Reminds me of “Coupling” - a brilliant British TV sitcom. It is incredibly funny.
The US version had the same text, with minor changes to account for e.g. the different way to call back to the last incoming call on a landline. The US version had reasonably good actors.
They did the same with "Coupling", a funny UK sitcom that was actually unbearable to watch in its US format. Something about the the jokes just doesn't translate 1:1 to American actors or whatever...
Except "House of Cards" was a political soaper (west wing) with a charismatic anti-hero (the shield, etc.)
"The IT crowd" as a goofy farce had no American counterpart and was pretty much doomed to failure. Better translation examples would be the American "The Office" (based on other office-based comedies) and the American "Coupling" (a "Friends" clone.) "Coupling" failed because the first American episode was nearly a shot-for-shot remake. You might have been able to get away with that in the 90s, but not in the Netflix/Bittorrent era.
Not opining on how good it is: the script matters less than the execution.
Have you ever watched Coupling? It is an extremely funny British sitcom (ignoring the 4th season, which is just "funny", but not as good as the first 3 seasons, with the exception of a couple of episodes).
It was also successful in the US. So, an american version with american actors was made, as is customary (see e.g. The Office, Queer as Folk, Being Human, etc, etc, etc.)
It had exactly the same texts for the expisodes I watched. It had reasonably good actors. But it just wasn't funny. I gave it the benefit of doubt. Then rewatched the british. Still funny. Then the american. Not funny.
(Successful conversions like "the office" go their own way, rather than stay true to the original)
The best script is useless without a matching excellent delivery. And a lesser script is still excellent with the right delivery. (Think about how Seinfeld would look if done by your other favorite comedians who are not Seinfeld/Louis-Dreyfus/Spadowski et al)
I like Mike Judge's past work. I'm going to wait until I see it executed before I have an opinion.
Hacker Cinema
4 comments on Hacker News
Reminds me of “Coupling” - a brilliant British TV sitcom. It is incredibly funny.
The US version had the same text, with minor changes to account for e.g. the different way to call back to the last incoming call on a landline. The US version had reasonably good actors.
But … somehow, it was just not funny.
They did the same with "Coupling", a funny UK sitcom that was actually unbearable to watch in its US format. Something about the the jokes just doesn't translate 1:1 to American actors or whatever...
Except "House of Cards" was a political soaper (west wing) with a charismatic anti-hero (the shield, etc.)
"The IT crowd" as a goofy farce had no American counterpart and was pretty much doomed to failure. Better translation examples would be the American "The Office" (based on other office-based comedies) and the American "Coupling" (a "Friends" clone.) "Coupling" failed because the first American episode was nearly a shot-for-shot remake. You might have been able to get away with that in the 90s, but not in the Netflix/Bittorrent era.
Not opining on how good it is: the script matters less than the execution.
Have you ever watched Coupling? It is an extremely funny British sitcom (ignoring the 4th season, which is just "funny", but not as good as the first 3 seasons, with the exception of a couple of episodes).
It was also successful in the US. So, an american version with american actors was made, as is customary (see e.g. The Office, Queer as Folk, Being Human, etc, etc, etc.)
It had exactly the same texts for the expisodes I watched. It had reasonably good actors. But it just wasn't funny. I gave it the benefit of doubt. Then rewatched the british. Still funny. Then the american. Not funny.
(Successful conversions like "the office" go their own way, rather than stay true to the original)
The best script is useless without a matching excellent delivery. And a lesser script is still excellent with the right delivery. (Think about how Seinfeld would look if done by your other favorite comedians who are not Seinfeld/Louis-Dreyfus/Spadowski et al)
I like Mike Judge's past work. I'm going to wait until I see it executed before I have an opinion.