Shhhhhhh!!! They might hear you…
Don Rickles: Do you know what the most important thing is in comedy? Go ahead, ask me what the most important thing is in comedy!
Johnny Carson: OK, Don, what is the most impor–
Don: TIMING!
Ya hadda be there.
Frankly, the art of the pained silence, so important in The Office, doesn’t translate well to America–some shows use it, but sparingly. And it also doesn’t help if the show is being chopped up for commercials, although I suppose the BBC has them too, but not as many.
I was hoping the BBC would have made the fifth Blackadder series. One proposal was to have taken place in the 60’s with Edmund missing out on becoming the Beatles’ manage and ending up with a sad imitation.
Yeah, I heard that rumour too. With Baldrick being the drummer of the band, now known as Bald Rick. I reckon it was a good idea, I wonder who actually came up with it.
I saw one one whole episode of the US Coupling and a little bit of one or two others. Indeed, the scripts were used almost completely intact. Everything else was awful: acting, timing, directing, etc. It’s like watching a badly done grade school play.
So when it failed, the scripts were blamed. (1st Rule of Covering Failure in Hollywood: Blame the ones that don’t live in Hollywood.)
Since I love the BBC original, I hardly see how my intense dislike of the US version could be ascribed to differences in taste, etc.
The BBCAmerica marathon last weekend of the 3rd season was great. The “Spiderman” episode, etc. Can’t wait for the 4th season to start next Sunday!
(And I converted two family members into Coupling fans, too!)
Now the bad news. The picture on the Coupling BBCA page has a new guy and no Jeff! Egad! What’s worse, the New Guy is listed higher than Jeff in the cast list.
Jeff is the philosopher of Coupling. It’s like Sherlock Holmes without Watson. This doesn’t look good. Who’s going to explain “declenching”?
Oooooh, but they did. It’s on my hard drive as I speak. It was bloody awful. It was a remake of an episode from the first series starring Rowan Atkinson and a bunch of Americans. There might have been one other original actor, but I’m too lazy to fire it up and check - I know it wasn’t Baldrick, though.
It’s been a while since I watched it, but it’s just as bad as the American Red Dwarf pilot.
“Touching Evil” seems to have made the transition. I’ve only seen one of the British episodes and two of the American. Does someone who’s seen more have a comment comparing them?
Well, I can see the biggest mistake already…
An American version should take the idea and transfer it to US History, not UK.
Which brings us to a second problem - the US doesn’t have the sheer volume of history to draw from.
Third is either replacing Atkinson, or explaining his accent. (The latter wouldn’t be as much an issue in the first season, but they couldn’t just stick to the same time period and hold the Blackadder feeling for too long.)
3a is hoping nobody NOTICES his accent if you don’t do either.
3b is hoping they don’t get bored if you don’t change time periods.
Survivor was conceived in the UK but sold to the Swedes and first aired as Expedition Robinson.
There have been many reality type shows which were conceived or aired elsewhere before the US versions. Originally a UK concept The Mole, a local version of The Amazing Race and a Big Brother type show called The House of Hell all aired in Australia before the American versions were made.
There was Pop Idol from the UK, and Pop Stars (which was originally a NZ show), and game shows like The Weakest Link and Who Wants to be a Millionaire which both originated in the UK.
I’m sure there are many more, those just came to mind.
As I have been reminded by a friend - there’s also Queer as Folk.
I have heard nothing of this before! I’m now fatally curious to see it!
To quote Terry Pratchett: “Every so often my agent tells me that somebody wants to make a movie or television serial about the Discworld. Either they have fantastic ideas and no money, or they’re American.”
American TV really doesn’t encourage creativity (why else would every newscast look the same?), and you do need boldness of vision to create, or even replicate, fantastic shows. Ramming that through the execs is hard.
And then the promotional people will fuck you over (because they live to misinterpret and pigeonhole)
And if you make it through that, then you’ll just get screwed by the scheduling department that moves your show around so often nobody can tell when it’s on.
You’ve got enough for four, maybe five seasons: Salem, War of Independence, Civil War, World War I, the Sixties. The real problem is making enough jokes in each era to fill 22 (or even 13) episodes.
Smeghead - could you be tempted to make a torrent of the US Blackadder pilot?
This reminds me of the “Americanization” of “Whose line is it anyway” with Drew Carey as the host.
I really disliked the mindless chatter between Drew and the players, the needless audience involvement… just get on with the show, will ya?
Bah! Give me Clive Anderson at the helm anyday. Thankfully, Comedy Central shows the original version.
Nope. No ad’s on the BBC, it’s run by “subscription” just like the SDMB. Except the subscription is not voluntary - if you don’t pay your license fee the famous detector vans search you out and you get locked up in the Tower (or fined maybe, I’ve always paid up so I’m not sure).
Meanwhile, why is it that shows going the other way don’t need to be Anglisised? We get Friends, Seinfeld, Third Rock, blah-de-blah and live with the curious accents and jokes based on an alien culture*. Some shows are pretty well regarded over here with as far as I know no modification at all.
*jokes about “driving stick” fall a bit flat 
Spotted in Third Rock, Futurama, The Nanny^M^M^M^M^M^M^M, um yes those two shows, Third Rock, Futurama.
Yeah, that would be problem 4.
I’d stick to 4 series, personally - at least if they decided to go with those time periods - well chosen, BTW. Things get a little sticky, IMO, if you set a fifth series when the WWI characters could still be alive (particularly since you KNOW a US version wouldn’t end each series by killing everyone off, like the UK version did with Blackadder, Blackadder II, and Blackadder Goes Forth, so Edmund (Or whatever they renamed him) would likely still be alive.).
Not quite true - BBC shows don’t have commercials, but there are several commercial networks in the UK too. Not all the stuff on BBC America is actually made by the BBC, e.g. So Graham Norton (Channel 4). Of the shows mentioned here, Queer As Folk, UFO, Man About The House, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, Cracker, Cold Feet, Whose Line Is It Anyway were all made by or for commercial networks.