The Inbetweeners · Season 1 · Episode 1 · 1 May 2008
S1E1 First Day
THE MOMENT Will's arrival at the school gates with a briefcase establishes the whole show's comic premise in a single prop.
Will arrives at Rudge Park Comprehensive and within twenty minutes has been placed in the bottom set, acquired a nickname involving a specific item of protective wear, and alienated every possible ally. The premiere is less about plot than character economy - four boys, four personality types, one shared condition of total social failure.
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The Inbetweeners Season 1 Episode 1 'First Day' aired May 1, 2008 on E4 as the series premiere. Rotten Tomatoes holds Series 1 at 77 percent from 13 critics; the show won Best New TV Comedy at the British Comedy Awards in 2008. The Guardian noted it 'captures the pathetic sixth-form male experience quite splendidly.' Will arrives at Rudge Park Comprehensive and within twenty minutes has been placed in the bottom set, acquired a nickname involving a specific item of protective wear, and alienated every possible ally. The premiere is less about plot than character economy: four boys, four personality types, one shared condition of total social failure. Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley, and Blake Harrison are each established with the specificity of a show that has done the social-ethnography work on how English adolescence operates. The briefcase is the whole show in one prop.