That’s not the point I’ve been trying to make though. It may have been promoted as the “British Friends” but the fact is Friends was a hit in the UK in its own right. Although the premise is similar, has nothing to do with Friends. In fact, NBC remade Coupling with American actors! :smack:
The main problem I have is this…
Let’s take Who Do You Think You Are as an example.
A British show. Very well made. Very interesting (if you like that kind of thing). It’s format is the same throughout. There are usually 2 big branches of family that are followed. The starting credits, the end credits and the music within the program are all the same. That is, the UK, Irish, Australian, Canadian and South African versions all have the same format. All except the US one. The US one has new “shitty” music, new graphics, a new time format, and endless, endless recaps (I honestly think they spend more time recapping than they do investigating). Americans get a bad rap for being a bit dumb (unfairly), however, the showmakers have dumbed down the program to an exponential degree. DO they honestly think the public is so stupid that they can’t focus on something for longer than 2 minutes?
Coupling was brilliant. So of course NBC had to make an American version. I have to admit I never watched NBC’s version; but AIUI they used the same scripts, only they removed the funny stuff. The original material was seen to be too ‘racy’ or ‘indecent’ for sensitive American ears, [Susan] apparently [/Susan]. There’s a formula for you! ‘Hey, guys! This is great! All we have to do is take out the stuff that makes it great, and we’ll have a hit!’
Anyway, that’s my impression of NBC’s version without having seen it.
I think that it’s a deliberate decision by American networks and TV production companies. There was a short period in the early 1960’s when several British TV programs were shown on regular commercial networks. This included shows like The Prisoner and The Avengers. They were quite popular. This scared American TV producers to death. If it suddenly became popular to show British (and possibly other countries’) TV shows on commercial networks, it would be harder to convince the commercial networks to buy American-produced shows. Why buy American when British (and possibly other) shows were cheaper?
At that point the producers persuaded the commercial networks that they must never again show British (and other) shows on their networks. Only PBS (and, more recently, some cable networks) can show them. The producers successfully persuaded most of the American people that they never wanted to watch PBS. It was too highbrow, they insisted, and you would be shunned as a pointy-headed pseudo-intellectual if you watched it.
The American producers continued to buy the rights to British (and other) shows and remake them, always Americanizing the contents to the standards that they insisted on. They didn’t want the viewing public to get accustomed to the way that British (and other) shows looked. One of the few British non-PBS shows that was a hit in the U.S. after that point was The Benny Hill Show. PBS didn’t want it, so it was syndicated on individual local commercial channels.
I think American reworkings of shows can work provided that 1) the original creators are able to provide input that’s listened to and 2) the US producers understand what it is that made the original a hit.
Take The Office, for example. 1) Ricky Gervais is an executive producer on the US version. 2) The production company got what was so funny about the original office dynamic and managed to bring in a whole host of other characters without losing focus.
In my opinion, the US version is superior to Britain’s.
Take Dragon’s Den (the UK version). It had no glitz or glam. It was filmed in a friggin’ attic! But it’s about people interested in making money who honestly want to work with various entrepreneurs and help them succeed. Is it altruistic? No. But it’s a partnership.
The US version, The Shark Tank, is just a mess. You don’t see a friggin dragon flown in for Dragon’s Den, do you? Well we don’t need to be 20,000 leagues under the sea either. And the Sharks’ offers are usually for over 50% of the company, something that was unheard of on the other show. These people are just asses.
I was going to say that it was no surprise this show didn’t make a second season but I looked it up. It’s getting one. And Jeff Foxworthy is going to be a guest shark for a few episodes. WTH? What possible business benefit could this guy bring to your idea when you’re looking for a business partner?
As someone mentioned above, there’s the US and UK version of literally the same shows by Gordon Ramsey.
Ramsey in the US is an ass. He’s a terrible coach, with a foul mouth, and his show plays up needless drama while ignoring everything interesting about the situation.
Gordon Ramsey in the UK is a spectacular chef who loves fresh ingredients, simple recipes, and honest sustainable cooking. I’d love to talk with him about food sometime or, you know, help raise a pig together.
I just can’t believe these shows or these people are the same.
I think it depends on the notariaty of the original. America has tried to remake “Fawlty Towers,” twice. Both were horrible. My own guess is the original was so brilliant and was shown all over PBS in the USA.
But how many Americans have seen
Steptoe And Son (Sanford & Son) Man About The House (Three’s Company) Till Death Do Us Part (All In The Family) Keep it in the Family (Too Close For Comfort)
On the other hand you’d have a hard time putting a show on American TV like AbFab, but Cybill was pretty much a very tame reworking of that show.
Sometime the humour translates sometimes it doesn’t. I have seen Man About The House and whole shows are taken almost line for line and put on Three’s Company without any loss.
