I’ve seen previews for a US version of “Top Gear.” It just doesn’t quite have the same feel to it.
It’s not xenophobia. I just can’t understand what they’re saying half the time, especially in sitcoms. Case in point: “Absolutely Fabulous” was supposed to be hilarious, but I tell you I only understood maybe 10% of what those two leading ladies said.
Watch a couple more. It’s really easy. It’s only English.
I have that same issue with some American shows. I stick with it, and (depending on the show) am sometimes glad I did, because the reward is well worth the effort. Crap, the first few episodes of *The Wire *were just mumbo-jumbo mumblings to me; couldn’t understand a single word - they may as well have been speaking Dutch. Glad I watched it though, because we humans adapt and soon I could understand it.
It’s the not even being willing to try which is the xenophobia. “Them furriners speak different to us!” What a sad, boring world it would be if we were all the same. Delight in the differences; enjoy and embrace them. They’re a feature of humanity, not a big.
And failing that, this is why God created DVD subtitles.
Oh certainly. Whenever I watch a movie or TV show from Britain on DVD, I almost always turn the subtitiles on. I wasn’t watching AbFab from DVD. I think it was on PBS.
Come to think of it, it’s not just British English. I’m American, and I can’t understand most of what they’re saying on Deadwood either. And I’ve watched the entire first season of that show. I stopped watching the second season after I realized that I still had no idea what was going on.
With those restrictions, perhaps worth pointing out that - going by the Wiki list linked to by Tengu - it’s also only recently that US networks have remade BBC drama series either. I’m not really seeing anything before Cracker, Shameless, Teachers and Life on Mars.
As far as drama series are concerned, a recent trend on both sides of the Atlantic?
Yep. Although going by the commercial, and how tame MTV has gotten over the years, it might actually not hold back too much. The language will be cut, obviously, but it seems that the sex and drugs will more or less be intact. The teaser I saw for the first episode makes it look more or less like an exact redo of the UK first episode.
I’m British and generally have little problem, even with Deadwood which is particularly opaque. Actually, in some ways Deadwood is similar to British costume dramas in terms language (minus all the ‘fucks’ and ‘cunts’ of course) so maybe that helps.
My GF on the other hand has major problems. I watched 4 seasons of The Wire with her only to discover at the end that she had no idea what had happened at all :rolleyes:
Doesn’t American TV have “normal” subtitles/close captioning?
They’re saying “cocksucker”.
alphaboi867- yup totally agree about your spoilertag.
Can you see the US Misfits having shot-for-shot remakes of the sex scenes with glamourous, ripped all-american types?
Especially the Hallowe’en and Christmas episodes from the second series!
Or, indeed, any of the scenes with Nathan and Mary from the Christmas show. I don’t think there is a big appetite for afterbirth stomping and on screen incontinence.
Who on earth would advertise their products in the ad breaks?
That’s only every third word. It’s the other words that I miss.