So a few weeks ago we did a feature where we showed some pictures of what the American Inbetweeners who were premiering on MTV shortly were going to look like and everyone pretty much agreed that it looked like it was going to end up being fucking terrible. Why the hell was Will good looking? Why the hell was Jay a short fat chubber? Why did Neil have long hair? Why did Simon not have a terrible hairstyle?
Basically it just looked like the United States was going to ruin one of our most loved shows, just like they’ve ruined a bunch of our great shows in the past. If you don’t believe us, check out this feature we ran a while back about how Across The Pond Remakes always suck. It happened with Red Dwarf, Life in Mars, Skins and pretty much everything else they tried to do, except for the American Office which started off shoddy but ended up taking the ball and totally ran with it. For a forty yard touchdown return, zing!
The first trailer of the American Inbetweeners emerged a couple of days ago and predictably it has been met with the standard barrage of insults from British fans being really pissed off that the Americans have taken one of their favourite shows and butchered it for their own audience. Some of the choice quotes from the YouTube channel the trailer is hosted on include the following:
‘That video gave me cancer’
‘Noo What the fuck have they done? Ruind the Best comedy !!’
‘Oh Dear!!!! this is soo shit! british version is soo much better’
‘SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WRONG!’
Someone has even set up a YouTube channel showing the trailer to the original Inbetweeners and asking people to like it to show their support for the original series. I’m not really sure why anyone would do this or what they’re trying to achieve by doing it – do they think if they get X amount of likes that MTV will can the American version? Or that when it does get cancelled they can brag to their friends that they were involved in taking it down? Sometimes I really don’t get the internet. Nevertheless, it’s got around 2000 likes. The USA Inbetweeners trailer has 34,000 dislikes. You can check it out below:
Now, I’m not going as far as to say it looks really good, or even that I’ll tune in to watch it, but I really don’t think it looks as bad as people are saying. Sure the jokes and situations are the same and it’s kind of weird and American and gross, but it’s a remake, get over it, that’s the point. I think the fact that the characters do seem to look and act differently to their originals is a good thing though, because even though they’re using the same storylines it’s giving them a chance to develop on it down the line and mould it into it’s whole own thing, a la The Office.
I guess my main source of inspiration for saying this is that the character of Jay is so completely different. Even though he’s still saying the same lines, the fact that he’s a stoner looking fat kid and the way he delivers the lines in a stupid American smarmy way rather than in the voice of an English smartass loudmouth makes the character completely different and although this is alienating a lot of the original English fans (who were always going to hate it, let’s face it), the fact is that by choosing to take a different direction with him the show actually has a chance of ‘doing an office’ and turning him into the new Dwight Schrute. Everyone hated him to begin with but now I see people wearing t-shirts of him like twice a month or something.
I’m guessing this isn’t going to be a popular opinion but the trailer looks a lot better than the Skins trailer I saw so I think it has the potential to not be a complete flop like that and maybe develop into its own thing that might actually be good. They’ve already ordered more episodes than were ever made of the original Inbetweeners so they’re gonna be dropping their own ideas in sooner rather than later. Unless it gets cancelled after a couple of episodes that is, which is definitely possible. The first few episodes of the American office were straight up remakes and pretty fucking horrible, but when they got past them and started doing their own thing look how great that turned out to be – until Steve Carell left that is. I guess we can only hope that the US Inbetweeners figures that out before it’s too late.
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