I’ve also seen Till Death Do Us Part, to me that show was unwatchable. It was mean spirited and had no love or depth that All In The Family had. Now that may be because the topics were so dated or maybe British people feel just the same to All In The Family.
But one thing for sure is while Man About The House, MIGHT have worked on American TV, Till Death Do Us Part would not have.
Funny story: At one time in the mid 70s, CBC showed Man About the House; this was around the time that Three’s Company came out.
One evening, they were covering a hockey game that finished earlier than they expected (goal scored three minutes into overtime or something), and didn’t know what to do with the rest of the time, as they had no postgame show, and I guess to have one would have cost more in production costs than just putting something on to fill the space, so they ran an episode of Man About the House, followed by an episode of Three’s Company.
I don’t think there was a question in anyone’s mind about which was the better show. Three’s Company came off as rather amateurish in comparison.
Also note that 100 episodes is considered to be the “magic number” for syndication in the U.S. That would be 16 years’ worth of some British sitcoms, compared to 5 years for an American remake.
It happens in reverse, also - the difference being that when American shows are remade in the UK they are almost without exception dreadful.
Anyone remember Brighton Belles (the UK remake of the Golden Girls) or On The Up (Who’s the Boss) or The UK Married with Children with Russ Abbott as the Ted Bundy character? Embarrassingly awful.
At least when US networks try to adapt shows for an American audience they’re occasionally successful.
Another factor is that until very recently a UK approach to “seasons” and the number of episodes in a season was very different from the American approach.
Take The Office, for example. NBC loves it. They’d love to just take the UK version and put it on the air. Except there are only 12 episodes of The Office. Even if they make more it will be in 6-10 episode chunks. That’s not the way American TV works.
In recent years cable particularly has been changing things a bit, but even a short summer series will do 13 episodes year after year after year. But for the broadcast networks you still need to be putting out around 22-26 episodes a year.
So while I’m sure ego and concerns about American tastes play a role, I tend to think that the different production models just makes it very difficult to simply start airing UK shows on mainstream American TV networks.
Before it aired TV Guide said “The US remake of Coupling is the American answer to the British version of Friends” I’m not at all surprised that they decided to remake Coupling considering how often media-type people ask “will [some lame new show] be the new Friends?!” Obviously they’re looking for something, anything, that will fill the same niche Friends once did.
I wonder how much of an effect the difference in business models between American and British television has. In the US, shows are broadcast with commercials dispersed throughout. The show has to have good ratings almost immediately or be cancelled. In the UK, the commercial interruptions are fewer and a show is typically given more time to build an audience. The pacing, both within a show and across a season, is going to be very different, I think.
Not #3. I’ve seen plenty of people I’ve never heard of in that segment on BBC America. Including some American country hillbilly singer guy I’d never heard of.
One thing I noticed they did on BBC America was they edited out a large amount of US bashing in the episode where the guys drove from Miami to New Orleans. I’d watched it online already, so I was watching specifically to see if they edited it.
That includes Clarkson’s two best lines in the whole thing:
“God Florida’s awful! Nasty insects, old people, fat people - a lot of people who all offer you cheese: [adopts American accent] ‘you want cheese with that? You want cheese with that’? And then they shoot you.”
“If you’re thinking of coming to America this is what it’s like: you got your Comfort Inn; you got your Best Western; you got your Red Lobster where you eat. Everybody’s very fat, everybody’s very stupid and everybody’s very rude. It’s not the Holiday programme - it’s the truth.”
BTW, there’s no way in hell I will watch the US remake of that show. Everything about it is so prefectly British that IMO it’s blasphemous to even try.
Compare the amount of money that Signs made to Independence Day. The same concept, made simpler and with more explosions, makes more money.
The suits in the Entertainment industry might not be terribly creative, but they got to the top of the pecking order because they learned that you can never underestimate the taste of the American public. And, from the US’s dominance of film and TV across the planet, it’s a decent bet that it’s not just the American public.
So why do it? Because regardless that it’s worse, there’s a good chance that it will make more money.
The Head of BBC TV Drama was on the radio this afternoon and he was saying that in the past year his department commissioned 80 separate drama productions (not including the small number of ongoing soaps). These include things like greenlighting the next series (seasons) of already successful things like Doctor Who and Merlin, but also a whole bunch of one-offs and tentative stabs ranging from play adaptions lasting three hours to entire new series. His point was that they’ll broadcast stuff, no matter the length, if they get decent ideas and they think it’ll work on one of the channels. Now, most of it will not be to my taste or yours, but it does seem like an entirely different model to network US TV.
I’m not at all surprised that they decided to remake Coupling considering how often media-type people ask “will [some lame new show] be the new Friends?!” Obviously they’re looking for something, anything, that will fill the same niche Friends once did.