- Rowan Atkinson returns as Trevor Bingley in Netflix’s Man vs Baby, but the series leans into saccharine Christmas tropes rather than bold physical comedy.
- The show recycles Bean-like elements but replaces high-stakes farce with sentimental, uneven plotting and conspicuous product placement.
- A muddled central mystery and a deus ex machina ending undercut any darker or sharper comic potential.
- Man vs Baby is streaming on Netflix now.
H2: What Man vs Baby is about
Rowan Atkinson plays Trevor Bingley, a hapless but well-meaning everyman who finds himself caring for an abandoned infant over the Christmas period. After losing his job as a school caretaker, Bingley discovers the baby at a nativity rehearsal and, in a rush of bad timing and baffling bureaucracy, ends up smuggling the child into a London penthouse he’s house‑sitting. The series follows his attempts to keep the baby safe until the authorities step in — and the increasingly strange situations that follow.
H3: How it compares to Mr Bean and Man vs Bee
Atkinson’s Bingley recalls traces of Mr Bean and his more recent Man vs Bee character: awkward physicality, a knack for escalating small problems, and an innocence that invites both sympathy and chaos. But unlike the original Bean sketches or the tighter farce of Man vs Bee, Man vs Baby rarely escalates into the kind of risky, social‑subverting slapstick that made those works memorable. Bingley here is often competent and kind rather than spectacularly disastrous, which blunts much of the comic tension.
H3: Tone, sentimentality and the Christmas trap
The series leans hard into what might be called ‘Cosy British Christmascore’ — polished village scenes, misty snow, and an insistence on warm, tearful reconciliation. That tone gives the show its feel‑good surface, but it also results in cloying sentiment and plot decisions that feel engineered to provoke a lump‑in‑the‑throat reaction rather than genuine laughs. Where sharper comedy could have used Bingley’s social awkwardness to expose darker contradictions, the show opts for a relentlessly soft center.
H4: Product placement and contrived subplots
Viewers will notice prominent brand moments — Cadbury’s chocolates and other in‑shot products — which occasionally pull attention away from the story. A side plot involving a squatting family in the building attempts to add social texture, but it lands as mawkish and underdeveloped rather than incisive.
H4: The mystery that never quite lands
Man vs Baby threads a mystery about the child’s origin and who is suffering from the loss. The show flirts with more unsettling implications but ultimately resolves them with a contrived turn that feels like a deus ex machina. The result is less troublingly clever than unsatisfyingly neat.
H2: Verdict
Rowan Atkinson’s physical gifts remain intact, and there are warm, funny beats. But Man vs Baby too often substitutes schmaltz for risk, product placement for plot, and neat resolutions for the kind of high‑wire farce many viewers expect from Atkinson. It’s a serviceable, cozy holiday watch — but not the sharp comedy it could have been.
Man vs Baby is on Netflix now.
Image Referance: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/dec/11/man-vs-baby-review-rowan-atkinson-netflix