Inbetweeners Series 1 & 2 Boxset

16th August 2009 • 0 Comments

Inbetweeners perfectly captures the feeling of Sixth Form life and the stupidity of some of our younger self's actions. It also takes it a stage further than we could ever imagine, making you put your head in your hands but also killing yourself with laughter. ...

Don't deny it, we all did stupid things when we were teenagers and most of these acts of stupidity normal involved trying to impress the opposite sex. Enter Inbetweeners which is a show based teenage acts of stupidity and the other aspects of Sixth Form life. 

The series starts off with a character named Will, whose father has left his mother and he is forced to leave private school and go to a comprehensive school. He soon makes friends with the love sick Simon, the crude Jay and the Neil who doesn't seem to be all there. All four of these characters are great and very memorable. The general format of each episode involves placing this group in a situation from Sixth Form life (e.g. School trip) and the group doing something in the hopeless attempt to try and impress some girls. 

Whilst this sounds pretty normal, what makes it funny is the extremes the show takes in some situations, these things are really unlikely to happen in real life but they happen in the show and this makes for some hilarious situations. One scene involves a very drunk Simon trying to impress his long time crush Carli, first he sprays "I Love Carli D'amato" on her drive way thinking it's a good idea and then later on whilst talking to her, he manages to throw up on her younger brother. A very unlikely situation in real life but makes you cringe and laugh all in the same episode.

Whilst there are some extreme elements of the show, what makes it so good is that the situations are very easy to relate to, if you've ever been to a British High School/Sixth Form you'll understand the humour. As most situations and locations are places we all familiar with from our past and whilst some moments are extreme, you either had them happen to yourself or you've heard of someone in your year having a similar experience. This is what makes the Inbetweeners so good as it manages to recreate Sixth Form live pretty much how it went, whilst the pursuit of girls is a bit more exaggerated.

What also helps is the quality of the supporting cast, each of the groups parents have a unique quirk to them and show when they inadvertently embarrass their kids. The best of them being Jay's dad, who is apologetically crude and disses his son in every scene he is in. In real life it would be someone you wouldn't want to associate with but in the show it just makes him hilarious. The girls are well cast and act like as you remember the popular girls acted at school. Other members of the supporting cast are well done and play on the stereotypes you would find in school. 

The best member of the supporting cast is Mr Gilbert, whom is the head of Sixth Form. His apparent lack of care for the students, added with a layer of sarcasm and perhaps being a bit psycho makes his character hilarious and any scene he is in always produces a laugh.

All in all, both series of Inbetweeners are very funny shows, but the humour can be very crude, so if you're really not comfortable if crude humour you may not enjoy it as much, if you can put up with the crudeness then you should watch this show as it is hilarious.

The boxset comes with both series, in which they both contain six episodes each. Each episode clocks in at about half an hour in length, so you may end up watching an entire series in an evening as you will get addicted to watching the show. The extra features are pretty standard stuff, including deleted scenes, bloopers and a few making of documentaries. For the asking price of about £20, this is a pretty good deal as you got both series and the show is excellent.

So if you feel that you would like to be reminded of your teenage years I really recommend you get Inbetweeners. Whilst it is a bit crude it is one of the funniest shows on television and you'll be quoting parts of the show for months to come.