Inbetween Awful and Dire

Apparently The Inbetweeners is all the rage with young people so I decided to sit down and watch the most recent episode – the fourth of the second series titled Night Out In London.

Never before have I seen such twaddle. The only laughs out of Holliday Towers were those in despair at what I was seeing and real feeling for the poor (yet probably stupid) actors who had to deliver such garbage. Let’s see what the main detritus/points I object to are:

• The script was littered with references to: knobs, tits, sex, wanking, “doing”, boners, porn, knockers, and general stereotypical teenage “activities”, for want of a better word.
• There was a reference to the 2 Girls 1 Cup video, too. You know, the one that went around the internet about 8 months ago and is no longer “up there” in terms of updated internet memes – the show’s attempt at being topical failed miserably!
• The main characters were farcical and two-dimensional; you have the stereotypical “dweeb” (more in him later), the tragic romantic, the stupid idiot and the sex-crazed moron. None of these characters really had any depth to them and were pretty purile in what they said and did. Pretty predictable.
• The main character, Will, is probably the most stereotypical and badly characterised – naturally, all slightly-posh sounding people who can actually wear a tie properly must be social misfits and therefore ripe for mockery and parody.
• The other characters were all generally oafish, moronic, sex-crazed and crude. Like 95% of most teenagers, the writers probably assumed.
• If that was set in a sixth form and aimed to portray normal sixth form life in a “generic London comprehensive school”, then I must have had my eyes sewn shut for my 2 years doing A-levels. It’s grossly exaggerated at minimum.

Now, I would feel sorry for the actors who probably tried to make the best out of the terrible script provided. But consider that they signed up to do this and might have had some creative input. The bottom line is this: garbage in, garbage out.

My problem lies that this is apparently one of the greatest comedys [sic] ever made. Worrying that this country considers crude sexual innuendo/stereotyping the most amusing thing on television.

UPDATE: I have just read this on the internet:

The Inbetweeners follows four friends as they navigate the minefield of the Comprehensive education with their hormones at full blast. There's vomit, offensive language, and a trip to Thorpe Park. All they care about is sex, cheap booze, kid brothers and the sexual persuasion of Neil’s dad. None of our heroes are exceptional, all are distinctly average. And trying to convince the world they are sophisticated, sexy human beings usually ends in wretched disaster.
The Inbetweeners delves into the psyche of the British teenage boy and discovers equal amounts of porn, sick and cheap lager.

Says it all, really.

I won’t say cancel it, as it’s on E4 which is not funded by the licence fee. But do give other, serious/intelligent drama and comedy series a go, such as this, this, this, this, strongly that, a bit of this, this, him and most definitely this – and that’s just for starters!

Please try to widen your horizons and get off the smut line, people. It was funny when you were six.

I want the 24 minutes of my life I wasted back. Join the hot topic on Facebook here. As always, comments welcome down the bottom.