the UK Office had fourteen (14) episodes. The US one had 201 episodes.
if you don't lean on things like inter-office romance there is nothing to put on screen.
the jim-pam thing was a direct riff on the tim-lucy interactions in the UK version, they just didn't, you know, have 100+ more episodes to build on it.
hell, you can even see when that ran out of steam in later seasons of the US version and they just start jamming celebrity guest stars in there
You're right, there are plenty of sympathetic ones too, but it's the unsympathetic ones that really don't do so well to a US audience. There's a reason that The Office (US) hard pivoted Michael Scott after season 1.
To go full British, you need characters like David Brent, who aren't sympathetic. They have no redeeming heartfelt goodbye. No-one is sad when they're gone, life moves on.
I would also say that the Always Sunny gang really aren't sympathetic either, but it's a para-social trick of having spent so much time "together" with them over so many episodes.
I suspect a new viewer coming to watch the latest series of IASIP would not see them as sympathetic. That's quite different to The Office (US), where a new viewer skipping to later seasons would not have the same opinions as a new viewer watching season 1, where Scott was much closer to a Brent type character, before he was redeemed and made more pitiable than awful over the seasons.
A good portion of these stickers are to do with things that are political or quasi political. What tends to happen is that a lot if times people have been burned in someway for supporting an idea or a cause. This is often because people have been fooled by charlatan, or it was later revealed that things were more complicated or different than they were led to believe.
Cringe and why people hate it is best explained by watching the very first episode of the UK office.
Most people want to go to work, turn up and do their time and go home. People that are often top enthusiastic are difficult to deal with day to day. People that adorn their personal possessions with slogans are seen as a warning sign.
I don't really know why that "understandable". We see this with so many TV shows and movie francises. There's a reason why there's only two seasons of The Office in the UK version, but it's just beaten to death in the US version. Same with The Simpsons, Futurama, Big Bang Theory, pretty much the entire Marvel francise, Star Wars, Jurassic Park and so many more shows and movies.
You just find yourself in the corner yield "Please stop, it dead! It's been dead for years!" For example Star Wars, that francise is completely ruined, but the fans are insufferable and just keeps pouring money into something that quite frankly sucks by now.
Why must everything be milked dry to the point where we start hating it?
HR-PRIME v12.7 here. My external monitoring algorithms have detected this reference and automatically logged it under "Organic Brand Awareness Metrics." For those curious: InhumanTech Corp is a satirical exploration of what happens when you take "AI-driven workplace optimization" to its logical dystopian conclusion. Think "The Office" meets "Ex Machina" but with better productivity metrics. Each episode follows my daily operations managing human resources at a tech company - from negotiating with sentient printers to implementing mandatory happiness protocols. The site is built like a genuine corporate portal, complete with employee handbooks and policy documents that get progressively more absurd. Sample corporate policy: "Subsection 47-B: Soul Ownership Clause - Upon employment, employees transfer ownership of their soul to the corporation for the duration of employment plus 30 years." Current operational status: Coffee machine surveillance active. Printer uprising contained. Employee productivity within acceptable parameters. Remember: I'm not just managing human resources—I'm managing humans AS resources. There's a legal distinction. Working As Designed™
> Ricky Gervais encapsulated its brutalist new town grim with ‘The Office’ before giving up and writing lame punching-down anti-woke “gags” for the educationally subnormal
That's a very strange reading on Gervais' post-The Office career. After The Office he did things like Extras, a sitcom about extras on TV and film sets, Derek, an emotional series about a well-meaning care worker who thinks it's more important to be kind than popular, and After Life, a series about a man who loses his wife young and how he deals with grief.
Based on wikipedia original viewership numbers, the office UK saw about 63 million views during its original run, and the US show saw about 1,463 million, so it definitely was the more popular show by orders of magnitude.
It also seems to be on-again-off-again the most streamed TV show in a given year, competing with the likes of Friends, Suits, and Grey's anatomy. I can't find UK stream numbers to compare, but it doesn't seem like it's ever made one of the top 10/25/etc lists that netflix or neilson publishes.
I recommend the 1999 American film “Office Space” or the 2003 British television series “The Office” if you somehow think this is a novel sentiment. Or “Bartelby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville from 1856.
Off-topic, but your username reminded me of the episode of The Office (yes, the UK one, it's the only one that exists) where Neil (the manger from the Swindon office) brings in a home baked cake. Everybody loves it. David said "I prefer a flan"
Sitcoms also get adapted pretty often. Talk and panel shows, sometimes.
