Reviews

The pilot was more than bad-it was offensive with all the stereotyping and unintentional negative messaging. I thought it was the worst thing I had seen in a while, and I almost stopped watching. I saw a couple of reviews say it got better, so I decided to give it another chance since I'm in lockdown with nothing better to do. It does get better, and by the end of episode 10, I was enjoying it.

It's not Saved by the Bell-like not at all. It reminds me of those sequels in the 1980s that had nothing whatsoever to do with the original and we're just using the sequel for name recognition and nothing more. This reboot is so different from SBTB that I think it would have been better received if it had just been a separate entity unrelated to SBTB. It doesn't have the heart. The characters aren't clever. The relationships aren't believable. It's not wholesome. It resembles Glee (sans singing and dancing) or Popular (the old Ryan Murphy series) a lot more closely than it resembles SBTB.

The four original characters are unrecognizable. In this reboot, they are clownish, cartoons of the characters they played in the original. Slater is a total moron-like using misconjugated verbs as a character trait stupid. Zach is a vapid, self-absorbed man-ho. Jessie is an enabling Karen. Kelly is a nymphomaniac socialite. There's almost zero level of truth in their characters whatsoever-they're so over the top. I enjoy those four actors, and it was fun seeing them reprise these characters for a minute, but honestly, the series didn't even need it. The only episode late in the season where these four are prominently featured was jarring and took me out of the actual story-lines. I would have preferred these four did an extended special of the Jimmy Fallon appearance and then this series be named something else. They don't fit well together.

When watching it pretending it was unrelated to SBTB, it's enjoyable enough. I couldn't understand what audience they were going for, though. It's way racier than SBTB with a good bot of swearing and many controversial issues. I probably wouldn't let my ten year old watch it, and I can't imagine it is very appealing to 40 year old GenX-ers once the nostalgia goes away.

It also tried really hard to be woke, but often missed the mark or got it so wrong I cringed. I guess it's the thought that counts?

Hopefully, the creators will read the feedback and the next season will improve. If it doesn't, I can't imagine it will last for a third.

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.