I've heard so much criticism about this episode being 'too violent', 'inappropriate', 'not festive', and while I understand the violence complaint a little, the other two just baffle me.
This episode surprised me a little with it's violence, Not Going Out has never got this violent, yeah sure we've had the main characters cornered in the bathroom by a woman with a knife, and a mad butcher being severely wounded by being shot repeatedly with a nail gun, but having the main characters being chased around a department store by a man with a gun, was a little surprising, but that's why it was on at quarter-past 10 in the evening, Not Going Out has never really been family viewing, so expecting a nice cosy family Christmas story, is like expecting a Christmas heatwave.
People have complained about this episode being 'inappropriate' because of the events of 2015, something I find absolutely ridiculous. Seriously, this wasn't written last week, this was written about 4-5 months ago, and expecting the BBC to pull the episode is even more ridiculous. I don't personally see how this can be conceived as offensive, despite the dark subject matter, it's done light- heartedly and is the scenes with Lee, Lucy and Toby being chased around the store being shot, is one of my favourite moments because it's so fun.
Now that that tangent's out of the way, what about the episode itself. Well it's funny, but Not Going Out has been much funnier in the past! I feel that changing the format may have worked for the story, but removing the live studio audience was a mistake, instead it's replaced with a laughter track that was obviously added at the last minute because it's so quiet and it feels like if this was a real audience, they weren't impressed!
The acting is usual Not Going Out standard: Cheesy, and the script is rather well written despite a rather forced character-arc about Lee proving he is better than his dad, which is just there because they needed someone to save the day, without it feeling out-of- character, spoiler alert: it does anyway!
Christmas Shopping is a step down from the brilliant episodes of the previous series, but the amount of hate this episode has received is something I find ridiculous, it's Not Going Out you'd expect to find stuff like this, despite popular belief, Not Going Out is not a family show. It's not as funny as I'd hoped, and the plot is a little forced, but I feel it's enough to be fun and satisfying, just don't expect anything mind blowing!
This episode surprised me a little with it's violence, Not Going Out has never got this violent, yeah sure we've had the main characters cornered in the bathroom by a woman with a knife, and a mad butcher being severely wounded by being shot repeatedly with a nail gun, but having the main characters being chased around a department store by a man with a gun, was a little surprising, but that's why it was on at quarter-past 10 in the evening, Not Going Out has never really been family viewing, so expecting a nice cosy family Christmas story, is like expecting a Christmas heatwave.
People have complained about this episode being 'inappropriate' because of the events of 2015, something I find absolutely ridiculous. Seriously, this wasn't written last week, this was written about 4-5 months ago, and expecting the BBC to pull the episode is even more ridiculous. I don't personally see how this can be conceived as offensive, despite the dark subject matter, it's done light- heartedly and is the scenes with Lee, Lucy and Toby being chased around the store being shot, is one of my favourite moments because it's so fun.
Now that that tangent's out of the way, what about the episode itself. Well it's funny, but Not Going Out has been much funnier in the past! I feel that changing the format may have worked for the story, but removing the live studio audience was a mistake, instead it's replaced with a laughter track that was obviously added at the last minute because it's so quiet and it feels like if this was a real audience, they weren't impressed!
The acting is usual Not Going Out standard: Cheesy, and the script is rather well written despite a rather forced character-arc about Lee proving he is better than his dad, which is just there because they needed someone to save the day, without it feeling out-of- character, spoiler alert: it does anyway!
Christmas Shopping is a step down from the brilliant episodes of the previous series, but the amount of hate this episode has received is something I find ridiculous, it's Not Going Out you'd expect to find stuff like this, despite popular belief, Not Going Out is not a family show. It's not as funny as I'd hoped, and the plot is a little forced, but I feel it's enough to be fun and satisfying, just don't expect anything mind blowing!