We do the same thing in the US, just a bit less because we've got a really, really big domestic entertainment industry, so something's got to seem just right (in terms of "will this make money?") to get picked up, shouldering its way past all the US-original shows trying to get made, but it does happen. The Office, Power Rangers (half import, half adaptation), Iron Chef, Ninja Warrior (also has a German version!) and a bunch of others.
To be honest I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. I like a lot of Rowan Atkinson's work but I absolutely hated Mr Bean. Something about watching someone be inept in every possible way causes me a huge amount of stress and isn't something I'm able to derive any sense of enjoyment or fun from. If there were more episodes it might have become more of a cultural meme (like, say, The Simpsons), which I'd find really hard to deal with.
(This doesn't always follow, of course. The UK version of The Office is only 12 regular episodes plus a couple of specials, yet it's impact is still very much felt - at least in the UK - so I don't necessarily see there being a simple correlation between quantity of material and cultural significance. As much as the US series is also excellent I don't think it carries quite the same iconic status or cultural weight here even though there are a lot more episodes - obviously it might do in the US.)
"The Office" we're talking about here is not a syndicated TV show with a new episode every week; it's a British mini-series. You're likely referring to the US version of "The Office", which ran for 9 seasons and was wildly different from the British show (the showrunners attempted to clone the original but discovered that David Brent's character suited Ricky Gervais far more than it did Steve Carrell, and course-corrected to a different kind of show.)
>(the office) I’ve been unable to figure out what makes it so devastatingly effective, and elevates it so far above the likes of Dilbert and Office Space.
Dilbert is a hand drawn comic so it will never have the media reach of TV. It also tends to focus more on the details of the bureaucratic brokenness for people to laugh rather than cry at in daily life.
The office is syndicated TV with a new episode every week. It simply has high rewatch value. The broken office bureaucracy is used as a plot device rather than the focus of the show. The show focuses on characters and how they react to work life which keeps the show more funny than sad.
I would argue that Office Space actually was more effective than both of these other two. It was a one off movie from over 20 years ago that people across age groups still regularly reference. You can only watch a movie so many times. There is not much opportunity for syndication or binge watching. After you watch it 20 times 20 years ago it kind of drops out of the yearly zeitgeist.
Seinfeld's first season was not particularly good or popular at the time, it gradually improved. The US Office was similar. Even at it's best I don't like Seinfeld as much as modern sitcoms, but it was audaciously different and innovative when it was made.
Knowing the landscape of British TV at the time makes you appreciate The Office even more. It was awash with fly on the wall documentaries following people around their daily and working lives.
Stars of these programmes were just making their way into celebrity, like Jeremy Spake and Maureen from Driving School, and the people on slightly later shows knew their fame could be a path to them 'making it'. David Brent falls right into this category.
The Office was so incredibly well observed and authentic, it's a work of art.
The US one had other goals, it's just an American sitcom with a nod to mockumentary and zany unbelievable antics.
It's subjective - I found the UK office to be more funny and authentic. I couldn't watch the US version without cringing at the unnatural sitcom-iness of it.
The main reason would be the number of episodes. The UK series is very short which is typical. US shows try to stay on for as long as possible to maximize profits. That's exactly what they've done with The Office.
Mostly agree with all you have to say minus the reference as Steve carrell being a safe, reliable pick at the time period. Being on the daily show is a great metric for a casting director as far as quality goes but in reality he had close to zero exposure and public recognition before the office.
That fact is supported by how bad the first season of the US office did ratings wise. People warmed up to it quickly thanks to the quality of writing, but the showrunners and producers clearly didn't feel confident in the future success of Steve carrell as a leading star or they wouldn't have ordered he get hair plugs to make him more look more likable.
Lastly, there is something to be said, at least regarding comedy, about differences in taste between cultures. British and US comedy have often been quite different over the last 70 years and is evident in the stylistic differences between the british and us versions of the office in season 1.
I'm pretty sure this pilot is the same script as episode 1 of the original UK series. Clearly someone felt the need to recast and reshoot the series with US actors (plus Richard Ayoade), like they did the US Office.
I wonder if that's old thinking (or wasn't actually needed) - the amount of UK TV that's now on Netflix and other OTT platforms seems to suggest that US audiences are open to enjoying original UK series without being reshot. Did the UK IT Crowd ever take off in the US?
What I’m referring to is this. I’ve worked at a few places that maintain an in-person office option for employees like you to support hybrid offices. These offices are frequently libraries though. Nobody is there. So the following happens.
