I’ll go first…The Office.
Now I know the two shows are fundamentally quite different, but they adapted what was already a very successful show, and turned It into an event more successfully one that lasted for significantly longer than the original did. I say that’s a win for them.
Anything else? Life on Mars, Being Human, The Inbetweeners…?
Life on Mars. Although I really enjoyed the British original as well.
But no one can come close to the Great British Baking Show.
I think this is due to the actual societal character of the British compared to us Americans. We just can’t seem to genuinely pull it off because it’s somewhat counterintuitive to the way we’re raised socially. Try as we might, we may come close, but we seem to always miss the mark, even if the differences are hard to put a finger on. That’s just my opinion.
I think some of the difference has to do with the show’s format. You don’t see anyone arguing or backstabbing. On the contrary, even though they are competing against each other they often help each other out. In the USA we have shows like Jersey Shore, car repo, bounty hunter, everything we watch is some form of confrontation pitting someone against someone else and then filming and broadcasting the fireworks. Can you tell that I’m tired of American TV?
IIRC, the brand Betty Crocker owns “bake off” as a trademark over in the USA, so we couldn’t call it that.
Great show, unless you do like a soggy bottom.
There’s a Captain Disillusion video which shows you the effort they go to when making the US edition. Items include filming intro scenes twice (and you can see sketches aren’t as funny the second time around) and even using digital effects to change the name on the winners trophy.
Maybe a controversial one but I much prefer the US version of Shameless to the British one.
I don’t think you can say either the US or UK office is better than the other, they’re too different
That’s my feeling, they’re very different beasts. The British one is like a bespoke gem and the American one is that retooled for the US comedy writing system.
What feels like a controversial opinion, but it really shouldn’t be, I don’t think the US Office is as good as the UK Office.
The UK Office felt like a documentary, and really felt like places I had worked and knew people like that.
Once the US Office got out of copying the UK one, it just become a sitcom that had people talking to the audience. I mean it was good, but it was still basically an American sitcom.
It’s like WWDITS. The film was awesome, and the first season that still involved the Kiwis was good, but it quickly subsided into standard American dross. Winning a Golden Globe for basically not being WWDITS and just being Matt Berry was the icing.
I genuinely can’t think of one that finished better. A big part of the art of entertainment is knowing when to stop.
If you look up reviews for any British shows on IMDb, a good chunk of the reviews all say the same thing - “Oh my gaaad the Briddish make the best shows, I just wish they had more episodes!”
Totally missing the point that it was good because it told its story and finished
They can’t even bring themselves to say “miniseries”, it has to be a “limited series”
Robot wars (called battlebots in the US)
