BBC's The Office v. NBC's The Office
 

If you managed to catch The Office pilot on NBC tonight - what did you think?

I'm a huge fan of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and the British version of the show - which is absolutely hysterical. The American version is exactly the cheap knockoff that I thought it would be - but I think it would be likely to think that after seeing the original.

Why mess with a good thing?

I thought it was reasonably well done. Not as good as the original, but better than most American sitcoms. It will only be really possible to judge the quality when they run out of BBC scripts to follow and have to write their own.

I haven't seen any of the BBC episodes, although I would like to.
I enjoyed last night's NBC version. It was far better than most network TV.

great, they're fucking the corpse of another great idea.

The question is whether the resulting zombie baby will be more like "All in the Family" or "Coupling [american]".

I had to watch my BBC The Office DVDs today... they really ruined the whole jello/stapler bit in the American one. It seemed awkward and forced.

Yeah, they didn't have the bit where the Gareth-equivalent mentioned that he didn't trust jello, which explains why the Tim-equivalent chose that particular prank. But the pun bit afterwards was handled well.

The bit that fell flattest for me was the Hitler impersonation.

Actually, the preview of next week looks like it has a funny diversity-training scene that's not copied from the BBC version. Could be good, could be over the top.

This week's episode - Diversity Training - was awkward and unfunny. I'm sorry, but you can't beat David Brent at the Customer Service training whipping out the guitar.

Sums it up really.

I'll stick with this asessment for the time being. If I could only watch American sitcoms that were as good as the best of the BBC exports, I'd only watch Arrested Development and Scrubs. As it is, I watch Arrested Development, Scrubs, and the Office.

Arrested Development is great!

I agree, Arrested Development is great. I stopped watching Scrubs when they switched it from Tuesday nights, but I always enjoyed it.

Over the weekend, I reserved the public library's copy of BBC's The Office. I'm something like the 27th person on the wait list, but they have 5 copies, and you can only keep it for a week, so I should have it in a month or so. Then I'll have a marathon session of watching all the episodes in one week. I think I'll stop watching the NBC version until then.

Did you mean "switched to Tuesday nights"? Because, conveniently to me, Scrubs and the Office are now the Tuesday 9:00 hour on NBC.

We don't make English Friends. We don't make English Simpsons. Why oh why would they do such a thing? I refuse to believe that the American public at large (sorry) is more stupid than the fat football obsessed glued-to-the-sofa British masses, so what's going on? NBC want to claim tax returns on 'adaptation'? Ffs.

It is a fact that Hollywood executives don't think that Americans are willing to listen to a foreign accent unless the character is a villain or a "fish out of water". But there are some cash reasons for a remake:

It is better to sell syndication rights than to buy them.

Two seasons of the BBC Office and the Christmas special totalled just over half of a season of an American TV series.

The American public at large can't be blamed yet. Only the moronic focus group that thought it would be a good idea to "Americanize" an already hilarious show. We'll see how the ratings do, then decide whose head will roll. Somebody's should, that's for sure.

neither do i. i think they are all stuffy, self-righteous, elitists. ;)

It's about market size, I think, and the fact that you know more about US culture than USians know about Brit culture. If 10% of US watchers don't watch because they don't understand the culture-bound jokes, that's enough to warrant re-doing it in their culture because the market is big enough.

Brit shows are seen in their original format on certain channels. Originally only very high-quality items were imported and so there is now a very rough notion that Brit-produced shows are "highbrow". This in turn has led to a certain group of highbrow Americans reaching hard to appreciate the subtle nuance and dry Oscar Wilde-ish wit of "Are You Being Served". :D :D

Do you think it's because 'murricans find brit shows too "highbrow" or simply because it's an unfamiliar style of humor? the working classes like AYBS and such, too. I think it's more an issue of familiarity...and better talent, frankly. They have Rowan Atkinson, we have Gilbert Gottfried :dead:

Brit comedy is the one thing from that country that I'm intensely envious of. Their money is prettier, too, but anyway.

