Outnumbered

Outnumbered Review: Three Strikes And Out

It's a family sitcom that's very much divided opinion. Some are calling it a bona fide work of genius while others can't seem to see what the fuss is about. I'm going to come down square in the middle on this one unfortunately.

On the box: Outnumbered

It's almost the end of this latest series, and there will be a nation hoping that the family can stay together, at least for a few more years of mayhem and madness.

This week the modern dilemma of looking at your partner's text messages comes under scrutiny. While dealing with the kids' various demands, Sue reads a revealing text from "Mimi". "From the state I was in, it could have been anyone," says Pete, admitting to getting extremely drunk and inappropriate with the mother of a boy in year two. Then the family has to go to lunch with Sue's sister and her new husband, an overbearing American therapist with a ponytail called Brick.

The fifth episode of the third series of the family comedy maintains the good form of last week's, fuelled by an early confrontation between Pete (Hugh Dennis) and Sue (Claire Skinner) and the typhoon-like arrival of Sue's sister Auntie Angela (Samantha Bond) and her ghastly American psychologist of a husband, Brick (Douglas Hodge). That's before an awkward restaurant meal dredges up Angela and Sue's acrimonious history. As usual, daughter Karen (Ramona Marquez) has her own opinion on the matter, deftly using her ingénue quips to throw a cold light on adult hypocrisy.

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.