top is uk, bottom us
This week, instead of focusing on movie remakes, I decided to take a look at TV remakes. In 2008, a production company out of the UK picked up a show titled “The Inbetweeners”. After 3 short seasons, the show was put on hiatus. This past year, MTV decided to make their own version of the same name. This was a bad choice for MTV because the show was dropped and cancelled after one season. The basic plot line is the story of a new kid who tries to fit in and ends up finding three new friends. His new friends are neither part of the cool kids nor part of the nerds, they are simply inbetweeners.
This show is a simple case of “the original was 10 times better than the remake”. For me, humor is so much funnier when it is in a British accent. The story line was original, as were the characters. The US version kind of killed it. The show’s producers didn’t even try to add their own touch to the show. A lot of the episodes had the same story lines as the UK version. A few episodes were different than the original, but most were the same story with different people and different accents. I felt like MTV picked up the show because they saw how well it was doing in the UK. They probably believed that by broadcasting the exact same thing in the US they would get extremely high ratings, but that was not the case. The UK version lasted for at least three seasons (it is unknown whether or not they are going to come back) and the US version lasted for approximately three months. Overall, the original was so much better. And again, the accents just added ten bonus points to the UK, for some reason it made all of the jokes a little classier. If you’re into crude comedies then this is definitely a show to watch and I recommend it. (and if you aren’t into that sorry, instead you should watch NCIS because it is awesome too! :D) The UK version is available on Netflix, and the US version is available on MTVs website. The UK version was also followed with a movie, which I have yet to see, but it must be good because it has become the UK’s top grossing comedy ever. So if you’re bored and looking for a chuckle you should definitely check it out (but if you can avoid the US version, it’s just bad). And that is my two cents regarding “The Inbetweeners”. 😀
