As we deck the halls and prepare to spend time with family, beloved Christmas TV specials become a cherished part of our festive traditions. With the final Gavin & Stacey episode airing this year, it’s clear the show continues to hold a special place in British hearts.

Tom Hemingway, Teaching Fellow in Film and Television Studies at The University of Warwick, offers his perspective…

"Despite having a limited number of episodes, 21 total since it first aired in 2007, the show remains consistently popular in the UK where it is repeated regularly on free-to-air channels such as Dave. The Christmas period has always been a time for long-standing traditions, and for many families, watching seasonal television specials together will be one of them.

Over time, many of these performers have come to be interchangeable with the characters they play, particularly in a UK context. The recent announcement that the final episode will run for a bumper 90-minutes means viewers will get to spend even more final moments with the characters they have watched grow up, and in turn, grown up alongside for the past two decades.

Christmas is also a time when even the most scrooge-like among us are prone to display a shred of sentimentality. These feelings will no doubt be satiated by the broadcast of a ‘touching’ documentary which is being broadcast alongside the final episode. The last Gavin & Stacey Christmas special drew 18.49 million viewers, a peak for the show at that point. Given the excited response which met the initial news of the reunion, this final episode programme is poised to reach another record high."