The Inbetweeners

This show isn't even watchable. It misses everything that made the original series brilliant. In the original, the characters and stories were believable-like they had been plucked out of the typical school experience for most of the population, thus it was extremely engaging because it was so relatable. Everyone knew someone who reminded them of Simon, Will, Jay, and/or Neil. The characters were human and three dimensional, and even though the dialogue and situations were sometimes heightened, they felt real and you want to pull for the characters (even Jay.)

The US version totally misses the mark. The guy they have playing Will is not an actual dork with an IDGAF confidence that actually makes him lovable, if also even dorkier. The US will is some second-rate Tiger Beat model they've slapped a blazer onto and called him a dork. You never really buy his character because it's so fake. If this were a real kid in a US high school, you wouldn't expect him to get bullied and repel female attention.

The US Simon is so uninteresting and plastic. The original Simon isn't classically handsome, but cute and charismatic enough for us to believe out of the four, he has an actual chance of having a sexual relationship with a girl before he's out of high school. It's probably 50-50, but it's believable that he might score. The US Simon has no depth. He's always acting, and it reads as fake. He's also got a model's face, so in an actual US high school, it's not believable that he would have so much trouble getting a girlfriend.

The US Neil is played like an insufferable idiot who's fried his brain on drugs or something. The original Neil is a bit like the Rose Nylund of the school-daft but lovable. He doesn't sit around with bowls on his head like the moron in the US version. The Neil scenes in the original were my favorite and they made me laugh the hardest. In the US version, I could barely watch the Neil scenes.

And then there's Jay. He is so horribly miscast in the US version. Jay is supposed to be a filthy liar who has just enough credibility that some people believe his fantastical sexual adventures. He's also pretty fragile underneath that façade of lies. The way the original Jay reacts to his dad's abuse is an example of how the character's more than just a toilet mouthed pervert. The US Jay is completely unbelievable. It reads as if this Jay is telling all of his stories for laughs rather than in the hopes that people believe him and put him on a pedestal. The acting is flat. And he extremely, extremely unattractive compared to the other three. It's not believable that they're a group of best friends in an actual US high school. Not believable at all.

In addition to the casting, what made The Inbetweeners UK so brilliant was the honesty and near universal relatability to the situations. You either cut class and went day-drinking once yourself, or you knew someone who had. That's part of the UK scholastic experience. Where the US missed he mark here is they tried to copy and paste scenarios that might be universal truths in Great Britain, but are alien to a US audience. It's just not universal in the States for a group of friends to ditch school, purchase hard liquor, get drunk during the day, and do something embarrassing in front of their love interest all before the parents expected them back from school. It might happen here and there, but I doubt most people could identify one such group in their US school experience. It's not universal, thus, it's not nearly as relatable as the UK series.

Also, in the UK version, the kids talked like actual school boys would talk without getting bleeped by censors. The US version cleans up the language substantially and bleeps words like sh--, so it again loses the realness factor so fabulously captured by the Brits.

I really wanted to like it, but it's painful to watch. Major misses in casting, production design, and adaptation of the source material turned a Crown Jewel of British television into a royal flop.

How on this EARTH did this show get made? This is the problem with adapting British sitcoms for American audiences; for every one that succeeds-like the Office-there are flops such as this.

The British Inbetweeners succeeded because it felt real, the characters felt like real high school students and the setting felt real. Here, the four boys are just warped unrecognisable versions of themselves! Will is too handsome and uptight, Neil, who's nice but a bit daft, is turned into some brain-dead stoner, and sex pest Jay is basically a dollar store Seth Rogen!

Everything looks like it was shot at magic hour, and there's this annoying muzak that pulsates through the background. Yeah, they used music in the British version but they used it at appropriate moments and sparingly!

Worst of all, because of the American broadcasting laws, the swearing and sex references had to be toned down, which neutered the series.

All in all, I'm happy that this American travesty was cancelled! You know what they say, if it ain't broke don't fix it!

