TV Review: THE INBETWEENERS 3.2 - 'The Gig and The Girlfriend'

This second episode of the acclaimed The Inbetweeners definitely widens the gap between the cult comedy and that other teenage Channel Four production Skins, which is about as far removed from the agony of acne and mopiness that traditionally constitutes our shared memories of our teenage years. And that's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned: the comedy of growing up should be celebrated in all of its gawky awkwardness by films like American Pie and Porkys, which chronicle the comedy of errors and spectacular failures that make the road to adulthood so bloody awful for the most part. I don't want to see good-looking kids going to underground gigs where they are accepted and exalted as the cool kids they are; I want to see boys agonising over their need for a girlfriend but crippling social inability once they get into contact with them, and boys who lie about their sexual prowess, or who spectacularly fail at every life experience they attempt to master.

Which is exactly why I loved the second episode of The Inbetweeners' third series: opening almost immediately with Jay's lie about bedding three playboy bunnies in his caravan while his parents slept, and taking in the various delights of Simon trying to impress new love interest Tara (Hollyoaks' Hannah Tointon) and the lads trying to score, and consume drugs. I can just about remember what it was like to try and negotiate the tricky situations that being a teenager tends to throw up- the increased sexual libido, not fully controllable body combination was a particular hatred - and I see a lot of those memories in The Inbetweeners.

In 'The Gig and The Girlfriend' perennial loser Simon falls for new girl Tara, and miraculously convinces her to go on date with him at a gig, rather foolishly adding that he would be able to get his hands on some "puff" to make the night a little more colourful. Accompanied by his merry band of ne'erdowells Will, Neil and Jay, who, in his usual style had claimed he could provide Simon with the weed. Obviously, Jay was lying, and had to resort to approaching Mark Donovan the school bully for the Sweet Mary Jane. Trouble is, Donovan being Donovan, he sold Jay tea leaves, forcing Jay to take drastic measures and approach a real dealer at the gig for the weed, leading to a hilarious exchange and the unlikely development that Jay actually made good on a claim.

Without wanting to give away too much, the rest of the episode, the pay-off if you will, descends into drug-fuelled hilarity, and in the typical Inbetweeners style its definitely not the glossy druggy heaven that Skins would have us all believe. And as endings go- especially when drug-virgin Will takes the front seat of the comedy- it's a good one.

The pay-0ff of the episode may well have been a little obvious, thanks to the obvious long set-up of Will's vocal, even militant opposition to the idea of taking drugs, but that's sort of the point. Like The Office (which is actually referenced in the episode thanks to an appearance of Ricky Gervais' David Brent Hobnob joke), a lot of the comedy comes from the inevitability of the farce that unfolds. The audience are invited to guess what is going to happen, and thanks to the themes and subjects referencing universal points of experience (if you didn't dabble when you were a teen, you at least had the opportunity, right?) we can see exactly where the episode is going to end up, and it becomes the best kind of car-crash television as events trundle on towards their cringe-inducing pay-off.

I'm usually the first to complain when a TV show takes the well-trodden path of introducing new characters as an almost obligatory gesture towards "keeping it fresh", because those introductions usually spell trouble for the dynamic between existing characters, especially in a multi-character sit-com where a lot of the humour comes from the chemistry between the group. Just look at Scrubs and Two Pints of Lager & a Packet of Crisps - neither were ground-breaking comedies, but they managed to raise a fair few smiles in the way characters bounced off each other until later seasons introduced new characters who dulled the quality until both shows fizzled out with a whimper (and the last seasons of Scrubs just don't count in my head). And The Inbetweeners seemed to be carrying on the trend with the introduction of a new character in the last episode- in the shape of Will's wheel-chair bound nemesis- who I simply did not like: is it just me or do new characters feel the need to add an extra 20% to the characters who are already established? All it means is they end up being too much to take.

But with the introduction of Tara, The Inbetweeners have struck potential gold. Hannah Tointon is a talented actor- even if she has only so far been able to show it on Hollyoaks - and the introduction of her character will give the four leads a bit more balance than the established female characters have so far been able to offer.

The gross-out factor of course remains, having been carried on erm... manfully in the first episode by that exposed testicle, and it's good to see that writers Damon Beesley and Iain Morris have dialled it up a notch after the relatively low-key affair of last week's offering. And thankfully, the show has also so far just about steered clear of becoming a self-parody- though Neil's slow-motion robot dance, and Jay's ridiculous earrings last episode did push the boundary a little far. How long they will be able to keep the comedy fresh, and keep the characters empathetical without pushing them beyond their basic elements is a question that will no doubt pop up sooner rather than later, but for now it doesn't need answering yet.

In summation, The Gig and the Girlfriend was a return to form for The Inbetweeners, with far more laughs than the first episode of the series and a welcome return to the familiar ground of universal growing-up experiences. Good work.

WRITERS: Damon Beesley & Iain Morris DIRECTOR: Ben Palmer CAST: Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley, Blake Harrison, Emily Atack & Emily Head TRANSMISSION: 13 September 2010 €“ E4/HD, 10PM