Gavin and Stacey is one of the most cherished sitcoms in television history. The show centers around a young man from Essex, named Gavin, who falls in love with Stacey, a woman from Wales, and explores the comedic chaos that ensues when their friends and family are brought together.
To say the series is popular would be an understatement. The final episode alone was watched by nearly 20 million people, breaking TV viewing records. Despite its widespread acclaim, not everyone shares the same enthusiasm. Specifically, James Corden, who co-created the series with Ruth Jones, has expressed his dislike for one particular episode.
According to Glouchester Live, James, who was at the BBC Comedy Festival in Liverpool, admitted there’s one episode he can’t stand. He specifically mentioned the second episode of the first series, which he described as a “very, very, very bad half hour.”
So what’s the issue? James believes the writers “backed themselves into a corner” by having Gavin propose to Stacey at the end of episode two. To make matters worse, he thinks neither he nor Ruth had the confidence yet to let the characters carry the comedy.
“We were conscious of this half-hour comedy thing, and I don’t think we trusted that actually the characters would be the thing that would be funny,” he said.
“We tried to instead say we needed something funny in the scenes, so we had Gavin jump the barriers when proposing, and be covered in lasers. In our head, we were making a sitcom, but we weren’t; we were making a character-driven story.”
What happens in Gavin and Stacey Season 1, Episode 2? After a misunderstanding over the phone, Stacey refuses to talk to Gavin, forcing him to travel to Barry to make up with her. Stacey then goes to stay at Gavin’s for a couple of nights, and the episode ends with him proposing to her at the station.
That said, James does believe the episode has its strengths, specifically the introduction of Dawn and Pete Sutcliffe, played by Julia Davis and Adrian Scarborough.
James isn’t alone in hating the episode. On Reddit, MyManTheo wrote: “Oh, I absolutely despise the ending to that episode.” Another user agreed, writing: “Yeah, me too. It’s easily the weakest episode, but it’s just a vehicle to set everything else up.”
Others, however, felt people were being a bit harsh. “Ep2 was always going to feel meh after the first one,” said qsk8r. “But it fits naturally with the chain of events required to move things forward.”
Bay_de_Noc, however, gave the most balanced commentary, agreeing that the misunderstanding wasn’t very good, but they went on to add:
“The scene when Gavin goes to Barry, and everyone is out on the doorstep talking, and Stacey comes out and runs into Gavin’s arms, and Bryn says: ‘She never says he was a Jehovahs.’ Makes me laugh every time I hear it.”
Gavin and Stacey is available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.
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