I really don't understand the reason of making this at all. I find it quite insulting that anyone would even try and match the original programme. No disrespect to American broadcasting but the ultimate question is why? The cast is overall weird and the programme is poorly acted and constructed, ad least try and re brand it but do things different instead of trying to copy the original series directly. Oveall this is not worth watching and another season probably wont be made.

Its just overall insulting and even the preview on here and especially you-tube people were already annoyed with this programme.

America took an amazing British comedy and recycled the exact same jokes and story line but somehow managed ruin it. I don't think America understand why the original inbetweeners was actually funny in the first place.

If you have never watched the original then I guess it wouldn't be as awful but still pretty bad. Its hard to compare without being completely biased but the American take is just not as funny.

By replicating the show and not matching the correct cast to suit the characters it wasn't the same. America, stick to American pie please, the only good remake of British comedies you have done has been the office and even then you dragged it out way to long. After Steve Carell left you should have ended it there, but thats whole different review.

Many reviews and rating have pretty much all together decided - quite rightly - that the USA Remake of The Inbetweeners is a bit s**t. However many reviewers have failed to specify exactly why.

The answer is that this remake is just too fake. The original show had something truly tangible to work with, you got the feeling that the writers were really drawing on their own teen experiences and it made the show very familiar and as a result ten times funnier. Everyone knows a friends like Jay - always talking crap; Neil - the big idiot; Will the nerdy one and Simon the love sick puppy. The chemistry between the actors was fantastic and the banter is truly accurate to how good friends talk to each other.

But most of all The Inbetweeners was real. The houses weren't mansions and there were no "jocks" or "spring break" it was realistic and down to earth, showing what High School is really like, not looking at it through rose tinted glasses. Every time a character got hung up about something in school it made it all the more funnier because the show and audience know that it really isn't a big deal in reality. There was a kind of running theme of things being quite pathetic which is what gave it it's charm.

The remake misses this point completely. Everything looks like it's shot at magic hour, there's constant obnoxious music and the characters are no longer real. Will is...handsome and not awkward in the slightest. The only thing that makes him appear odd is his blazer and suit case but even then it looks fine. Neil, rather than being a little slow and goofy has become almost brain dead. Jay has just become too obnoxious, sure he was that way in the original but you got the sense that everyone knew how sad he truly was which made him endearing. And finally Simon is every other teen romance protagonist ever.

Another reason it doesn't work is the pacing, the timing of each scene. The verbal jokes in the original worked because they were quick, sharp, something about the dialogue just popped and honestly some things just sound funnier in a British accent. Entire pieces of dialogue are given to the American actors and it just doesn't seem as genuine. But another problem is that it has simply been watered down. The original four said the most obscene things to each other, linking dozens of swear words together in the same sentence and talking about extremely personal subjects. The reason this worked is because that's exactly how teenage friends talk to one another and real slang is used in the show. In the US version everything becomes more PG. In the original we have Jay talking about anal sex, fingering and toe f****ng while also making gay jokes about someone's Dad. Then in the US version Jay calls Will a "renob" because it's boner written backwards (seriously?) No teenager talks that way.

What makes it worse is that as well as verbal jokes not working the visual, physical gags fall flat as well. A joke lifted from the original is Will throwing a Frisbee which ends up hitting a disabled/mentally handicapped person in a wheelchair. In the remake it's a football hitting someone on crutches. Almost the same joke but just toned down a lot. Each time these things happened in the original there was a sense of "oh s**t they didn't just do that..." but in this remake the jokes are made extremely obvious.

What the makers of the US version should've done is not try to copy and paste dialogue and gags from the original, but instead get an American writer to draw on his own experiences to create new jokes and new gags. Someone like David Sedaris or Seth MacFarlane manage to infuse their work with wit and personality. The writers on this show, however, seem to be more concerned with how to adapt an already successful joke written by someone else.

Overall the show itself is not badly made but it's just not funny and for a comedy show that's the worst offence it can give.