It’s hard to put out a fourth series, following the same general format and without any particular overarching storyline, but Outnumbered Series 4 has pulled it off perfectly. With a third series that was slightly lacking, the semi-disfunctional family are back better than ever.
Ben has reinvented his wild child antics with the addition of even more innocent boisterousness that’s particularly funny when he goes away to camp on a school trip. Karen (Ramona Marquezis just as precocious as ever, but it’s a bit more direct than the third series and rounded off with a new obsession with being in the in-crowd at school.
However, perhaps the most defining touch of series 4 is the underlining pathos that runs throughout the episodes thanks to the performances of Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner (shwing!) as mum and dad. There’s a more genuine feel to the plot of the episodes, making you feel all the more sympathetic when it doesn’t quite work out.
Tyger Drew-Honey keeps things on his usual sarcastic teen steady keel as Jake, and his older, band obsessed status provides a lot of great material for mayhem for his ever-more overbearing parents, including drug dealing misunderstandings and Subuteo scepticism.
Outnumbered Series 4 has added a great new chapter to the show with a clever feel for comedic sophistication. It’s blur of seeming real but at the same time completely ludicrous is both emotive and hilarious.
Outnumbered Series 4 review: 4/5