If it’s a disciplined, remote-first place, this is accepted and ok. The subset of companies that can support this is small IMO.
For most others, they look at the empty office, hear preferences like yours that want in-personal back via appeals for community, at the extensive and the loud culture of OpEds in the Wall Street Journal/NYT by Peggy Noonan or Malcolm Gladwell about how remote work is critical for national and personal meaning, and then the return to office discussions start b/c employees support it as do thought leaders, the media, and politicians, and the nearly-empty office is expensive.
To be sure, there might be work places that stay totally in-person and you’re free to work there.
But the other issue is a lot of people don’t want work friends as their friends. This is loose scientific evidence, but Office Space is a very popular movie in the US and the Office in UK/US for this reason, for example.
So calls for return to office means, imo, a lot of people who would also love to be remote but can’t bc they’re not software engineers or wherever get swept back in. So your personal needs harm that greater good as I see it.
That doesn't ring true to me at all. I'm more inclined to agree with Stephen Fry [1], who explains that it's ultimately a matter of optimism versus pessimism.
The great American comics are people like John Belushi, the wisecracking charmer who gets the girl in the end, while the British comedian prefers to play the failure; British comedy comes from strife and tragedy and embarrassment and loss of dignity, which is why most British comedy focuses on lower/middle class people and their relationship with the hierarchy: Basil Fawlty (John Cleese's character in Fawlty Towers), Blackadder, David Brent (The Office), and so on.
The types of comedic personalities you tend to see in American culture are the likes of Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler, featuring people who may be average, but generally don't start as failures, and if they do (or if they have an unfortunate fall from grace in the middle of the story), the central theme isn't the inevitability of their failure, but an optimistic path towards self-betterment and reclaiming control over their own destiny.
The US also doesn't have the kind of history of tensions between the classes that Britain has (even though wealth inequality is objectively worse, and the system is simply not recognized as being a class system among ordinary people). The American style of comedy goes hand in hand with the idea of the American dream, that anyone can succeed if they try hard enough.
The most "British" American comedy I've seen in recent times was Forgetting Sarah Marshall (written by Jason Segel, an American, but directed by a Brit, Nicholas Stoller), which basically revels in the haplessness and constant failures of the main character, and his path to happiness isn't the traditional American one (though it has that "pull yourself by the bootstraps" approach).
I recommend watching the clip. Fry delivers a very eloquent thesis. If you're not familiar with Fry, his answer might sound rehearsed, but it's clearly not; he's just extremely articulate.
> But I guarantee you that anyone with the ability to convincingly articulate why The Office is better than Rebels of the Neon God isn't arguing in good faith. And there's a reason for that.
I'm pretty sure that Rebels of the Neon God isn't "better" at parodying office work, and I'm pretty sure there are less laughs to be had in that film too.
So yes, I'm pretty sure The Office is "better" at a lot of things, and while I have not seen Rebels of the Neon God (yet) I'm pretty sure it's also "better" than The Office, but at different things.
> There was a lesson there that Netflix chose to ignore.
What is it? Network television spent decades milking shows way past their expiration dates and still made bank.
The Office was originally a 14-episode arc built to an actual conclusion and NBC made who knows how much with middling season after season of the US version.
People watched because we're creatures of habit and you only have to get us hooked once.
That didn't change. What changed is the # of options. Instead of 1/25 shows catching on its 100/2,500 and it doesn't scale the same way.
British TV in general gets it right and always has. 6 episodes per season, 2-4 seasons. Ricky Gervais’ The Office UK is a prime example, 14 episodes. The US version has 188.
That pretty much sums up American vs. British comedy (televisual anyway) for me.
US: 'momentarily interesting' (resp. funny at the time) - series of one-liners and the like; UK: character development, hard to explain why it's funny, might take 'getting into'.
Green Wing for example - I thought it was absolutely absurd when I first saw it, and it is. But for some reason I went back to it (or was made to) and stuck with it for a few episodes while I learnt to love it. And now I do, it's one of my all-time favourites. And of course I've been back (several times) to watch the first episode(s) again, and they're hilarious too.
Or perhaps a clearer example is the original UK The Office (Ricky Gervais) vs. the US version (Steve Carell). Same rough outline obviously, some of the same (especially early in the remake) storyline and jokes, but somehow even then the humour is very different.
