Americans and remakes...

[Tricky]

So I was reading the paper today & happened to see that one of my favourite comedy programmes of the moment (The Inbetweeners) is going to be showing in the states, unfortunately yet again they have decided it needs an American remake to be shown over there! Just wondering if any of you US posters could elaborate on why they need to do that? us Brits dont exactly speak a foreign language, and all US TV shows that are exported over here are shown in their raw american-ness. Plus with the inbetweeners, I think a lot of the humour will be lost if its americanised. I've noticed this also happened with "life on mars" and "the office", plus countless films that are remade the US way, despite being perfectly good as they were! :(

[bassman]

That's a question you'll have to ask those crews. If I had to guess, it's probably because they're afraid the differences in cultures and humor won't translate over. For awhile there, McG was going to make an american Spaced. After seeing the pilot, they should've just aired the original...

[AcesandEights]

I'd love to say the same thing about the American tv ideas that are remade for British markets, but I think a lot of those ideas were crap, anyway and I don't think I'd care even if they were good programming. Why do you care, by the way?

I'd worry more about internal revision of arbitrary cultural way points, like the three little pigs fiasco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Little_Pigs#Controversy), than I would foreign TV interests finding your homegrown television premises interesting and bankable enough to re-gear for their markets.

I swear, this conversation has been had a couple times and really makes me wish I could find my point by point posts from the previous threads.

No doubt someone will be in soon enough (perhaps already posted in the interim) to tell us about how people are horribly stupid, blah, blah, blah, lowest common denominator and all that. And some nice American posters will tell us about how at least they get British humor, as if that were a compliment to themselves, as opposed to a differing and arbitrary opinion as to what constitutes good comedy.

/end rant

[SymphonicX]

A fair few years ago I was at a conference/presentation with some really big cheeses from HBO and the like. This American lady talked to us about the US TV industry and various shows out there and the audience responses....this was about the time that "Joey" had finished its last run on screen.

Anyway she said, and bearing in mind that this was a top TV exec from LA - that a lot of the audiences in the US can't understand thick regional english accents - she mentioned that certain shows like Eastenders even went as far as to be subtitled. It wasn't Eastenders exactly, but some popular UK show that went over there. Apparently a large chunk of the US viewing population either can't, or don't want to, understand or be involved in the TV we produce.

I always thought that was a bit much tbh. I just can't see people in the US not understanding us as though we're speaking another language - although I watched that Suriyaki Django movie the other day (which is a japanese movie spoken in English) and I couldn't understand a bloody word of it - so if we sound like that to them, there's your answer.

Usually the US version is a watered down, not very clever re-hash of some good ideas and they NEVER work. Coupling tanked over there, for instance, but that was a very popular show over here. The Office is debatable. Half the time I think the producers just want to make it more relevant to US audiences and this idea that Americans can't understand a word we say seems to be a slight on everyone involved.

For instance over XBL I have never been asked to "speak english" save for some stupid teens who were just trying to play the "we kicked you ass in 1776" card - everyone else, and I meanEVERYONE that I have spoken to, whilst not in the soberest of places, has understood and conversed with me regularly.

Certainly won't turn it into an intelligence argument because this idea that America is stupid is nothing short of racism which I can't abide

[BillyRay]

One factor to be aware of is the British 'Series' vs the U.S. 'Season'.

A British series will be a smaller number (6-8?) episodes. It'll tell a nice story arc, and be wrapped up before viewers get bored. If there's more story to tell, they'll make another short series. Etc.

American series try to make enough episodes per season to create a backlog for syndication. So one can watch the program before/after the evening news. (Seinfeld, Frasier, Simpsons, etc). There's money there.

Regardless of what one thinks about the British version of the Office vs the American version, the American version had to fill more episodes. So it's created (larger ensemble, stretching the plotlines) to eventually reach syndication.

Or something like that...

[SymphonicX]

Yeah that's an interesting point there - quality over quantity you'd think. I've noticed most US shows are self contained whereas a lot of UK shows tend to have a progressive plotline and sometimes if you miss one episode you can find yourself having to catch up. 24, Lost and Prison Break seem to be an exception whereby if you miss one the whole thing is fucked (or so I hear) so I never bothered with those - too many and too long! But that marries up the "season" vs "series" point you made there....

