The American Office

I only caught the last half of it. It was horrible. Like watching gradeschool children act out a scene from your favorite film. I thought American Coupling was bad, but this was much much much much worse.

The only actor who was almost good was the Tim parallel. The Dawn parallel was too thin, too good looking, and too wooden, the Gareth parallel not creepy enough, and the David Brent parallel too tall to be a "sad little man" and nowhere near charming enough to pull off the sham that David Brent pulled.

I feel like I should both apologise to Britain that my countrymen have done such a horrible thing to something so cool, and at the same time beg Britain to never ever again sell one of their masterpieces over for a Hollywood remake.

Luckily for me Tuesday night will be the show's regular night, and that is Gaming Club night, so I won't be tempted in that "can't look away from the train wreck" sort of way to watch any more episodes.

Wow that seems pretty harsh... did you expect them to have clones of the BBC cast?

Well I watched the entire episode and rather enjoyed it. I loved the BBC version, and thought tonights episode was pretty much right on the money.

For those of you who missed it, or never seen the BBC version, I would encourage you to check it out. Especially if you've ever had, or currently hold an office job. It's a dry, but laugh out loud funny show.

I like Steve Carrel. He is hilarious.

I've never seen the BBC version of the show but I'm sure I will in the future. For now, I will take the Carrel-ized version and enjoy it. The "firing" scene was hilarious and sick all at once. I will be watching next week.

As I live in a country lucky enough to get programmes from both the UK and the US I have had many opportunities to compare US remakes of UK shows and only very very rarely do the US shows even approach the comedy of the UK original (it seems that Americans (well at least American TV writers) just don't 'get' UK humor

But we have the UK Office running atm and I'm sure the US version (a 'making of' short was screened on one of the local 'entertainment' shows yesterday) will screen within a year or so - so I'll reserve judgement

I watched the first half of it. BORING. I didn't laught out loud once. Not even at that stupid stapler in the jello thing. The show will be canceled very soon.
I eneded up watching a rerun of Law and Order.

It sucked..suffered from a chronic miscasting that is widespread in U.S. television. Everyone always has to be good looking or in some other way ultra stylized. Nevermind that the hotties completly contradict that the corporate malaise that was the theme on the uk original. The acting was also pretty bad across the board.

The 'your fired' scene was the only one that showed anything like competent direction for that matter.

If you have seen the original, you will not like this uninspired adaptation. If you've never seen the original, you might have more luck.

I think the saving grace of the US version of the Office is that, other than the pilot, they're NOT going to be using the scripts from the UK show. Same premise, same characters, but writing their "own" episodes. I think this is potentially smart; the UK version is so well done, any re-make will only be compared unfavorably to the original. If they have their own scripts, the new actors can stand on their own merits, not just be pale imitations of the original actors.

This will either succeed, because they have good writers who will get the feel of the original show, or it will fail because they have sucky writers who will go overboard "americanizing" the show...in other words dumbing it down to the lowest common denominator.

I absolutely loved the UK version of Coupling, and the mis-cast, ameteurish torture session that they called the "US Coupling" was pretty much unforgivable. Still, I think they're doing a better job with The Office, and I'm willing to give them a few more weeks.

The first half was kind of funny but I thought the second half was much better. I thought it was silly and fun. The stapler in the jello was hilarious and the boss "punking out" the receptionist by telling her she was fired was great.

The best part, however, was during the credits when the boss had everyone put cards on their foreheads and he started talking to the Indian woman in a stupid accent. What was great was, after she slapped him, he turned and you saw he had Martin Luther King, Jr on his care.

American remakes of British television programs are, like anything else, hit and miss. In the seventies, Norman Lear's All in the Family, based on the Till Death Us Do Part (65 - 75), did every bit as well as its predecessor and is a milestone in American television. Late seventies/early eighties Three's Company, based on Man About The House, ran longer and could be said to have achieved greater success than the original. As to America's Coupling, it was certainly less well received than Britain's Coupling, but I think there is something to be said for not running a remake concurrently with its original, when its original is also available in the market. Nevertheless, despite protestations to the contrary, Britain's Coupling is such a thinly disguised version of America's Friends that the denials of this are laughable. I think America's The Office is wise to be writing new scripts. I believe they are more intent on picking up where Britain's The Office left off (in a sense), since the hilarious Ricky Gervais has decided to move on to other pastures and has sold the concept to help finance future projects (from what I understand). Trying to rewrite the British scripts could leave us with another Amanda's on our hands (a horrible attempt to remake Fawlty Towers).

The_lurkeR said:

Wow that seems pretty harsh

Click to expand...

What I posted was actually the diplomaticified version of how bad I thought it was. I got some of the worst things out my system with the e-mail to NBC that I didn't send.

Remaking the British script was definitely a huge problem for me because it highlighted how inferior this version is. The "firing" scene worked in the UK version, despite being horribly cruel, because Ricky Gervais was believeably clueless at how the joke would be taken. The American guy just came across as mean.

And no, I didn't expect clones of the British cast, but expected a US cast who could capture the same essence of the characters as in the British version. If they kept the Tim/Jim actor and recast all the other parts, they might have a chance.

Coupling had the same problems both with casting and remaking episodes. Only the dumb brunette in the US version managed the same essence as the original, and the recycling of scripts really highlighted that. Worse, the recycled scripts were often cut, for time or content, leaving some of the best moments out. Worse yet, BBC America ran the UK versions immediately after the NBC remakes aired, so anyone who cared to could flip over and see just how bad the NBC versions compared to the originals.

These two remakes have taught me something though. Even with great writing, a show can still come out stinking.

Oh, and Mark, I didn't know Three's Company was a remake. I knew All in the Family was, although I've never had the chance to see the original.

I don't blame the Brits for taking our green American dollars and laughing all the way to their banks. Though I'm thinking maybe we should start a collection to pay them money to not let Americans ruin any more of their shows. If we could get $1 a year from every person in the US maybe that'd be enough to do it and get Eastenders back on BBC America too.