If you have been through your teenage years then you know that adolescence can be tricky.
It’s a time when you are okay with Santa being a fake, but you hate Barney and his disciples. You are exposed to a lot and constantly have to make decisions on what to experiment with and what to forgo.
At school the main goal is to be cool and with that comes many sacrifices and only a few teens make the cut. You hate your parents and they don’t “get” you. It is a very peculiar time in the development of humans.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about then you are better off watching The Inbetweeners, a sitcom that features friends Will (Joey Pollari), Simon (Bubba Lewis), Jay (Zack Pearlman) and Neil (Mark L Young). The quartet of young men navigate the tidal waves of their teens with hilarious results. Their greatest fear is humiliation in their daily lives. There is a lot of pranking, teasing and bullying that goes on and these guys show us the dynamics and effects of enduring that.
The quest to remain cool at all times is also essential in landing the girls, and every teenager is curious about love.
The Inbetweeners airs every Monday at 10.10pm on MTV (DStv channel 130).
Still on growing up, and still on MTV, is Underemployed, a funny show about five friends who met in college and are now all graduated professionals. They are Sophia (Michelle Ang), Daphne (Sarah Habel), Lou (Jared Kuznitz), Raviva (Inbar Lavi) and Miles (Diego Boneta). They all had big dreams back in ’varsity, but life happened and we catch up with them a year after graduation.
Sophia wanted to be a writer and Miles a model. Lou broke up with Raviva and she moved to LA to have a go at the music industry. Daphne was unsure about what she wanted to be, but whatever it was it had to reek of success.
It’s like watching a younger generation of Friends. They are all mates who understand each other’s position and would not consider themselves failures. But the story is not only about the gloomy five as they have interesting takes and experiences in sex, romance and even brushes with the law.
• Underemployed, Wednesdays, MTV (DStv channel 130), 8.30pm.