Non-fans of the much loved UK TV show, Gavin and Stacey, have been unanimous in their praise for the series much-hyped Christmas special, with one going so far as to say that it was the best programme she had ever not watched. The show, which first aired on BBC 2, I think, and definitely starred Rob Brydon, James Corden, and now things start to get a little sketchy for people like me who never ever watched it but wasn’t there a woman comedian actor, too?, won plaudits for being funny and touching, which I and people like me who’ve never seen it agree must be true because everybody always says so.
A bike mechanic who doesn’t actually watch TV at all chimed in to say that “I don’t even read newspapers online but somehow I’ve heard this final episode of Gavin and Stacey was good. So it was brilliant.’ He said he would genuinely miss the thing that he had never consumed. ‘I haven’t even seen a single scene of film, just still photos of, I think, a taxi driver? I really hope they bring it back for another series. I won’t watch again.’
Gavin and Stacey, people who have never watched it presume, must be named after its two main characters, who, being male and female and having ordinary names, are surely in some kind of sweet relatable domestic scenario that could only ever be concluded dramatically with the perfect ending. A flurry of articles the day after transmission confirmed what people who hadn’t watched the episode but were hanging on for news of its perfectness would have presumed: something about ‘finding love.’
Gavin and Stacey is not the first programme beloved by the whole nation despite most never having seen it. But it is, I think, Welsh, and the Welsh have traditionally been granted one popular television programme per decade since the introduction of four channels in 1982. Torchwood, another no one has seen, Doctor Who, who everyone stopped watching, and some legal drama that got 5 stars from everyone who wasn’t asked.