Outnumbered

- Season 4

(2011)

Sandra interrupts a particularly competitive Wii session between Pete,who has rashly resigned his job,and the boys to ask Pete to read the eulogy at his Uncle Bob's funeral. His brief is not to mention Bernard, Bob's gay lover of fourteen years for whom he left his wife. However,flustered by Sue's giggling,Pete pays tribute to Bernard,earning praise from his mother and wife,as well as finding out something about the vicar. Bernard,however,is less pleased.

Now a supply teacher Pete gets grief from his daughter and wife for not helping more about the house. Angered by her menfolk's laziness Sue leaves them to do housework and cook Sunday dinner whilst she takes Karen out for a day at the local shopping mall. Here Karen makes short work of a charity campaigner before asking Sue to buy her clothes to keep up with her shallow school contemporaries. Returning home Sue finds that Ben has broken the washing machine and also has a peculiar idea of the ideal Sunday lunch.

Karen and Jake are both staying the night with friends whilst Ben is at an adventure camp,terrifying his school-mates with ghost stories. Sue and Pete find themselves dog-sitting Archie for friends of friends. He seems cute but nobody warned that he would go after next door's guinea pigs and run up a ninety pound bill. Pete loves having the kids out of the way and muses on a child-free future. Sue cannot wait to have them back again.

When Ben tells them that a boy called Oliver is selling drugs at school they wonder if they should report him. Their dilemma grows at Ben's parents' evening when Oliver's mother and father tell them about the drugs problem at his last school,which has now stopped. However,given Ben's teachers' reports of his bizarre behaviour and the fact that Karen is found wandering in the school playground,they decide against making a formal complaint and leave an anonymous note - in capitals.

Ben is perfecting his ventriloquist act for the school talent contest and annoying everybody as usual but this is the least of his parents' worries. First they find out that Jake is dating a nineteen-year-old pole dancer who,due to fake I.D., believes he is eighteen. Then Angela arrives,having split acrimoniously from Brick and bringing his daughter Misty - whom she claims Brick mentally abused - with her. She is writing a book on surviving families and Sue does not like the references to herself in the sneak peep she takes. With Brick having invalidated Angela's ...

No sooner has Brick's solicitor served papers on the Brockmans accusing Angela of abducting Misty to bump up her divorce settlement - and them of aiding a felon - than the bell rings again and Ottfried,Jake's German exchange student,whom noone was expecting,turns up. He is understandably perplexed by the whole set-up ,though he does regard Boris Johnson as a wonderful comedian,and offers Sue and Pete advice. Fortunately Angela decides to return to Brick but that still leaves the problem of Jake's nineteen year old pole-dancing girlfriend,who turns out to be only ...

The Brockmans hope to get away for the holiday, but Granddad's sudden illness and trip to the worst hospital ever threatens their plans.

The Brockmans throw a Christmas party with jubilee bunting for decorations but Pete is not happy. Of the kids only Ben wants to help whilst Sandra gets drunk, tactless Norris from next door reminds former TV weather-man Ray of his nervous breakdown and Pete gets shut in the bathroom with neurotic, flu-ridden Jane when the door handle falls off. As the evening progresses Norris's wife runs off with her Lesbian lover, Jane takes an accidental over-dose and is rushed to hospital whilst Jake brings the police to the house. This will certainly be one party for everybody to...