Greek

Let it be known that my all time favourite film is Animal House. I don't believe any other film will ever come close to being my all time favourite film simply because if I'm ever in the mood for an unashamedly enjoyable movie, no fuss, no brains, then Animal House wins every single time (perhaps Mean Girls would come in a close second but I think Animal House survives repeat viewings with much more vigour i.e. watching it daily).

This is an important point to make from the start. It is also important to note that beyond Animal House my knowledge of American university fraternities is limited, if not completely null and void. For these reasons I make no claims that I could have ever watched BBC Three's new comedy series 'Greek' with true objectivity. In my mind, it's trying to make a series following Larry from Animal House, but with a little more fruit.

Greek is about Larry, I'm sorry I mean, Dusty, he's just reached College, a fresh faced nerdy 18 year old with a passion for statistics. His older sister studies at the same college but is his polar opposite. She's pretty and popular and dates one of the most influential boys at College; the president of Omega house. This is the back story Larry was never allowed in Animal House, it removes that silly fat one and replaces it with a differently silly fat one, a room-mate who abhors fraternities and cannot begin to understand why Dusty would ever want to be a part of one. It also provides a little more spice with a much cooler friend who he meets as he's touring frat houses.

So far, I make it sound almost nothing like Animal House (besides the basic setting) but, their equivalent of Delta came incredibly shy of simply blasting out 'Louie Louie' the entire episode. They walk in to a wild party, like nothing they'd seen that evening, tequila shots, licking the salt off a 'hot girl' and a streaker, well, streaking through the middle of the party. Not to mention the secretly gay ones (a theme much alluded to in AH) and of course, the lazy, ridiculous nature of voting for who can pledge. One's got a good name, he's in; the other (Dusty) spat in the face of aforementioned 'hot girl' he's surely in. And moreover, how could I forget, the most blindingly obvious parallel: Main frat guy just so happens to have strange cheating relations with popular sorority girl, the sister. Always in competition; the prim and proper Omega guy and the wild, oddly charming animal house ringleader. A perfect setting for college court situation no?

It's not that I didn't laugh, you had to laugh at the tequila spit, the bar-fight and the other tequila spit. But it's hard to watch without drawing comparisons and always being bitterly disappointed that it doesn't step up. It's not outrageous enough to be Animal House but it's not removed itself enough not to always be playing up to the idea. Perhaps it'll grow into it's own, maybe Dusty will be a lovable 'Seth from the OC' type character that will erupt in unexpected popularity (I think on a non-AH level, this was also part of the plan) but he needs to be funny, really funny and they need to cut any sappy drama right out. I wait for episode 2, but meanwhile, I'd rather watch The Inbetweeners.