it's winding down as the children grow more knowing, on the form of this episode it remains more inventive than most of the competition.

Dad (Hugh Dennis) has woken up with a crippling hangover having being ambushed by bright green cocktails. His youngest son, Ben (Daniel Roche), is bitterly disappointed that he missed the sight of his father being sick. "Your face is all grey," he says, "like someone shaded you in with a pencil. You smell like the relief teacher who didn't last very long. The one with the shaky hand who kept bursting into tears for no reason." Because the day of Dad's hangover also happens to be Friday 13th, Karen (Ramona Marquez) is refusing to leave the house in case something bad happens and she is eaten by bears on the way to school. And to cap it all, this is the day that house hunters are coming round to view the house. Once again, Outnumbered provides half an hour of pure happiness.

It's Friday the 13th and superstitious Karen refuses to go to school in case something bad happens. She might, she insists, get mauled by a bear. Ben, meanwhile, asks his hungover father, "Dad, what's the point of living?" So just another day in their household. It's probably heresy to say so, but the series is starting to feel just that little bit predictable. But then complaining is churlish when it's given us Ramona Marquez (Karen), the best female comedian currently on the telly.