The Inbetweeners USA is a poor remake of the classic UK sitcom that not even Taika Waititi could save. American remakes of British TV shows are a famously risky proposition. The Office is one of the rare examples of a U.S. series that took the concept and successfully adapted the humor, but for every success story, there are about ten failures. Classic UK comedies like Fawlty Towers was mangled into the aptly titled Payne, while Red Dwarf USA never made it to air after two awful pilots.
The door swings both ways, with That '70's Show being turned into tepid UK series Days Like These, which despite reusing scripts utterly failed to achieve the same comic results. British and American comedy stylings are quite different, so simply recycling the same gags and expecting them to translate doesn't work. This was made painfully clear with The Inbetweeners U.S. series. The original show followed four losers friends at a UK school and their often humiliating adventures.
The Inbetweeners received acclaim for its performances and uncanny ability to generate comedy gold out of the embarrassing antics of the title characters. The show ran for three seasons and received two movie adaptations, and paved the way for similiar shows like the equally praised Derry Girls. With a rock solid foundation there's little excuse for the shambles The Inbetweeners USA turned out to be, especially with Taika Waititi directing the pilot and four other episodes of its short run.
Taika Waititi received praise for directorial efforts like What We Do In The Shadows before breaking out in a major way with 2017's Thor: Ragnarok, giving both the character and franchise a much-needed injection of humor and color. Waititi himself has become a beloved figure, and the only real blemish on his CV remains his stint with The Inbetweeners USA. While this 2012 remake copies many of the same gags and storylines as the UK version, from the casting down to the way the jokes are executed, it all falls horribly flat.
Horrid as the lead characters in the original show could be, there was something oddly endearing and relatable about them too. That's not the case with The Inbetweeners U.S. series, where they're just obnoxious. Being produced for MTV it's also given a more glossy, cinematic sheen that's at odds with the deliberately grey, bleak color palette of the UK version. The series was widely hated by fans and critics alike and it was cancelled after one season thanks to low ratings. The fact Taika Waititi directed almost half the season and couldn't find a way to make The Inbetweeners USA to work suggests it was doomed to failure from the beginning.