Huh. Well, they obviously lost me as a viewer when they started moving the schedule around. I watched Scrubs when it was on Tuesdays a couple years ago. Then they switched it to Thursdays, and I couldn't watch any longer. If they switched it back to tuesdays, I obviously didn't get the memo.

I wonder if the suits ever consider the viewers they lose when they move stuff around? I stopped watching This Old House when they started doing the same thing.

I havent seen the US Office. I cant imagine anything even attempting to reproduce the BBC version. its too perfect. I want to see a show that moves the uniqueness of it forward. Drier, flatter, wierder, cringlingly fakey-realer.

This is my problem with this.... the numbnuts in hollywood don't seem to understand that if people like something, you don't need to make a sequel, you don't need to keep it going, you don't need to make a copy. Sometimes, once is enough and as a consumer, I'm happy with a one time, original show. No need for a sequal, copy or spin off... once is enough. I wish they would understand this, but when all you see is $$$$$$$, it's kind of hard to make wise decisions.

I like The Office (BBC version) just as it is. The humor is not that complex and while the actors have a different accent, the same sort of things happen in an american workplace. Once is enough for that show... it was funny, insightful and original the first time around. No need to improve it or add on.

I'm talking in circles... I hope it gets cancelled.

You should get a tv like mine--it has a channel changing button AND an on/off switch.

I have two with those features... thanks :p .

American TV moguls have become fabulously wealthy regurgitating the same garbage into our homes for 50 years. Why mess with success? They know we're gonna lap up their vomit like good doggies every time.

i personally wish every channel was either VH1 classic or the discovery channel. At least those are reruns of cooler stuff.

hey the history channel is alright. and i do like me some Law & Order: SVU reruns.

What would I do without Law & Order and Law & Order SVU reruns? On a Wednesday or Tuesday, you can pretty much watch 5 straight hours of L&O, capping off the evening with the latest episode on NBC.

I'm in law school... it counts as studying!

Most of the stuff on TLC and Discovery Channel are knock-offs of British programs. Even the "good" channels are unoriginal.

The first episode of The Office American Style was pretty funny. The second episode was just lame.

I've never seen The Original Office...

The first episode was a near word-for-word remake of the original, the second wasn't.

In a discussion at work today, we decided that in the BBC version, the characters seemed like real people, like they weren't playing anyone - Ricky Gervais is David Brent. In the American version, the characters seem more like actors playing these characters, it seems forced and unnatural.

I only get that from the Brent and Gareth equivalent characters. Of course, those are the only actors I'd seen before, so I'm not sure what the cause is.

Whenever I see Martin Freeman (British Tim) in other movies, like Love Actually, he is so Tim to me. It's going to be interesting when hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy comes out... will I be able to separate Tim from Arthur Dent.

Speaking of Britcoms ... I saw the Kumars at No. 42 for the first time over the weekend on BBCAmerica. What a lovely, lovely thing. I must see more of this.

Speaking of the Hitchhikers' Guide, it's slated for US theatres April 29th.

Who's up for a Cellar Movie Watchers' GTG?

Episode 3

:lol:http://www.cellar.org/images/newersmilies/lol2.gif

I think I'll upgrade my prognosis from 'guarded' to 'moderately enthusiastic'.

I missed it this week - just caught the end of it.... what happened?

I've got a horrible memory for details, especially if I've only seen it once, but the general plot was this:

(Spoilers)

The boss has to pick a health care plan. The object is to cut costs, but since he desperately wants to be liked, he doesn't want to pick a bad one. So he delegates to Dwight (Gareth), who gets to convert the conference room into his office (technicallly, temporary workspace). His first draft covers almost nothing. Everyone complains, so he has them all fill out surveys of diseases they have and want to be covered. Of course, Tim and Dawn (American names unknown) fill out joke surveys, so Dwight reads all of the forms aloud, and has people raise their hands if it's a real condition.

In the meantime, the boss is hiding in his office. He's ambushed outside the bathroom, and distracts everyone by saying there'll be a surprise at the end of the day. He ends up with ice cream bars, but is shamed into saying that's not the real surprise. At the end of the day, with everyone gathered around him, he hems and haws until everyone gives up waiting, in disgust.