By Swikblog Entertainment Desk
Rowan Atkinson’s Trevor Bingley returns in a Netflix Christmas sequel that’s being hailed as a warm family treat by some critics – and dismissed as trite festive mush by others.
When Netflix announced Man vs Baby, a follow-up to 2022’s slapstick hit Man vs Bee, the expectation was simple: more chaos, more physical comedy, more Rowan Atkinson being gloriously unhinged. Instead, the show has arrived as one of the most divisive festive releases of the year.
On one side, the Guardian’s review brands it “the most trite Christmas show possible”, complaining of cloying sentimentality and nonsensical plotting. On the other, the Telegraph calls it an “unexpectedly heart-warming Christmas treat” and awards it four stars. The same series, released on the same day – and yet the critical split could hardly be wider.
From Man vs Bee to Man vs Baby
Atkinson once again plays Trevor Bingley, the accident-prone everyman who first appeared in Man vs Bee – a short-form comedy in which a house-sitting job and a single insect spiral into catastrophic, slow-motion disaster. That series, co-created with writer Will Davies, was built around pure physical mayhem: smashed sculptures, exploding kitchens and the kind of escalating farce Atkinson perfected with Mr Bean.
Man vs Baby keeps Trevor but shifts the tone. Now living in a chocolate-box Home Counties village, Bingley has taken a quiet job as a primary school caretaker. It’s Christmas, naturally. After being let go, his last task is to help with the school nativity – where he discovers an unexplained baby on the doorstep and assumes it must be the infant Jesus for the play.
It isn’t. And that’s where the story starts to wobble and split critics down the middle.
The Premise: Lost Baby, London Penthouse, Limited Chaos
Once it’s clear the baby doesn’t belong to the school, Trevor does what a vaguely responsible adult might do: he goes to the police, then social services. In a sequence that has already become infamous among reviewers, he is briskly dismissed: the police are too busy; social workers assume the baby is a figment of his imagination after he briefly misplaces it at home.
With nobody willing to claim the child, Trevor ends up taking the baby with him to a lucrative Christmas housesitting gig in a glossy central London penthouse. The set-up seems engineered for mayhem: a babbling infant, an ultra-expensive flat, and a man whose track record with breakable objects is not exactly reassuring.
But instead of the full-throttle destruction of Man vs Bee, much of Man vs Baby plays surprisingly gently. Trevor is, after all, a devoted father with a teenage daughter he adores. He knows which way up a baby goes. There are eccentric solutions (at one point, a cork stands in for a dummy), but the central joke – that this man is hopelessly out of his depth – is often softened by his basic competence and kindness.
What the Guardian Hates: Schmaltz, Senselessness and Christmascore
In her sharply critical piece for the Guardian, Rachel Aroesti argues that the show never earns its sentimental streak. Where Man vs Bee balanced emotion with nerve-jangling farce, she finds that Man vs Baby loads on the cosy Christmas aesthetics – fairy lights, twinkling scores, chocolate-box streets – while letting logic and genuine tension fall away.
The review takes particular aim at the script’s internal logic: overworked social services, a mysteriously unclaimed infant, an oddly relaxed attitude from every adult in sight. Rather than becoming a sharp satire of institutional failure or parental panic, the scenario is treated as a whimsical puzzle to be brushed aside with a last-minute twist. The eventual resolution, Aroesti suggests, is a “deus ex machina” that dodges any darker implications.
Then there’s the product placement. After complaints about visible luxury brands in Man vs Bee, Man vs Baby leans cheerfully into Cadbury’s Heroes – boxes of chocolates that recur often enough to feel like supporting characters. Even when the gag lands, as Trevor hands a box to a young family squatting in the building’s basement and cheerfully reassures them the sweets are “really nice, actually”, the Guardian sees it as just another layer of cynicism in a show trading shamelessly on “Cosy British Christmascore”.
For Aroesti, the core problem is simple: this isn’t the anarchic Atkinson we know. The show “never escalates into the grand, high-wire, socially subversive physical comedy we expect” and instead settles for a “nauseatingly schmaltzy and nonsensical dose of Christmas cheer”.
What the Telegraph Loves: Warmth, Family Appeal and a Kinder Trevor
Over at the Telegraph, Chris Bennion sees almost the opposite show. His review, awarding four stars, calls Man vs Baby “an unexpectedly heart-warming Christmas treat” and “a superior sequel” that deepens Trevor Bingley rather than simply re-running bee-based chaos.
Where the Guardian reads the cosy tone as cloying, the Telegraph frames it as a virtue. This is, in Bennion’s view, designed as family viewing: gentle jokes, visual mishaps and just enough jeopardy to keep parents and kids engaged on the sofa without anyone covering their eyes.
Trevor’s basic decency – his devotion to his unseen daughter, his patience with the abandoned baby, his willingness to help a struggling family downstairs – is central to Bennion’s praise. The mishaps, while milder than a catastrophic bee battle, still give Atkinson room to deploy his impeccable timing, flailing limbs and wide-eyed panic, but now in a register that feels more openly tender.
For viewers in the mood for something soft-edged and seasonal, the Telegraph suggests, Man vs Baby is precisely the kind of undemanding comfort watch that streaming platforms are expected to serve up in December.
Two Reviews, Two Different Expectations
Ultimately, the clash between the Guardian and Telegraph reviews may say less about Man vs Baby itself than about what we expect from Rowan Atkinson in 2025.
If you come looking for the queasy comic cruelty of Mr Bean – corridors of social embarrassment, property damage on an operatic scale, jokes that flirt with real discomfort – then this new series will probably feel like a step down. The Guardian’s frustration stems from exactly that: the sense that a premise bursting with potential chaos settles instead for soft-focus sentiment and a story that doesn’t quite hold together.
If, however, you’re happy to see Atkinson tilt towards a more straightforwardly sweet Christmas tale – a kind-hearted man, an unexpected baby, a handful of mishaps and a warm glow at the end – then you may find yourself siding with the Telegraph. For those viewers, the restrained slapstick and heightened sentiment are features, not bugs.
So, Should You Watch Man vs Baby?
The safest answer is that Man vs Baby is unlikely to change anyone’s mind about Rowan Atkinson. Fans of his physical performance will still find flickers of brilliance in the way he juggles bottles, baby carriers and fragile ornaments. Those allergic to festive schmaltz will probably be rolling their eyes long before the final reveal.
What makes this release interesting is not just the show itself, but the way it exposes a split in how we now judge comfort TV. Is a Christmas comedy allowed to be simply warm and silly, or should it push harder – whether in its slapstick or its social commentary? The Guardian and Telegraph have, in effect, given viewers two different viewing guides.
Either way, Atkinson remains a rare presence on screen: a performer whose body language can still carry an entire gag, whose slightest twitch can turn a simple prop into a punchline. Man vs Baby may not be the grand comic spectacle some hoped for, but as a snapshot of where British festive TV is heading – towards “Cosy Christmascore” with an algorithm-friendly sheen – it’s a fascinating case study.
Man vs Baby is streaming on Netflix now.
