There have been series that have successfully made the crossing from Britain to the U.S. All in the Family (Till Death Do Us Part) and Sanford and Son (Steptoe and Son) come to mind. And wasn’t Survivor originally from overseas?
But others didn’t make it, in spite of their being really good shows in their original form. Coupling failed miserably. I admit that I never watched the U.S. version. From what I saw on the previews, they were using the same scripts as the British version, but “toned down” for the American market. Red Dwarf didn’t make it off the ground. I’ve heard that The Office is being re-made for American television.
Why bother? The original shows are great! Wouldn’t it be more cost-effective to simply license the shows for U.S. distribution? The network would have a great show, and they wouldn’t have to put any money into production!
“Back in the day” we didn’t have cable. If you wanted to watch a British TV series, you tuned into PBS. Who knew that All in the Family was a transplant? But today many of us have BBC America. We know how the shows are supposed to look! Many people don’t have BBC(A) though. It seems to me that if NBC (e.g.) were to simply broadcast the original shows, they could snag a nice chunk of the viewing public.
Here’s what I would do if I were a U.S. studio exec: First, I’d show the original seasons. (Coupling is starting – what? It’s 4th season on BBC(A)? – so it wouldn’t be as easy to “keep up” as it would have been a couple of years ago.) Then, once everyone is “caught up”, I’d show the new programs at about the same time as they are aired in Britain. Look at MI5. This is the approach that they took. Okay, MI5 didn’t last; but I still think the idea is valid.
Anyway, if I were a studio exec I’d give the people what they want – the shows everyone has been talking about; not imitations.
Why do they insist on taking great shows and making them bad for the U.S.? Is it because they’re afraid that people won’t understand English accents? It didn’t seem to bother the legions of Monty Python or Dr. Who fans. And UFO was fairly successful here. Are British shows too naughty? Please. :rolleyes:
Come on, studio bigwigs! Give us what we want!
(Can you tell I finally got round to ordering the third season of Coupling this morning? )
There’s an L.A. comic who does a bit about this. He points out that the English do in fact speak Engish so it shouldn’t be too difficult for us to watch the originals.
“Yeah, there’s this great band called Radiohead, but there’re from England so in the U.S. all their songs will be done by Lincoln Park.”
P.S. I wish I could credit the comic- I can’t remember his name! :smack:
There are plenty of people who would turn off any TV show if they heard the actors all speaking with British accents, especially if it’s not received pronunciation.
In addition, TV executives assume US audiences are stupid, so they feel the need to dumb down the jokes.
Remember, too, that the audiences for the original series are extremely small (comparatively). A big ratings hit in the UK would be absolutely terrible numbers for any US show. I doubt the number watching BBC America is all that large, either. So the problem is whether the show will play for a mass audience. And to give it greater appeal, they make the jokes less sophisticated and the humor broader. If they didn’t do this, and the show failed, it would “prove” that the show had to be changed for US audiences. If they do make changes and it fails, it’s because it was “impossible to translate.” Thus asses get covered.
I agree. The UK lost a planned second season of Ultraviolet because writer Joe Ahearne and co-star Idris Elba were trying to get a US version off the ground.
Three’s Company was originally a British show called Man About The House… Also Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, The Weakest Link and Queer as Folk. I know that there’s lots more, but I can’t thin kof any at the moment.
Many (most?) of the home improvement shows that are all the rage on TLC or HGTV these days are remakes of British shows. You can see the originals on BBC America. I was in London in February and saw the British version of House Hunters while my lady was getting ready.
I think a big problem with broadcasting British series as is in the US is that a typical season there lasts only six episodes (though confusingly what Americans call a season, Brits call a series) while American are used to 22 episodes.
Also, the accents and slang can be difficult. I consider myself reasonably sophisticated and even then some jokes pass right over my head, as do some of the cultural references. Imagine how it is for someone relatively unsophisticated.
