http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3443945.stm
The part that worries me is the news that NBC now says their version will be “inspired by” the UK original, and describes certain characters as “eccentric”, etc etc.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster. I’m just waiting for the news that they’re adding a laugh track.
Most likely whatever it is they end up with will probably be closer to a live-action Dilbert series than an americanized The Office.
The Office had a large number of moments that are just as likely to make you squirm in sympathetic “been-there-done-that” feelings as it does to make you laugh, and I’m a bit skeptical that it’ll be played that way, rather than “sitcom-ish” over here.
Other than Monty Python, Dr. Who and a few others on PBS, has an American network ever just bought the rights to a foreign show and shown it without have to given it a nice stupidity scrubbing? (e.g. Coupling) Maybe too many people would have trouble with the accents, or the shows don’t edit well for our commercial breaks, but I have hard time imagining someone doing a better job than Gervais himself.
Man, I remember watching the original Monty Python on PBS way back in the 70’s. Made me the warped man I am today! :lol:
I love Produce Pete!
“Making saffron even more precious than cocaine. There was a time in my life where if you told me that, I’d call you crazy and yell at you for quite some time!”
Sounds very similar to what NBC did with Coupling, and we all know how that worked out.
Right.
But…
Greg Daniels is at the helm for the Office US. Daniels is/was the creative mind behind much of “King Of The Hill”, which I thought nailed the kind of quiet, gentle funny observational humor that made “The Office” so brilliant. The thing about “The Office” that I loved was that it delved into the lives of it’s characters; Gervais et al had great affection even for twits like David Brent and Gareth, and spent tons of air time devoted to those characters and their motivations. Daniels did the same thing on “Hill”, going deep into the lives and motivations of even the most 1-dimensional characters on the show.
I’m still skeptical that it’ll be anywhere near as good as the BBC version, but at least they put someone at the helm who seems to have a clue.
Strange also that Greg Daniels co-created King of the Hill with Mike Judge, the creator of… Office Space.
And Beavis and Butthead.
Is The Office anything like Office Space, besides the environment?
I love that movie. Everytime I watch it I laugh at something I just never laughed at before.
You can’t polish a turd, as friends in the reprographics industry are wont to say.
You can’t polish a turd, as friends in the reprographics industry are wont to say.[/quote]
But apparently you can smear turd on something already highly polished, as seems to be the case with most US remakes of UK shows.
A&E took the BBC’s “Spooks” and just ran it here, unaltered. Well, they changed “Spooks” to “MI-5”, to prevent the inevitable cry of “racist!”
And they had to cut enough time to fit the commercials.
But yeah, MI-5 was a good show.
I didn’t realize anything was cut. Not a shock, since I’ve never seen the original BBC versions. At least it was cut so that nothing seemed missing.
Actually, I thought MI-5 was very obviously cut. So much so that after watching a few I ended up looking online to figure out what was up with this show. Each original episode is a full hour and they trim that down to ~43 minutes or whatever.
Yeah, the Office is brilliant, but VERY uncomfortable at times. That just wouldn’t work over here. It might have in the 80s, when networks were willing to make us all feel bad about ourselves with “the moral is…” episodes. I kind of miss those, actually. But the Office also won’t be as funny without the obscenities. I don’t mean that dirty jokes are the only funny part. But the lines that Gareth and David get to say to each other are brilliant.
Actually, the scene at the bar in season one, where they are talking about David taking the girl home, is one of the funniest of this sort.
Girl: “So the only reason you’ve been talking to me is ‘cos you want to shag me?”
David: “yeah, and from behind ‘cos you’re breath stinks of onions and I didn’t tell you that did I?!”
Finchy: “Wahey, one up the bum, no harm done.”
David: “No, not up the arse.”
Of course, the delivery is key here…they are the best actors I have seen in a sitcom. But for those who have seen the show, there are TONS of funny quotes you can use.
Here are more quotes, for those who haven’t seen the show:
I just read in the “Ask Matt Roush” TV column over on TV Guide that new episodes of MI-5 are in production. That makes me happy.
Good news. I’ve been tempted to import the bbc dvd versions of the show to see what I missed when they chopped it up for A&E.
I think my main concern is that Steve Carell is incapable of doing anything other than the the Daily Show ‘serious, mean, stupid’ delivery style. It works great on that show, but doesn’t feel right for a replacement for David’s soft and clueless manner.