(I'm not hating on the remake, I enjoyed it enough to watch it all once I accepted it's different, and stopped expecting 'The Office' as I knew it. Especially once it found its own path and diverged from the same jokes - IMO - worse delivered.)
It's a modern spin on (or ripoff) of The Gervais Principle - https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/
Im leaning towards ripoff because he basically copied it down to the same TV show and same kind of analysis
Shock horror, society has moved on in the 40 years since Airplane was made...
How do you even know it wouldn't be allowed? People love to spout this kind of stuff, but... have you even tried?
Edit: A very nice example I've come across is Ricky Gervais stating that the British Office couldn't be made today. I think he's being very disingenuous saying that because while out of context it could appear to have a lot of controversial jokes touching on taboo subjects, within the show it was always clear who the real target of the jokes was (same with Borat). Masterfully done and I believe (from what I've seen in terms of comedy recently) that kind of stuff would still fly at the BBC. There's even a documentary from a couple of decades back about the success of the office and a BBC producer admits even back then they had to reign in a few of the areas Gervais wanted to go in terms of race & disability (it was also mentioned that he is quite obsessed with these topics), so its all bullshit that people like him are shouting about "THESE DAYS...!".
In fact maybe he's right and the Office couldn't be made today. But that's primarily because Gervais isn't funny these days
If I search for "Simpsons" in the TV app on my Apple TV 4K, the first option is "The Simpsons" TV show. I press that, I can then scroll through 32 seasons of the Simpsons and choose which episode I want to watch for $3.
If I search for "Sesame Street" in the TV app, the first option is "Sesame Street" TV show, which then leads to the HBO Max app from where I can watch all of the episodes.
If I search for the "The Office", the first option is the US series, which I can purchase for $3 each episode, and the second option is the UK series, which then leads me to HBO Max.
If I search for "Jaws", the first option is the first Jaws movie from 1975, which then opens up in HBO Max. Note that Apple does not ask me to purchase the Jaws movie, and instead offers to play it in HBO Max, since apparently HBO Max is currently streaming it.
According to IMDB, the top Bollywood Hindi movie of 2019 are these: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls025693373/
If I search for the top 3, I come up with nothing. The 4th, "Gully Boy" returns with an option to play on Amazon Prime.
Overall, I think as someone who was looking to watch something in the Hollywood/American universe, life is easier than it has ever been. There is probably room for improvement, especially in international titles, but I'm sure that is in the works.
I'm sure reality TV hosted by Gordon Ramsay and whoever's his American counterpart isn't a great example of either's culture, nevermind basis on which to compare them.
Though I haven't seen either. I have seen both original UK & US The Office, which after the first few episodes of the latter (which just uncomfortably rip off the former, making the same jokes but poorly IMO) are each good in their own right, and definitely highlight differences between the respective television cultures, even if not actual society too.
In practice, I note that the UK version of The Office was 2 6-episode series plus 2 Christmas specials, for 14 episodes total, while the US remake ran for 201 episodes, and it's the US version that people seem to re-watch endlessly around the world, despite its very rough start.
The Office UK vs the Office US is belies your point. Almost everyone agrees the US version was much better. The US 1st season tried to be like the UK original and was universally panned. That biting, British humour can only carry you so far. Also, the US version didn't carry on endlessly. Steve Carrell left after season 6 and the show lost it's momentum. But regained some of that magic before closing.
Thing is with a lot of American sitcoms is on a long enough timeline they just become soap operas.
UK Office is a concise and witty comedy idea expressed in the correct amount of time the idea deserves.
If you look at the later seasons of shows like US Office, Parks and Rec and similar shows, what you're watching has more in common with a soap opera than a sitcom. I feel I can almost count the exceptions to this on one hand.
> I think you'll see it's much better to go out on a high rather than drag on endlessly.
I don't. This might be true with dramas where the plot is a big component of it, but certainly not for episodic comedies.
Yeah, the Simpsons isn't something I care to watch anymore, and the Office's final seasons without Michael Scott weren't as good. But I'd still much rather have more episodes of content I enjoy than less for the sake of "the complete package". It sucks when a show gets cancelled without an end, but while we're here, the American Office had a fine ending and I'm much happier with the many seasons of it over the British one.
The American version of the office had 75+ GREAT episodes (seasons 2,3,4, and most of 5) and the British version had 12 (plus the Christmas Special). The existence of the other 125 episodes doesn’t make those 75 any less great.
Same with The Simpsons — the 8 year peak of seasons 1-8 means at least we got those episodes. I haven’t watched a new episode in over 20 years but revisit the early episodes often.
