In my opinion, Three’s Company was, from the start, considerably superior the British original Man About the House, but entirely due to John Ritter’s gifts as a farceur. Man About the House was traditional (but not very good) situation comedy, but Three’s Company turned it into farce, broader and even more lowbrow than British original, but all the better for it.
Another oddity about this pair of shows is that (IMO) quite against the usual grain, the girls in the British version were both considerably hotter than the girls in the American one. I know many people profess to have found Suzanne Somers hot, but, apart from her being blonde, I could never really see it. (FOr ssome reason she seemed to improve with age, and I really did find her attractive whenn she ws in teh otherwise execrable, Step by Step.) I can appreciate Priscilla Barnes’s hotness in principle, but she was far too far away from my type for it to be more than a purely aesthetic appreciation. I could really have gone for Sally Thomsett, from teh British version, though, and I think Paula Wilcox also beat out Joyce DeWitt by some distance. In the end, though Ritter made Three’s Company the better show.
(The UK version is set on a rocky island with a lighthouse - the human character in the UK version is the lighthouse keeper and was played by Fulton Mackay)
That would still make it “all of them,” wouldn’t it?
Sometimes “better” is a matter of perspective. I consider Man About the House better than Three’s Company, but if you’re a fan of “jiggle TV”, you might think the opposite.
There was - Jennifer Saunders and Roseanne Barr were in talks about it, trying to get it onto ABC - but Saunders made it clear that she would not accept a “watered-down” version, and presumably Barr told her that "not watered down"and “meeting FCC broadcast standards” are two different things, and possibly reminded her about what happened when ABC aired six episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. HBO might have been interested in it as well at some point; it might work as an HBO series, if it has the right writers.
(Cybill was “loosely based” on AbFab; in fact, when Christine Baranski won an Emmy for portraying Marianne, one of the people she thanked was the person who created “the original character, Marianne,” as if to make it quite clear that, “My character is NOT Patsy from AbFab.”)
I actually liked the American version of Life of Mars quite a bit more than the British version, which I didn’t expect at all. I certainly understand why many people would prefer the British version, however.
For me, in part, it may be that my relative ignorance of British culture made the American version of the 70’s more impactful to watch than the British 70’s. A lot of the British 70’s on TV looked no different to me than British TV 80’s, 90’s…
Also, they changed the ending up a bit for the American version, and I found it to be a bit more satisfying and clever than the British version’s ending. I can see why people might prefer the British ending, or even consider the American one cheap or goofy, but the American ending aligned with my sensibilities much better.
Tbh I can’t think of a single US re-make that was better than the UK original.
The US version of The Office, may’ve been great, but the UK version was beyond great.
The only possible exception for me is Whose Line is it Anyway?. The US version was really just a continuation of the UK version rather than a remake. The UK version had pretty much run its course by the time it finished and was starting to look tired, but the US version managed to revive it by making Wayne Brady a regular. In terms of hosts I’ve never really found Clive Anderson entertaining, and though I’m not a particular fan of Drew Carey, Carey IMO was definitely the better host (though tbf Clive Anderson was probably a better straight man for the performers to make fun of). However it was the performers, not the hosts, that provided the substance to the show. The earlier to mid UK versions had a lot really good guest performers like Paul Merton, Josey Lawrence, John Sessions and Stephen Frost at the peak of their powers and both shows had Ryan Stiles and Collin Mochrie as their backbones. The UK version when it first aired was fresher than the US version. Overall though I can’t choose between the two, I can only pick out areas where the US version was better and areas where the UK version was better.
In terms of what I watch for comedy I pretty much watch mainly UK comedy (with some exceptions e.g. Curb Your Enthusiasm) and for drama I mainly watch US drama (again with some exceptions). The reason I think UK comedy is currently superior to US comedy and for drama vice versa is twofold. I think commissioning for UK comedy is far less formulaic and far more prepared to take risks in terms of what it will devote resources to, but when you look at drama that trend is reversed. I also think the longer format for US TV seasons works well for drama as allows long and complicated story arcs to be woven into the episodes, but doesn’t work as well for comedy as it means that the quality of the jokes can become stretched.
I think at the moment US TV executives and audiences are becoming increasingly open-minded to non-US TV, so that if there’s a really good UK show in future it will just be broadcast in the USA rather than it being felt that a US version has to be made.
One thing that baffles me is why there seems to be so much love for Coupling in the USA. To me Coupling was always just a pretty decent sitcom leaning towards the low-brow side that was probably only really distinguished by being a fairly decent attempt at ripping-off Friends. It wasn’t by any means terrible, but there was and is a lot of much better UK comedy around.
I haven’t seen the US version, but Life on Mars was definitely one of the best things on UK TV in the last ten years (its spin-off Ashes to Ashes is also good you want to see the difference between 70s and the 80s in that particular Universe). However I can understand that TV which relies in part on nostalgia may not travel as well and the ending of the UK version was a slight let down.
Ooh, I was unaware of Ashes to Ashes. This could be quite the interesting development. Netflix has both series (seasons) as “Save”… where might I find a watchable version of this show?
Just chipping in to say that “Ashes to Ashes” actually ties up the loose ends rather nicely. I wondered throughout it all how (or whether) they were going to come to conclusions that answered enough of the questions.
I think they did so very well. It was a fairly tough ending for what was ultimately a bit of a light and fluffy programme but I found it emotionally affecting and satisfying.
