Outnumbered creators Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton have defended the Christmas special amid fan complaints.
The BBC comedy series follows the lives of the Brockman family, where parents Pete and Sue (Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner) attempt to raise a family despite being 'outnumbered' by their three children Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey), Ben (Daniel Roche) and Karen (Ramona Marquez).
This year's Christmas special marked the first time we'd seen the Brockman's for eight years, with Pete and Sue no longer dealing with unruly kids but navigating being parents to adults who now had their own children.
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The 2024 special followed the family's attempts to gather their now extended family, which included Jake's partner Rani (Kerena Jagpal) and daughter Zara (Aurora Skarli), for a traditional Christmas - however the storyline featured a more serious storyline amongst the laughs and hijinks.
Viewers would learn last night (26 Decemeber) that Pete had been diagnosed with early prostate cancer and was struggling with how to break the news to his children.
The health storyline reflects a very real scenario which numerous families up and down the country go through every year; however fans were divided by the decision to include something so serious in the episode and took to social media to share their reactions.
"Random cancer storyline that wasn't resolved - happy christmas? #Outnumbered," one person wrote on X, while a second added: "Outnumbered was depressing this year. It lost its magic. I don't know why they felt the need to introduce a cancer storyline into a one off special."
"An unresolved cancer storyline while absolutely nothing funny happens wasn’t the Outnumbered Christmas special I had in mind," a third viewer penned.
Despite the lukewarm reaction series creators Jenkin and Hamilton have defended the decision to include Pete dealing with serious health problems, highlighting how the series has often included more serious topics.
"People often remember Outnumbered for the delightful children, but it always dealt with quite serious things: dementia, death, homophobia," Jenkin explained (via Metro).
"We dealt with that through how parents explain it to their children and this is the same except that the children are considerably larger," he continued.
"There’s still a stigma attached to the word cancer and we just wanted to show how very, very normal it is, as well as how the Brockmans dealt with it with warmth, love and especially humour because that’s a very British way of dealing with that sort of stuff."
Brenna Cooper