The Americans remaking British Television

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They seem to have a fixation with it in recent years, I have seen it reported today that NBC is developing a Bad Girls remake.

The Office aside I have never seen such a programme become successful, when the imports are modern such as The Office or Life on Mars they might as well just as the original versions.

The one programme breaking the mould over there is Downton Abbey, airing unedited from the ITV broadcasts, at least their television networks have some sense.
 
I read somewhere that they are meant to be making a version of Only Fools and Horses.
 
I saw that as well, David Jason has been complaining about it.
 
I started a thread about the only fools & horses show, It would be shocking don't think I could give it even a chance. I thought I would give there version of Life on Mars a go but didn't bother as I heard it was very bad, now if they had just aired the original British version they would have got to see one of the best shows of recent years.
 
American TV is far superior so I have no idea why they even bother remaking UK shows
 
Their Shameless is alright, made sense for a remake over there. The remakes seem to be hit and miss (mainly miss except for the reality shows and then only in a commercial sense).
 
Randall Flagg said:
American TV is far superior so I have no idea why they even bother remaking UK shows
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Because British TV doesn't have the same budget it is retarded to think we can'm make great stories, we have had some fantastic shows over the years and the americans have tried to cash in with their own versions but have found themselves that they haven't been able to make the shows better and totally failed with them.
 
Widnes said:
I started a thread about the only fools & horses show, It would be shocking don't think I could give it even a chance. I thought I would give there version of Life on Mars a go but didn't bother as I heard it was very bad, now if they had just aired the original British version they would have got to see one of the best shows of recent years.
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I think David Jason was right in what he said, that the programme is too 1980s London centric. The whole premise of the programme was based around wheeler dealers in South London with supporting characters like Trigger and Boycie.
 
At the rate they are going they will be making Chucklevision next.
 
The problem with american tv is that they have to stretch each series to 20+ episodes. Also they have to be likable to so many different people so they tend to be bland.
 
I remember that awful 'Men Behaving Badly' remake. *shudders*

Though gameshows have done well, 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' got the highest ratings one season I believe.
 
Prime Suspect was good although bearing almost no resemblence to the original. Got cut after 1 season though.
 
Randall Flagg said:
American TV is far superior so I have no idea why they even bother remaking UK shows
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It's actually not really.....when it's comes to writers anyway, even with their inflated numbers of writers(thus why our shows mostly have 3-10 eps with usually 1 or 2 mostly doing the writing compared to their 12-24 eps with a whole team dedicated to writing them mostly.)

It's no surprise they are remaking Sherlock, Thick of It, and others. Because these shows rival the best of American easily in terms of writing and delivery.

Although tbh, I can understand Thick of It getting an American counterpart, I really don't understand the point of Sherlock in LA or NY, they should just push the British on their prime time networks, Americans I know love it anyway -same with Luther and the few I told to watch Black Mirror...the whole cant understand the accent thing is mostly mute now.
 
There have been rumours that Dr Who will be remade over there - I can't understand why any of the programs, which appeal because of their 'Englishness' to some extent, need to be re-made
 
Zen said:
It's actually not really.....when it's comes to writers anyway, even with their inflated numbers of writers(thus why our shows mostly have 3-10 eps with usually 1 or 2 mostly doing the writing compared to their 12-24 eps with a whole team dedicated to writing them mostly.)

It's no surprise they are remaking Sherlock, Thick of It, and others. Because these shows rival the best of American easily in terms of writing and delivery.

Although tbh, I can understand Thick of It getting an American counterpart, I really don't understand the point of Sherlock in LA or NY, they should just push the British on their prime time networks, Americans I know love it anyway -same with Luther and the few I told to watch Black Mirror...the whole cant understand the accent thing is mostly mute now.
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No UK TV can touch the likes of Breaking Bad, Sopranos, The Wire, 6 Feet under and many more. I just finished Homeland it’s simply outstanding

But I suppose it is down to opinions. I really liked the recent Black Mirror, but in general I never watch UK shows.
 
Brilliant though some US TV can be the UK can and does make equally good stuff. The recent Accused written by Jimmy McGovern is a prime example - simply top notch from beginning to end with a superb British cast.
 
