Beaver Falls

How ridiculous to say that this show was set in California, when it clearly was filmed in a different country - South Africa to be exact. And it looks like the "campers" ran the gamut from age 10 to about 30. Aside from some decent female eye candy, a really dumb and pointless show.

Three British students get jobs at a teen camp in California. They're well out of their depth but soon learn the ropes. Moreover, it's a paid holiday surrounded by beautiful women, so how bad can it be?

This looked quite low-brow, sort of Porkies at a camp, but ends up being not too bad. There's some decent humour, some mildly interesting adventures and okayish relationship drama. None of it is brilliant, and it is quite lightweight in feel, but it is entertaining enough.

This movie is inspired by every summer camp movie of the '80s. There are hot girls, they're schluby guys ready to prove themselves, there are macho jerks, there is an authoritarian guy running the whole thing. At least that's my first impression.

In the very beginning of the first episode I thought, well this might be pleasant. It had a reasonable low-key summer comedy vibe to it. But as the protagonist charges arrive in all their obnoxious glory I lost what little bit of interest hadn't previously been lost by a lot of the ridiculousness.

Well my main issue is this just isn't very funny, it's also pretty stupid. The whole setup makes no sense. How is it that all the jock guys get a cabin and all the schlub guys get a cabin? Is this an official policy? Maybe that's explain later but I can't see how it's ever going to make sense. Meanwhile, the idea that three rookies are put in charge of a cabin with no instructions and expected to come up with the whole activity for their charges seems utterly ridiculous. I've never worked in a summer camp so I can't say that's not exactly what happens, but I find it hard to believe that many summer camps would be that badly run. And it's not badly run in a funny way, it's just badly wrong.

A half hour or so in I had lost all interest in making it to the end of the first episode. Not recommended.

I think a lot of people wrote this off straight away from the trailer on E4 - I was nearly one of them. It looked like it was going to be a pretty empty drama - British guys going after hot girls; kind of 90210 with a couple of English guys and a Scot. I gave it a go though and stuck with it through the whole series and I'm glad I did. The dynamic between the core three works very nicely and it is fun to watch. There is a lot more humour than I thought and it is so much the better for it. It actually seems to get a little too caught up in its own plot sometimes - the best bits are when the characters are all chatting to each other. Barry stands out particularly as a likable character as the joker of the group. John Dagleish plays him extremely well; it doesn't ever feel like he is acting and he becomes very identifiable with as a result.

Most of the cast are very good - a few characters are a little too stereotypical and thus dull, but overall the show does very well to be genuinely entertaining with enough drama to keep the show moving but enough comedy to make it very fun to watch. I'd say the first episode was the weakest, too, with a little too much emphasis on toilet humour, but after that its far more about the group dynamic and improves from there.

Was expecting something similar to the inbetweeners instead it's extremely American with forced humour and the kids are beyond annoying!! Everytime they come on the screen I'm just counting the seconds till they leave.