Why do we recreate UK shows in America?
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There are some that don’t know that the majority of our most popular shows all are retreads of British shows. American Idol, Shark Tank, The Office, Dancing With The Stars, and a host of home renovating and decorating shows all got their start on the other side of the Atlantic. What always bugged me is why we feel the need to redo the shows instead of just transporting the original series to the U.S. market. We seem to miss out on a lot of quality television because the American television studios seem to have some sort of strange need to produce shows rather than just buy them.
For every example of a successful show there are many great shows in Britain that fail horribly when they are brought over here and translated. I have yet to see the American pilot for Coupling, but I heard it was terrible and wasn’t picked up. The British version was hilarious and well received in the UK as well as in the U.S. where stations like PBS and BBC America would run the episodes. The long running series Red Dwarf has a massive audience in Britain and a fairly large audience in the U.S. thanks to PBS, but when American television executives tried to bring the show over here they made a complete mess of it, they shot two pilots and they were both horrible. The series never made it to television but you can still find at least one of the failed pilots on YouTube.
Just last night I was stuck at my in-laws watching something called “America’s Got Talent” or something and it struck me that instead of this we could have had some amazing and hilarious television. They could have been airing the latest episode of That Mitchell and Webb Look, or Top Gear. But no, instead it was a healthy dose of reality television.
In fact, the only shows I can’t think of that we get directly from the UK are Doctor Who and probably something with Gordon Ramsey. This isn’t to say that British TV is better than ours, they never had Seinfeld, Star Trek, or The Daily Show… and they do run a massive amount of horrible reality shows about buying houses, selling stuff form their attics, and, if BBC America is any indication, about 12 hours of Gordon Ramsey shows a night. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have at least something to offer.
10 Comments
Jeff Atkinson
August 30th, 2009
at 10:43pm
I just stopped by your blog and thought I would say hello. I like your site design. Looking forward to reading more down the road.
John Bredehoft
August 30th, 2009
at 10:51pm
The sad thought is that American television executives probably think that we would be so horrified at hearing British accents, or - heaven forbid! - the Dutch language, that’s we’d tune out of any obviously foreign show (unless we eat wine and cheese and drive a Rolls and watch Masterpiece Theatre).
The sadder thought is that in this instance, American television executives might be right.
But maybe not; people don’t seem to mind Simon Cowell’s accent, nor did they mind Robin Leach’s. (Well, maybe they minded Robin’s.)
Why do we recreate UK shows in America?
August 31st, 2009
at 12:30am
[...] News Sources wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThere are some that don’t know that the majority of our most popular shows all are retreads of British shows. American Idol, Shark Tank, The Office, Dancing With The Stars, and a host of home renovating and decorating shows all got their start on the other side of the Atlantic. What always bugged me is why we feel the need to redo the shows instead of just transporting the original series to the U.S. market. We seem to miss out on a lot of quality television because the American television st [...]
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Why do we recreate UK shows in America?
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at 1:43am
[...] Random Feed wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThere are some that don’t know that the majority of our most popular shows all are retreads of British shows. American Idol, Shark Tank, The Office, Dancing With The Stars, and a host of home renovating and decorating shows all got their start on the other side of the Atlantic. What always bugged me is why we feel the need to redo the shows instead of just transporting the original series to the U.S. market. We seem to miss out on a lot of quality television because the American television st [...]
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Coit
August 31st, 2009
at 10:37am
NBC carried the series Merlin this summer intact from its British production. It was mildly popular.
The reason shows like The Office are translated is pretty obvious to most. The colloquialisms, slang, and regional “inside jokes” in Britian get lost in translation, just as the same would happen when US shows are shown in the UK. I’ve seen the British Office, and it was funny to me, but a lot of the humor would go right over the head of Joe Six-Pack. Heck, the term Joe Six-Pack would go right over a brits head I’m sure.
iThomasina
August 31st, 2009
at 11:16am
Sadly, I have to agree with John and Coit. Althuogh I LOVE watching British shows, my own family can’t stand them because they say they just can’t understand what they’re saying. It’s not even just the slang, accents that, to me, seem hardly noticable, like in Coupling, are as good as French to them. Sometimes I do turn on English subtitles for them!
While I think there’s obviously a large American audience for British original’s, it obviously isn’t large enough. Average Joe just can’t be bothered with it.
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Tracy
September 1st, 2009
at 4:35am
Every American “take” on a Brit comedy is abysmal, imho. Like wise, please stop re-doing classic movies while you’re at it.
It seems there are plenty of imaginative filmmakers, directors, writers, etc…but Hollywood seems to take most of the good, fresh stuff and water it down or otherwise overproduce it so that it all feels the same in the end.
I think that’s the draw of brit stuff- it’s totally new in it’s “feel” or maybe in the way the jokes are delivered, I don’t know…my kids and I just about split our sides watching “IT Crowd”- simply hilarious!