But could you imagine a UK version of CSI or something? CSI: Swansea as the BBC would have it....lol it would just never work.

By and large a lot of US TV is better than the UKs - but the UK really excels in terms of comedy and the only thing I can think of to hand that the US did spectacularly well was Weeds - I don't care for sitcoms on either side of the Atlantic (except the aforementioned Coupling) and I really do have a bone to pic with flashy comedy apartments with rich, sarcastic twats spouting off shitty one liners - Roseanne was a great example of a grass roots comedy that people could relate to - but unfortunately a lot of US sitcoms I just can't get into.

Still the UK attempts to be flashy with Doctor Who and Spooks and all that - but its never going to beat the marvellous Pacific or Band of Brothers.

[Tricky]

Dont worry guys I wasnt trying to turn this into a Limeys VS yanks racism thread, I just feel a bit sorry for you guys that you get, as symph said, watered down versions of our better shows (dont count "the office", I cant stand Ricky Gervais either & Im sorry we inflicted that on you) when it wouldnt be any hardship to air the original as it was intended! I dont for a minute think americans are too stupid to understand British TV, which is precisely why I dont see the need for remakes. The only US thing we seem to remake for British TV is versions of gameshows, which are shite regardless of origin, unless you count those crazy japanese ones cos those are hilarious :lol:

[DubiousComforts]

Anyway she said, and bearing in mind that this was a top TV exec from LA - that a lot of the audiences in the US can't understand thick regional english accents
This must explain why British comedies like Monty Python's Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers and Benny Hill have been popular with American audiences for many decades: nobody can understand what they are saying!

[MinionZombie]

They're remaking The Inbetweeners?! :rolleyes:

It's like Top Gear - which is soon going to be airing in an American incarnation - but the popularity of such shows is owed, at least in large part, to the actual people on the show. You can't re-create the Clarkson/Hammond/May chemistry, it's something that just happened. Same with The Inbetweeners, it just happened to explode - mainly because it was, and still is, really goddamn funny.

It's much better than ruddy the self-important, overly-dramatic, wishful-thinking Skins too. The Inbetweeners is what teenage life in the UK is actually like for the vast, vast, vast majority of British teens, past and present, and it's all the funnier for it - and importantly - more engaging and enduring as a result.

...

I did watch the American version of Life on Mars, after having seen the UK version, and it wasn't a patch on the original. I did end up quite liking it, but it wasn't handled anywhere near as deftly as the UK version - although it's interesting to note that the main guy is actually Irish (which is why the guy puts on a perfect Irish accent in one episode where he goes undercover). The side characters remained as such, and were indeed totally side-lined at times to become one-dimensional charicatures with no sense of development during the show. Life on Mars ran for two series totalling 16 episodes, and they covered a hell of a lot more ground and character development and exploration than the US version did in, what, 22 episodes and one season.

I think some things just can't be translated - in terms of format going from British to American - so it should just ruddy well be shown as it originally is in another country. Us Brits watch so much American telly, and I think there are an awful lot of Americans who want the original British shows - not the watered down American re-do's ... look at the fan vitriol to McSpaced. Thankfully that died on its arse before it even got off the sofa, eh?

[SymphonicX]

[QUOTE=Tricky;246474]Dont worry guys I wasnt trying to turn this into a Limeys VS yanks racism threadQUOTE]

Never even ocurred to me that you'd do that - defo wasn't implying it!

[SymphonicX]

This must explain why British comedies like Monty Python's Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers and Benny Hill have been popular with American audiences for many decades: nobody can understand what they are saying!

Exactly, I think she was talking out of her arse tbh - but then she was a massive authority on the TV industry in the US....she was head of something for some big channel, I dunno, I got bored of her when she started purporting her own countrymen to be idiots...!

[Tricky]

[QUOTE=Tricky;246474]Dont worry guys I wasnt trying to turn this into a Limeys VS yanks racism threadQUOTE]

Never even ocurred to me that you'd do that - defo wasn't implying it!

Nay worries dude, it was more Aces I felt I'd riled up a bit with my early post unintentionally!