12 TV Sitcom Remakes That Completely Bombed

Running for twelve episodes, this MTV remake of a modern classic was never going to go well. Especially since the producers deliberately took a less crude John Hughes-esque approach. And as anyone who has seen both The Inbetweeners and the works of John Hughes knows, there is almost no point of comparison between the two.

This decision to soften things up a bit combined with a self-censoring basic cable network means that most of the edge that made The Inbetweeners so good is stripped out. There are moments that try to push the envelope like Jay getting his penis stuck in a hot tub water jet but the general feel is of something that will never deliver the belly laugh-inducing moments of the original. The wordplay also suffers thanks to the swearing being both cut down massively and censored. The American Inbetweeners is a clunge and bumder free zone.

The show also attracted controversy from protest groups pressuring advertisers to remove their sponsorship and, in the end, it just couldn’t hold its own. The ratings dropped by 27% between the first and second episodes (never reaching one million viewers), and its poor critical reception left it on the TV scrapheap. And since it was announced three years ago with no follow-up yet, I'm assuming that the same goes for The Inbetweeners Movie remake Virgins America.