2022’s Man Vs Bee was the type of simplistic, farcical premise that shouldn’t have worked as well as it did. One of the reasons it did though was the utter commitment from the comedic genius that is Rowan Atkinson, who built upon the largely silent, situational mentality of his classic Mr. Bean for nine micro-episodes (each Bee chapter tapped out around 10 minutes) centred around one man’s battle with an intrusive bee.
The show was self-contained, didn’t overstay its welcome, and the bee element didn’t demand further exploration. Whether it was spurred on by that show’s critical appreciation or the mere fact that we’re starved of safe comedy that can be consumed by the whole family, Atkinson’s “Man” has been set up in a manner that, not unlike the countless adventures of Mr. Bean, can lend itself to a multitude of expanded ventures.
Enter, Man Vs Baby.
A sequel series in nature, the now four-episode arc (though the length has significantly increased, with each episode around 30 minutes) briefly ties itself to the Bee predecessor, with Atkinson’s Trevor Bingley still on the books for the housesitting company he worked for; for the uninitiated, Trevor was employed to look after the sprawling estate of an impossibly wealthy couple, whose home he absolutely destroyed in his attempt to rid it of a mischievous bee. The Atkinson-William Davies-penned script manages to bypass any serious repercussions towards Trevor’s housesitting reputation by having the company overtaken by a new figurehead who is unaware of the previous debacle; A show like this doesn’t need such deep lore, but you have to hand it to Atkinson and co. for making such a situation somewhat plausible.
How the titular baby comes into Trevor’s orbit is through his current, more quiet role as a school caretaker, where he’s assisting in their Christmas nativity play. They’ve come up with the genius idea of having an actual baby – on loan by a local parent – be the Baby Jesus for proceedings, but when no one seems to come pick the young tyke up at the end of the day, it unfortunately falls to Trevor to take care of it. Given it’s the holiday season, the police and, eventually, child services aren’t able to react as quickly as Trevor would like, and when he’s then offered a lucrative housesitting gig for a penthouse in the neighbouring London, he has no other choice than to take the baby along with him.
Given that it’s another foreign living space with an unpredictable presence, Man Vs Baby could have easily lent into expected, even recycled tropes. And though there are some sequences of leaving the baby unintentionally unsupervised, this doesn’t have quite the same level of chaos as Bee. The baby is never in harm’s way enough for us to feel uncomfortable, and whilst it’s always a joy to watch Atkinson flex his physical comedy muscles, Man Vs Baby opts for more of his comedic delivery and ability to navigate situations built on misplacement and environmental mishaps.
Overall, Man Vs Baby is a simple, easy watch. Perfect for the Christmas season with its inherent warmness and comedic universality. And now that we’ve seen that such an undecorated premise be utilised for two separate story strands, one can now only hope that Atkinson’s Man will find himself in further complications for our amusement.
THREE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
All episodes of Man Vs Baby are now available to stream on Netflix.
