WIN FOR AMERICA: Netflix Show ‘Adolescence’ is British, Not Applicable to Them
TV viewers have been spoiled this Spring by an avalanche of great TV shows airing new seasons or making their debuts such as Severance, White Lotus, The Pitt, and The Studio, but Netflix’s limited series ‘Adolescence’ is making one of the biggest splashes due to its intense, realistic portrayal of a family’s reckoning with their 13 year old son’s murder of a classmate. It’s set records for viewership in the U.K., where the show is based, but it’s also been highly successful in the U.S. where viewers are able to dissociate from the horrors of the situation because it’s happening overseas.
“I was a little hesitant to start a drama with such heavy themes,” says Indiana resident Seth Ramy, “but when I turned it on and heard the accents, I immediately relaxed knowing this isn’t the America I live in. It’s practically fantasy.”
Adolescence’s first episode starts with the British police knocking down the door to the Miller’s house where the mother, father, and daughter are told to get down as they make their way to James’ bedroom. “That was devastating,” Oregon mother of two, Mila Thomas, said. “The thought of having a team of police burst into my home and scare my kids like that had me on the verge of tears. But when the police officer asked James if he wanted a solicitor, I remembered that my kids and I are safe because we live in America and they live in Britain. The police here aren’t great, but it seems like they’re worse over there and that brings me peace.”
Experts are praising its handling of misogyny and toxic masculinity with U.K. government officials going so far as suggesting the show be a precautionary, mandatory viewing for teens, while Americans are praising the technical feat of making every episode a one-shot. “It’s an incredible piece of camera work,” Zane Cook (No relation to famous American, Dane Cook), a Pennsylvania line cook, remarked, “something I’m surprised they could do across the pond. It theoretically intensifies the ensuing story of how the abhorrent content teens are exposed to on the internet is effecting the people and larger community around them by putting you directly in the moment, but I couldn’t really connect with it because the cars drove on the left side of the road and I drive on the right side. The show might as well be a cartoon.”
Due to Britain’s strict gun control policies, knives are often used in violent crimes, and Adolescence has been applauded for highlighting that growing issue. Texan Dave Wilcock kicked his feet up and leaned back with his hands behind his head when responding, “See, he pulls out a glock or a Remington pump-action and shoots her point blank for cooking his burger medium well instead of medium, I get that. I understand that. That happens two, three times a week down here. But a knife? Please. I reassured my family right then and there that this show doesn’t hold a lick of weight down here in Fort Worth. Violence on that magnitude like that doesn’t exist here.”
At press time, a pair of AppleTV+ shows have begun receiving rave reviews abroad: ‘Orbán’ is a biographical docu-series following the Hungarian nationalist prime minister’s rise and the country’s democratic fall, and ‘Microplastics’, an Australian mini-series starring Guy Pearce andCate Blanchett as the scientists who brought the title term to the public consciousness and their fight to reduce the contamination. Americans are reportedly asking, “Those are comedies, right?”
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