THERE! I FIXED THE...SHOW? - The Inbetweeners (US)
Okay, I need to get this one out there immediately, because this is easily one of the biggest problems with the show; we have to get rid of the “Jay x Brie” arc. Why? Because it portrays a healthy and encouraged depiction of, I shit you not, child grooming. No kidding, whenever it’s brought up, they never stop and call Jay out, they either make jokes about the absurdity of it all or, most of the time, don’t even acknowledge it, even when Jay says some of the creepiest lines I’ve heard in any sitcom (okay, this is a late edit, but I just remembered that in the final episode, Neil actually defends Jay for wanting to date a 13 year old. wow.). Granted, there was a character like this in the original named Mr. Kennedy, but what made his scenes work is that A. he wasn’t trying to pursue a full on relationship with Neil and B. he was always presented as in the wrong. What makes it worse is that they don’t portray Brie as if she’s 13, they portray her like she’s 5. There’s literally a scene where she doesn’t know her left hand from her right. So, easiest fix in the show, we get rid of it, done. But what’ll fill in that gap? Well, the answer “literally anything” is too easy, so here’s my solution: in the UK series, they introduce a character named Samantha who hits it off with Jay in the episode “Xmas Party”. Why not bring her into the mix? Not only because she’s actually of age, but they didn’t do much with her in the original. If they can expand on Lauren, a one-off character in the British series, why not her? So they can still keep the romance but now Jay isn’t filling the shoes of Mr. Kennedy and preying on a child.
I’m gonna do something different here and give you two fixes for the price of one: the humor and the characters. Starting off with the humor, the UK series is one of the funniest things to come out of Britain next to Rowan Atkinson and that scene from Don't Hug Me I'm Scared where the guys start randomly fighting. The jokes all flowed naturally and fit the characters and scenarios perfectly. Here, there’s none of that, the jokes are either shortened to the point of removing the punchline (or sometimes the entire scene) entirely, watered down, or don’t even end on a joke. Take, for instance, Will traumatising Carly’s brother. In the original, the joke comes from the casual, even happy way that Will tells the kid that his parents are probably dead. In the remake, it’s taken surprisingly too seriously, when the writers had the blueprint on how to adapt that into the remake. In fact, that goes for a lot of the jokes in the show. They had the methods of making those jokes funny locked down, and it would've been so easy to just carry those jokes over to the US remake. The one exception to this is Will inadvertedly insulting disabled kids on a rollercoaster, but even that doesn't work because they took away the notion of it being the last ride of the day. As for the new jokes, I like to put them in three different categories: Disney Channel-esque sitcom shenanigans, people falling over and sex jokes that the writers of 2 Broke Girls didn’t find funny enough - and none of these categories are funny. I mostly attribute this to the censorship, which heavily dilutes the comedy and takes away the point of it, so my solution is moving it to a streaming platform like Netflix. Sounds weird, I know, but that way they wouldn't need to worry about the censors since they're a lot more relaxed. I mean, take a look at Big Mouth, they’re perfectly okay with the shit shown in that, why not this? But that's enough of the comedy, what about the characters? Well, it's safe to say that a good chunk of them have been butchered, though not all of them. I actually like what they did with Neil; the actor's deliveries are a bit wooden, but he does get a few of the funnier jokes of the series. Outside of him, though, one problem with them is with the casting. Nothing against these guys, they've done some good performances in other good works (hell, the guy playing Jay is A-A-Ron from Key and Peele, dude knows comedy), but they don't match their personalities. For example, Donavan looks too well-raised to be a bully, Mr. Gilbert doesn't have any sort of threatening presence, Jay became…well, you know already, and about half of the characters look the same. I had a hard time trying to tell Carly apart from Will's mother. So the easy fix here is to make them more like the original, right? Yes and no. I actually think that if they introduce new elements to the characters while keeping the characterisation of the original, it could work. For example, Gilbert could still be menacing, but also neglectful of the goings-on around the school. Simon could still be awkward and short-tempered, but also tries too hard to be cool. Donovan could still be ruthless, but also a little sympathetic. These character changes could work and, again, make the comedy work a little better.
Finally, we have the directing. Fun fact, did you know that five episodes here were actually directed by Taika Waititi? Yep, I’m talkin’ the same guy behind Thor: Ragnarok, What We Do in the Shadows and Jojo Rabbit. And despite the irony of this post coming straight after the Thor: Love and Thunder edition of TIFTM, I don’t hate this director. In fact, I actually think the three movies I just listed are fantastic. With the right script, this guy can be top notch. The problem is, throughout his tenure on this show, he never had the right script, and there is another reason as to why this is. The big selling point of the UK series is its realism factor - you can watch it and relate it to your life or your friend group because they’re all things that would happen in a British teenager’s life. And again, in the remake, there is none of that, and a big problem with that is the directing. A good chunk of the time, they randomly dedicate a couple minutes to either montages of the gang doing stuff or needless slow-mo shots. A lot of these can be cut out and nothing would be missed. And because of this, the relatability, charm, and above all realism of the show is lost. They also try a little too hard to push a moral in every episode, which isn’t a bad idea, but it isn’t as funny as the non-morals of the UK version such as “don’t play with that guy’s LEGO, it’s been in his ass”. This fix may be a little unorthodox but hear me out: what if it was done like a mockumentary? Something like what The Office or Abbott Elementary did. They normally portray their scenarios with some semblance of realism intact as well as giving other characters’ perspectives on certain events. That could work for this iteration of The Inbetweeners, not only because the relatability is still there, but they could expand on the narration of the original by showing the inner thoughts of the other characters.
I’m not gonna do a total recap of the whole thing, since this is a 12 episode show, but still, let’s tally: the show is now a mockumentary that gives insight to how others are feeling as well as Will, the show’s been moved to streaming so the censors are a lot more relaxed, the characters have been totally overhauled, and most importantly, the arc of Jay as a pedophile has been dropped. And just like that, I think I fixed the show. What do you think?
About the Author: JF the LOLZOR
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