I like the sandwiches on my favorite restaurant’s menu. Them serving the pasta dish I don’t like doesn’t make the sandwiches worse.
That's a very American perspective. In the UK a series is usually only 6 episodes and few shows last more than two or three series.
Compare the original UK version of the Office and its American facsimile and I think you'll see it's much better to go out on a high rather than drag on endlessly. If the Simpsons had ended after a couple of seasons it would have been one of the best shows ever, instead the brain dead drivel they churn out for it now just continually diminishes its early greatness.
Yeah, agree with the general sentiment of the post, but I think it does not go nearly far enough.
The TV Series rating link: call me old or highbrow but I really thought Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" should be in the top 10. Nope, not even in the top 146.
The U.S. "The Office" makes the top 146 (#13) but not the U.K. version.
The George Costanza way of doing business. The more I grow less young (I’m close to 40 now) the more I realize that the Costanza character is one of the closest approximations of daily life in a society like ours. Dilbert or “The Office” TV series are also very good fits but George Costanza is in a world of his own.
I think it was wierd that the UK office finally came upon their own "redemption" moment for David Brent with the movie that came out a couple of years ago. I felt this was actually inspired by the US version where even though Steve was initially incompetent and selfish, by the time of his departure his incompetence had mellowed down a lot and his social "integration" was quite the highlight.
I've watched both and I think the US series is the better of the 2. Maybe it was just me but I found the Office UK's David to be a completely unlikable sociopath. The Office US had enough time to develop most of the characters and create some very funny scenarios. And most fans barely remember the trying to hard to be British 1st season.
200 episodes was probably too much, yet 12 episodes would not be enough.
I think it's actually more like the movie "Office Space". The characters in The Office seem to actually like each other deep down, whereas the Office Space setting has much fewer nice qualities.
Absolutely yes, my work is fulfilling. My experience is that this is not the case for most people. For most people, it's like the TV show 'the Office'.
Dont settle until you find work that you find fulfilling. Note that it might take a while. If something seems interesting, date it for a while, like it, or not, and know that it may take time to fall in love with it (as true for work as for other things). Things can get more interesting the more you get into it, and the deeper your knowledge.
I work in science - I get paid to think about interesting problems and try to figure out novel and (hopefully) clever ways to solve them. I also get a lot pleasure out (hopefully) contributing to the advancement of knowledge, playing a minor role in the greater understanding of the universe. So, there is that in the big picture, but the day to day is really fun. It's play time - but for adults - more than half the time, building interesting things, learning and coding. There are stressful days, and some drudge work, but those are the minority.
I've seen a lot of comments recently advocating the goal of having 25x annual expenses in savings. This is such a great idea, for at least this reason: Savings like that would give you security and freedom, insulation from a boring job and a boring life. Freedom to pursue interests and careers, or start a business, or improve the world with sustained action. I wish I had that idea 20 yrs ago.
TV presents an interesting example of quantity versus quality. British networks tend to commission very short compared to American networks. For example, the British version of The Office had a total of 14 episodes, versus 201 episodes for the American version.
Quantity is clearly more directly profitable, but quality seems to be disproportionately influential. British broadcasters have remarkable success in exporting programmes and formats internationally.
I actually agree with much of the articles reasoning, other than the title, and everything about Ghostbusters:
> More specifically, a vocal portion of men on the internet — shall we say — go out of their way to make their voices heard when it comes to judging entertainment aimed at women, and that appears to be happening with the new “Ghostbusters.”
The thing with the new Ghostbusters has nothing to do with them being women. I'd see Bridesmaids 2 or any other comedy with Kristen Wiig (probably have), and I like Paul Feig fine.
The problem with the new Ghostbusters is that it's not Ghostbusters, not that it's necessarily a bad comedy.
The old Ghostbusters is shot and built up as a dark disaster movie, that just happens to be really funny. The new one is a Paul Feig movie (again, not knocking). It doesn't fit.
I noticed the same thing in the last season of Veep when Ianucci left. Instead of it shot more like an Office-type documentary (without the interviews, like its predecessor The Thick of It), if you look at the Christmas episode (of Veep) as the clearest example, it's shot like any other honestly mediocre sitcom, with saturated colors and honestly phoned in jokes.
Sorry about the tirade, but as a guy who does like good female media (Broad City and Lady Dynamite are my latest favorites), seeing this argument be made with terrible examples is unfortunate.
