The comedy in The Inbetweeners relies heavily on I-can't-believe-they-said-that humor, and indeed, after watching the U.K. cut of the show one wonders how many of the jokes will disappear into bleep-dom before the series airs in the States. The jokes are crude and crass, and as the show centers on teens, those crude and crass jokes focus heavily on sex, alcohol, and the problems with parents. While that may make it sound as though the series is solely geared towards teenagers, Beesley and Morris have managed to craft a show that appeals to a far wider segment of the population.
That doesn't mean that parents and children will feel comfortable watching the show in the same room. In fact, it seems difficult to imagine sitting there with one's parent or child as a drunk Simon makes some pretty rude suggestions to the girl he's had a crush on for years. However, if both generations are watching in different rooms at the same time, both will laugh and laugh mightily.
It seems that the reason for the show's potentially broad appeal is that these characters the series follows are ones we can all relate to. Even if we have never told off a friend's parent in quite the way Will does, we have all been in situations where we have (most likely) wisely kept our mouths shut in front of someone when we desperately wanted to tell them exactly what we thought. Beyond that, even if we are passed our teenage years and the awkwardness that accompanies them, the memories from those bygone days linger, and not always for the best. Watching the four teens here make a complete hash of their lives can only serve to lessen the anguish we all still sometimes feel about our actions back in the day.
The Inbetweeners premieres with back-to-back episodes January 25 at 9:00pm on BBC America before moving to its regular timeslot of Wednesday at 9:30.
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