Randall Flagg said:
No UK TV can touch the likes of Breaking Bad, Sopranos, The Wire, 6 Feet under and many more. I just finished Homeland it’s simply outstanding

But I suppose it is down to opinions. I really liked the recent Black Mirror, but in general I never watch UK shows.
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Then how do you know even if the one British you say you've watched you enjoyed?

It's not necessarily down to opinions, it's down to actually watching the great British and not just the likes of Eastenders and overhyped laugh track sitcoms.
 
Randall Flagg said:
No UK TV can touch the likes of Breaking Bad, Sopranos, The Wire, 6 Feet under and many more. I just finished Homeland it’s simply outstanding

But I suppose it is down to opinions. I really liked the recent Black Mirror, but in general I never watch UK shows.
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Couple of them shows I haven't watched but watched all The Sopranos and The Wire and both was fantastic tv shows but to say that no British shows can touch them is total crap, in fact I would say quite a few British shows are actually better aswell as quite a few American.
 
Widnes said:
Because British TV doesn't have the same budget
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That's a load of crap, the BBC get income of 4 billion pounds per year plus, probably more than any other broadcaster on the planet. Ok, it has other commitments, but to say that it cannot do it is nonsense. It has no problem spunking money left right and centre on stuff like Planet Earth or Fozen Planet for example.
 
WeasteDevil said:
That's a load of crap, the BBC get income of 4 billion pounds per year plus, probably more than any other broadcaster on the planet. Ok, it has other commitments, but to say that it cannot do it is nonsense. It has no problem spunking money left right and centre on stuff like Planet Earth or Fozen Planet for example.
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It cost £16m to make an entire series of Frozen Planet.

It cost $50m to make one episode of Boardwalk Empire.
 
$18m*

The most expensive pilot to date though.
 
US TV has far higher budget, and it usually shows in the production quality. Although good UK drama's are very well written and acted they do tend to look low budget. Most US series like CSI, Sopranos, Broadwalk Empire and 24 etc have Hollywood level budgets, and it really shows in the locations, sets and special effects.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
It cost £16m to make an entire series of Frozen Planet.

It cost $50m to make one episode of Boardwalk Empire.
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There's no way it costs $50M to make ONE Episode of Boardwalk Empire... maybe for the entire 12 episodes in a season... and I'll bet the bulk of that was spend on the Pilot (or first episode) which was reputed to have cost $18M (which is considered extravagant in US TV standards)... but at one point it was considered to have been a TV movie directed by Martin Scorsese.

And there's plenty of UK series that have budgets... Merlin for one.

Its only been since the late 90s, and the success of shows like the Sopranos, Sex and the City and the emergence of the DVD market for such shows that the American TV studios have begun to spend big on such shows. Lets not forget that The Wire and Rome were considered flops on TV (with poor ratings) but did monster business on DVD.
 
Merlin's budget I think is around £1 million which is far beyond any other programme airing in the UK right now, for many years Spooks was the most expensive programme here which ended on something like 800-900k.
 
Meh, big budgets don't matter, good writing and top acting is all you need. Half the time Britain has tried to go big budget on a TV show, it's been a huge failure in terms of quality. Big production values do bring more viewers though, even if the show does suffer more in terms of quality.
 
Widnes said:
Couple of them shows I haven't watched but watched all The Sopranos and The Wire and both was fantastic tv shows but to say that no British shows can touch them is total crap, in fact I would say quite a few British shows are actually better aswell as quite a few American.
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As much as I love some British shows, nothing comes close to a selection of HBO programs.
 
Did anyone ever see what they did with Cracker. Instead of each story being a 2-3 parter they just did the whole thing in an hour. The actors they picked were crap and couldn't do the job (whilst also otherthan Fitz were the usual model lookers).
 
Hectic said:
As much as I love some British shows, nothing comes close to a selection of HBO programs.
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HBO are the number 1 drama producing channel in the world now, undoubtedly.
 
Widnes said:
Couple of them shows I haven't watched but watched all The Sopranos and The Wire and both was fantastic tv shows but to say that no British shows can touch them is total crap, in fact I would say quite a few British shows are actually better aswell as quite a few American.
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There's no question that the US does crime drama and similar "serious" genres better.

But UK makes better comedies and whatever sort of left-field, semi-comedy genre you'd put Shameless in. Oh and better period dramas, but I'm not sure the US even bothers try and make any of those.
 
Prime Suspect was OK. But not great. Cracker was very good.

But not even close to the likes of the Wire or the Shield
 
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