The Americans remaking British Television

For me, Seinfeld and Curb your Enthusiasm are way above the vast majority of UK sitcoms. I thought the US version of The Office was shite. It's rare I get hooked into a crime drama but The Wire was excellent.
 
I still don't think there has been any better TV in recent years than Life on Mars/Ashes to ashes.

The Wire was a fantastic show but still I always preffered watching the Shield.
 
Red Panda said:
For me, Seinfeld and Curb your Enthusiasm are way above the vast majority of UK sitcoms. I thought the US version of The Office was shite. It's rare I get hooked into a crime drama but The Wire was excellent.
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Seinfeld was shit. I still hae never seen an episode of it that made me laugh.
 
I must give The Shield a go at some point. Wallander that Swedish crime drama was great I thought, even with subtitles!
 
I loved the Shield too.

I think it’s quite close between the 2 and the fact that the climax to the Shield was basically as good as it gets, as opposed to the Wire in which I thought its final season was by far the weakest
 
Thank god Mockney is currently on a break otherwise this would end up in yet another thread about how awful Seinfeld really is.
 
Seinfeld was fantastic had great charachters, I do enjoy quite a lot of american sitcoms to be honest, Think most british comedies are really bad but when we do make them right they are fecking immense. Only Fools, One foot in the grave, Father Ted, Red Dwarf to name a few.
 
Hey dont go nicking Father Ted. Funded perhaps by C4, but created very much so by Irish writers
 
Life on Mars is good, and there's been some fantastic shows to come out here, especially comedies, but can anything better the below?

The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Band of Brothers, Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, OZ, The West Wing.

The UK excels in comedy, and I'd say The Thick Of It is the best thing to come out from here overall (that I've seen obviously).
 
Hectic said:
Life on Mars is good, and there's been some fantastic shows to come out here, especially comedies, but can anything better the below?

The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Band of Brothers, Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, OZ, The West Wing.

The UK excels in comedy, and I'd say The Thick Of It is the best thing to come out from here overall (that I've seen obviously).
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To Quote From Wiki about Band of Brothers: The budget for Band of Brothers was approximately $125 million, which comes to an average of $12.5 million per episode.
That's like a Hollywood blockbuster type of budget, but for a TV series!
 
I am on episode 7 of Band Of Brothers now. I had never seen it before.

It really is amazing
 
I bet Chase and Gandolfini alone in the final 3 seasons of The Sopranos cost more than Oz did. Together they got $3m an episode, well a bit less since they did an extra episode than ordered. Absurd. They both hated doing it as well, but who can say no at that money when they ain't getting it anywhere else.
 
I would like to see an American version of "The Thick of It", "In the Loop" was a good movie but I think there's plenty more scope for storylines. I've been watching the West Wing recently and although I am enthralled by it remain a little uneasy with the idyllic politicians being portrayed.
 
not strictly a tv remake but I really enjoyed the movies State of play & Edge of Darkness. I notice both the original british tv shows are on virgin on demand are they worth a watch?? Think I will do them both when i have a bit of time.
 
State of Play is brilliant, really enjoyed the film too.....America usually botch them(i.e Edge of Darkness which I thought was a mess, series is good and Singing Detective with Downey is horrendous, series is fantastic.)
 
evra said:
I would like to see an American version of "The Thick of It", "In the Loop" was a good movie but I think there's plenty more scope for storylines. I've been watching the West Wing recently and although I am enthralled by it remain a little uneasy with the idyllic politicians being portrayed.
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Then lucky for you 'Veep' produced by Armando Iannucci for HBO satirising American politics is only weeks away from airing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veep_(TV_series)
 
One thing British television is much better than the Americans for is its presentation outside of programming directly, inhouse adverts, idents. etc. are much better - the BBC have a very good knack for coming up with title sequences for their special programming.

It is difficult to think that this was produced purely for the opening title for the Beijing Olympics.

 
Most UK shows have a much smaller budget, the average American drama show, ones on the bigger networks anyway, are about £1mil an episode.

Also I think the 13-24 episode number allows for better story telling.

I don't mind American remakes as long as they don't do a direct port, comedies especially it just doesn't work.
 
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