I have to say it’s a lot better than I thought it would be. When I heard they’d be doing an American version of ‘The Office’ I had visions of an…well… I can’t describe what I had visions of. But they were bad.
But this has everything it needs. It has a sense of realism (albeit exactly like the British version… I have to wonder if American offices are anything like that) It had the embarrasing boss. It has the gareth, the tim, the receptionist.
The problem is… if you’ve seen all of the british version watching the American version will be like watching repeats. The scripts are identical.
No. This is true only for the first episode, wich is based off the same script as the first episode of the UK version. In both cases, this was also the worst episode of the lot.
The one I saw (the one where the manager fake-fired the receptionist) seemed identical. I’m not saying it wasn’t the first ep. Maybe it was.
So if the others are new scripts and better… wehey! I’ve always loved American TV, but I also love the completely different stuff we produce in Britain. I’m bound to love the best of both worlds. And this might turn out to be that.
My tv must be broken because I thought it was awful. Not that it wasn’t well done, production- or acting-wise, but that it was excruciating to watch. Maybe if I worked in an office? I didn’t get Dilbert until I’d been teaching for a while.
I never really got into the original version (waiting for it be shown again to give it another chance) but I saw episode 2 of the American one yesterday and liked it a lot. Seemed to capture the feel of the original reasonably well, too.
From what I’ve seen of the American version it was exactly the same programme, just with a few American references and accents. I’m not sure if it was the same script, but all the mannerisms and characters were identical. Looks like they gave the actors DVDs of the original and asked them to impersonate.
I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing. Just wonder why they bothered if they were going to make such an identical copy.
Like others have said, the first script was basically identical to the British one.
If I recall the British programme and the American program correctly, other episodes were similar, and borrowed a lot of the same writing but weren’t scene-for-scene like the first episode.
Like the British one, the “Tim-Dawn” stuff has some nice heartfelt moments. The “New Gareth” has his own quirks and is pretty good.
We had lots of discussion while the show was airing. Some people HATED it with a passion. Some of use really liked it.
The lines that were similar/same only showed how good the UK cast was and how inept the US cast is (I’m looking at you ‘Gareth’ character - whatever his US equivelent is).
It was embarassing to watch, but not in the good way that the UK one is embarassing to watch.
I’ve not seen the American version, but certainly with the UK one, the whole point is that it’s an excruciating study of social awkwardness, bigotry and stupidity; the bits I found hardest to watch were the bits where I saw my own character flaws being played out on screen.
Absolutely. I caught some of last night’s show, and was impressed to see the racial bigotry angle played out very well (down to sticking the label ‘black’ as a race alongside ‘jewish’ and ‘asian’ on people’s head as part of a game. I thought the US would avoid such issues in case of misinterpretation.
My favorite episode, IMO, is the basketball one. I believe its the last episode of the season. For those who liked Steve Carroll’s semi-racist boss, it isn’t just a one episode thing ;).