MTV hasn’t had any better luck adapting British hit series than network television has. Their version of “Skins” sank like a stone. Now here comes their version of another raunchy British comedy.
Like the original, the new version of “The Inbetweeners” (MTV, 10:30 p.m.) concerns a group of school friends whose sole purpose is to advance their sexual experieince, usually pretty badly.
It’s had its edges sanded somewhat to make its characters more likable, and to make its spoofy, quick-moving approach akin to the similar show about teen girls, “Awkward.”
Still, while the British series was built around breakout star Simon Bird, the new one depends on more of an ensemble feel from admittedly fresh-faced players Joey Pollari (who takes on the very Will McKenzie name Bird had), Bubba Lewis, Zack Pearlman and Mark L. Young.
The British creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris are listed as exectutive producers, but it was Brad Copeland, who wrote on “Arrested Development” abd “My Name is Earl” who did the adaptation. The pilot was directed by Taika Waititi who worked on “Flight of the Conchords.”
And as amusing as some of the embarrassments are, it still has an air of middle-aged comedy writers in the voice of sex-starved teenagers, which is kind of creepy.
But MTV David Janollari, head of programming at MTV, says “For teens trying to find their niche in the high school ecosystem, the journey to find out where they fit in is the single focus of every day, and comfortable and easy are not words used to describe them.”
Speaking at the TV Critics summer press tour earlier this month, Copeland says in adapting the British show “we try not to copy exactly what they were doing and just take the essence of it and find guys that grabbed you in those kind of in between personalities but that were slightly different but that were just memorable and funny and sweet. And so finding four of those guys was extremely difficult and it took a while.”
“In my experience putting casts together, it was one of the hardest and longest search I’ve ever done,” Janollari says. “It was not only about finding the actors that would embody the individual characters, it was also about coming up with a chemistry that was believable between these four friends.”
The raunchy humor in the series, says producer Aaron Kaplan, is universal. “The fact is when you take these four boys and put them in dating situations and situations that involve being irresponsible, you’ll find that they are they can be just as offensive as any child I’m sorry any kid across world,” he says.
“The idea of kids in high school struggling to have sex and drink,” says Copeland, is “universal. They’ve been around since ‘Porky’s,’ at least. And I think it’s always the same thing, whether it’s that or ‘American Pie’ or ‘Breakfast Club.’ It’s just people tapping into their own experiences, and what you’re going to see is all of us tapping into our own experiences.”