I am amazed that the American version of Coupling fell so flat, when the scripts were almost the same and the creators of the British version were actively involved in the US version. (One joke that didn’t survive was “One swallow does not a girlfriend make,” which was too risque for America.)
The British detective drama Cracker was remade in an American version, and surprisingly it was very good, I would even say as good as the original from what I saw of it.
There have been a couple attempts at re-branding Fawlty Towers for the American market, but these have failed miserably. One had Bea Arthur in the lead; as Cleese said, “They tried to remake Fawlty Towers—without Basil Fawlty!” Doesn’t really work.
Yet another problem is that American sitcoms have only about 22 minutes of material, to make room for all the commercials. British shows last closer to a full half-hour, which is why they run in 40-minute time blocks on BBC America.
Either 20% of each show would have to be cut - ruining them in my opinion - or else the network would have to change off of starting shows on the half-hour, which they will never do.
So there’s not a chance that any British show will ever be seen in its original. The seasons are too short and the shows are too long.
Well, not really - as others have pointed out, even though Coupling has run for three series, that’s only like 20 episodes, which could be banged out in the U.S. in one season.
I’ve had a copy ripped from a Tivo of the whole season since it aired on BBCA, but it will be nice to have it with a decent picture now. (So since I always planned on buying it, there wasn’t really anything wrong with having the bootlegs, right?)
Today’s Sun (erm, someone left it on the seat next ot me on the train) claims that viewers have given the pilot of the US version of The Office the worst sitcom rating ever, saying it was “too depressing”. This is not really explained further so I assume these are test audiences.
It mentions the folloing remakes that misfired:
Royle Family - one pilot only
Men Behaving Badly - 1.5 seasons
Kumars at No. 42 (Meet the Ortegas) - “the show has not taken off”
Cold Feet - four epsiodes screened
and Fawlty Towers and Coupling, which have already been mentioend here.
British shows do tend to be about losers who are continually having their hopes or pretensions mocked by fate. Only Fools And Horses, Hancock’s Half Hour, Dad’s Army are all examples from the past (the remote past in one instance). Americans, on the other hand, have little sympathy for losers.
Actually, there was an attempt at an American Doctor Who. It starred Paul McGann as the Doctor and Eric Roberts as the latest body of the Master. In what I assume was an attempt to appeal to American audiences, the Doctor was involved in more action and chase scenes. There were script problems. The ending was too deus ex machina. I and many Whovians feel McGann made a fine Doctor though.
What’s this you say about an American Red Dwarf? OTTOMH The only Britishism I recall from that show was a three fingered robot giving Rimmer two fingers up. While the two finger salute is not used as in insult in the States, it’s still clearly a gesture meant as an insult.
What they used to do here, in Australia, for a while, on one channel, was run a block of UK sitcoms in prime-time. They’d have an umbrella program, for arguments sake we’ll call it “The Best of British Comedy”, and they’d play 3 complete episodes (of 3 different series), and it would all nicely fall into a two-hour block, including commercials.
If they only had educational programs on how to use less commas in a single sentence.
This thread reminds me of my favorite American version of a British series: It was a remake of On The Buses called Lotsa Luck. It starred Dom Deluise and it revelled in bad taste, ugliness, and failure (much as Married With Children years later). It also had the catchiest theme song in television history:
I used to buy a pickle,
it only used to cost a nickel -
Those days are now forgotten,
the world has gotten rotten,
lotsa luck, lotsa luck!
The show probably sucked, after all it was cancelled in its first season, all I know is that I remember loving it when I was, what, thirteen or so.
That’s funny - I was just reading an article today about how the Drew Carey show is only on the air now because of a bad business decision by ABC a few years ago (they ordered 3 seasons back when the show was still popular), despite abysmal ratings for the last few seasons.
Hey, I found the article. Unfortunately, unless you’re a National Post subscriber, you can only read the first paragraph
I never watched the American version of the show, but it was easy enough to tell from the commercials that all of the actors had apparently been smacked with a no-comedic-timing stick.
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