
For approximately 130 million Netflix viewers who have made “Adolescence” one of the streaming service’s top three most-watched English-language series ever, the initial scene might seem familiar. This miniseries begins with a situation strikingly similar: police presence, a shocked family, the quiet stillness of an early morning, and a young suspect being woken from his sleep. At 13, Dean shares the same age as “Adolescence”‘s middle school murderer. However, it is important to note that “Bad Boy” is not a remake or copy; it was first shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023 before airing in Israel the previous year. Netflix might have strategically released the show around the time when “Adolescence” was losing its viewership peak. In reality, though, these series share little beyond their opening scenes. The comparison between them doesn’t favor “Bad Boy,” whose entertaining but disjointed and tonally inconsistent portrayal of juvenile detention falls short compared to the focused and insightful original.