September 20, 2006

British TV Adaptations. A little quiz about which/how British TV shows have been dumbed down adapted for a North American audience. Which shows should be adapted? Which ones should be banished forever from PBS Britcom nights? Which ones would be unadaptable? And which ones, if adapted, would be be simply fascinating, in a perverse post-9/11 sort of way?
posted by Capt. Renault 18 years ago
  • I reckon Pop Idol could be quite popular in America
  • 7 out of 10. Suck my wake! Do you across the pond have Spaced? Because if you do, DON'T try and remake it. Very funny and very British.
  • 10 OUT OF 10!!! I ROX!! (ok, the last one was a guess) Love Spaced - but it isn't available here, I had to have a relative dig out the DVD from some small town in Lancashire; the original Coupling is hilarious (the last season, not so much). My Hero is el lame-o. There was DIY that seemed OK for the episode I saw. My relatives raved about Men Behaving Badly, I don't think the original was shown here. I have League of Gentlemen, but haven't seen more than the first episode. I like Shameless, but it needs subtitles. With the Buffalo PBS station reshowing MPFC, I'm surprised to see how much of it is so unfunny.
  • I got 9 out of 10! I remember being excited about the American version of "Men Behaving Badly," but it just wasn't very good. I always wondered if it didn't translate, or was just poorly executed.
  • BTW Capt., I always thought "Diamonds" was better than "Moonlighting."
  • 9/10...didn't know the dancing one.
  • Same for me. Also didn't know that Three's Company was a ripoff. To think of all the time I could have spent declaring "This is sooooooo derivative..."
  • Post- my stay in England in 1991, I was waiting and waiting and waiting for the Vic Reeves show to hit it big on PBS over here. I'm still waiting...OR AM I? I got to see all kinds of great and not-so great BBC comedy shows, not just the sitcoms but the variety comedy shows, which I think would be great over here. It was disheartening, though, to see that the only American sitcoms that were showing at the time in Britain were "Married with Children" and "Roeseanne." 'What they must think of me!' I thought...
  • I learned everything I know about british politics from Have I Got News For You. I wonder if there's an American equivalent and if that would work? /Boris Johnson for president!
  • 9/10, the dancing one screwed me too. (They should make a Corrie-esque "Portage and Main," though. 'Tonight, on Portage and Main: "Hey man, got any smokes?"... Next week, on Portage and Main: "Hey man, got any smokes?"...')
  • 9/10, and only because I had NO clue about the Canadian soap opera. Given the absurd popularity of "Are You Being Served" and "Keeping Up Appearances" on PBS, I am very surprised there haven't been American versions of them. Not that I would watch them; I cannot stand "AYBS" in particular.
  • See, the thing about those shows on PBS is that they cave in to consumer demand -- and the watchers only know what they've seen before, meaning the same old crap. TVO seems to do it the other way, forcing new stuff on the viewers, with mixed results, sure, but it's all new. As a result, I nearly flunked out of law school staying up late to watch "This Life", but it would have been worth it.
  • I admit I have the first season of 'Allo 'Allo on DVD. And it just keeps gettin' funnier every time I watch it.
  • 9/10 - i need to brush up on my cbc soap opera... tangentially, i'm amazed at the extent of redubbing that goes on for children's television, translating u.s. english into southeast english english, for example.
  • Or what about a neocon version of the New Statesman?
  • 6 out of 10. frickin' limeys. *drives cab dangerously away*
  • For my money, AYBS and Keeping Up Appearances depend too much on a familiarity with the British class system. Yes, they poked fun at it, but I think you'd have to have it in your collective unconscious to provide a context. I think the reason the American audiences love those two shows is for their quintessential Englishness. Yes, we have snobbery and castes in the U.S. But we enjoy thinking we don't. So it probably wouldn't be as much fun for us to see it on TV. I always love telling people who deride Sanford and Son for racism that it was based on a British show about a white family. And I loved the episode where Fred and Lamont went to a taping of a sitcom called "Steinberg and Son" which was exactly the same thing with a Jewish family.
  • Some British shows could never translate to American culture, AYBS was one of those, and so was "On The Buses".
  • They shouldn't adapt shows, just show them over here. I saw a couple episodes of Life On Mars, and that show is pretty damn good. Why mess with it?
  • $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
  • Same with Coupling. I thought that was a fucking awful show after watching the US premiere, then caught the original BBC version on satellite, and laughed my ass arse off.
  • Adapting them totally misses the point: British folk talk funny.
  • And they eat spotted dick.
  • and toad holes.
  • I didn't bother finishing the quiz. I don't watch enough TV. I always thought Coupling was pretty funny (the original Brit version) because it was exactly like friends except they were all having sex with each other and talking about it constantly. Friends was always trying to talk about sex but they had to be sly about it. Coupling had none of this pussy-footing around.
  • They remade Coupling for American TV? Jesus. I hope they called it Friends
  • I should have previewed. Now my comment is redundant
  • Also you said what that other guy said too.
  • The Ceeb tried to do a remake of Yes Minister, and it blew and sucked chunks. Have the AmNets tried to do that one?
  • Hmmm. I always thought Benson had a lot of similarities to Yes, Minister.
  • But "Benson" sort of morphed over time to be more like "Yes, Minister". It certainly did not start out that way. In the beginning, he was still the butler that he played on "Soap".
  • Woo and hey! Erm, I wrote that quiz. Glad you're enjoying it.
  • What would the Americans do to Blackadder?
  • Or Chef?
  • When I first saw "Kitchen Confidential," I thought it was an American adaptation of "Chef." Turns out it was based on the writer's real-life experiences. I guess that says a lot for the accuracy of the portrayal of kitchen work in "Chef."
  • 9/10 here -- what was the name of the dancing show? As a kid I loved Man About the House, and wasn't there a spinoff show about the landlord and his wife? Mr Roper? And Coupling (the BBC) version was hilarious, but I only saw the first season and a half.
  • The British dancing show is "Strictly Come Dancing"
  • What would the Americans do to Blackadder? three attempted remakes of faulty towers? it's all too much for me
  • Tracicle: "George and Mildred" was the spin off. Wondeful stuff.
  • Thanks, bobboggis. Ah, yes. Memories.
  • They adapt them because they are convinced that Americans will not watch shows not set in the United States. It's not just British shows (and the accent) - Canadian shows are often vague about what country they are in or claim in to be the States, if they want to try to sell it to an American audience. It's a self-fufiling prophecy. Because they are almost never given shows set in other countries, Americans find it hard to deal with foreign settings. Canadians have to deal with it constantly -- the majority of our programing is American, with a minority of British and Canadian. It's not like we're on average smarter - it's just that we have no choice and we've gotten used to it. Not that I didn't get totally excited when Wolverine had a blue 5 dollar bill in the first X-Men. Even Canadian set shows often use green American prop money. It just looks so wrong, like fake children's toy money. I got 10/10 - there's an advantage to being Canadian (it was a Canadian quiz - the Riverdale question was to throw the rest of you off.)
  • nice one gspm.
  • Foreign Offices. Interesting consideration of what four different versions of the same show say about the culture, both working and otherwise. But what would the Finnish office be like?
  • I learned everything I know about british politics from Have I Got News For You. I wonder if there's an American equivalent and if that would work? It's called The Daily Show, mate.