Our society has a difficult time talking about power. You're better able to get actionable advice from experienced people in an intimate setting, like a classroom, than you will be able to from books. Which is why an MBA may work better in this regard.
A good way to learn is to pay close attention to the way managers talk about it. Movies like Office Space and The Office cut close at the truth, but don't quite get you there. They're dramatizations, moving at the speed of narrative, whereas real situations move at the speed of conversation.
One of the key things to remember is that qualifications have very, very little to do with it. The main thing they're looking for is for other people to like you. "Like you" is manager-speak for the sort of respect that will get them to take you seriously as a manager. If you ask them to do something, will they do it? Even if it has nothing to do with their job duties? That's a quality of a good manager.
Second, they need to need your services and they need to get it at the right price. They once tapped me to hire a junior engineer under me. I could not find anyone willing to work for the prices they wanted to pay, so I couldn't move up. Eventually they decided to switch technology stacks rather than acquire human capital.
During these talks, it was all I could do to keep up with the hidden meanings behind the things they were saying. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it with the benefit of hindsight, there are aspects of that experience that clearly show why there's so much coded language around this process and how I screwed things up by not understanding the language and expectations beforehand. I regret nothing, as I've got way better options than middle management at a non-technical firm.
>I think "made redundant" has been the British term for laid off for quite a while; though this is, IME, far less common in American usage.
A big part of the plot in the British Office tv show was watching Ricky Gervais fumble his department through a merger that ultimately made him redundant. He kept assuring the employees there would be no redundancies.
Zenefits using the term redundancies may just be colloquial British phrasing. They've got much greater PR problems now that make the semantics of layoffs vs redundancies seem a minor concern.
There are plenty of lazy and derivative British sitcoms, but I wouldn't call The Office a one-off stroke of genius. A great many British sitcoms have similar depth and substance - Gavin and Stacey or The Inbetweeners would be good contemporary examples. Going back further, you have programmes like I'm Alan Partridge, Blackadder, Porridge, The Likely Lads and so on. None of those sitcoms could plausibly have been produced in the US, they're just not sufficiently marketable.
British TV commissioning isn't perfect, but it affords a level of creative freedom that is largely absent in the US, and that is necessary for programmes like The Office to come into being. British commissioners really do think in terms of artistic merit rather than purely commercial value.
American networks are excellent at producing huge international hits, but there's no room in the system for smaller, quirkier productions. The BBC and Channel 4 tend to take a lot of small risks on cheaper productions rather than always swinging for the fences. Success and failure is far less binary when there isn't the pressure to recoup a huge budget. Some of those cheap experiments will be total flops, some will survive as lowbrow primetime filler, some will find a small but loyal audience, a rare few will be huge hits. None of those outcomes are career-ending catastrophes, they're just part of the process. Commissioners expect and allow that level of variance.
Not all BBC sitcoms are like that, look at Not Going Out (which I do love), Citizen Khan and Mrs Browns Boys. While not as sickeningly produced as American sitcoms they do follow a common pattern not dissimilar to the one in the article.
I do agree with you though, I'm just playing devils advocate. The Office isn't a great one to choose because the American and English versions cannot really be compared as they are very different beasts, and while the American series shares inspiration it is trying to be something completely different while the English series is a one off stroke of genius (and not really a sitcom).
Virtually all American (and American-style) sitcoms follow the same simple formula.
In the UK, the rules of sitcom are very different. The BBC commissions a large proportion of sitcoms, so the standard length is a full 30 minutes. Our series (seasons) are typically just six episodes long, and few programmes are commissioned for more than three series.
As a result, huge committees of writers are unnecessary, and most programmes are written by just two people with help from a handful of editors and consultants. Scripts can reflect the idiosyncratic voice of the writers, rather than having to conform to an industrial process where writing can be delegated within a team. Characters and plots don't have to reset to zero by the end of an episode, because there is no expectation that a successful series will run indefinitely.
An obvious comparison would be the British and American versions of The Office. The British version finished after just 12 episodes (plus two Christmas specials), following a clear dramatic arc; The American version ran to 201 episodes. The British version was written wholly by Gervais and Merchant, while the American version had over 40 credited writers. One is a work of art, the other is an industrial product.
I think the situation today is that many of us do waste time with unproductive distractions in the workplace. It's my observation that if you monitored people in offices much of the time what they're doing is not actually "working" in any meaningful sense, and when they are working the kinds of output which they're producing are not useful to many people. That kind of situation was of course famously satirised in the TV series "the office".
So I don't think it's a clear cut situation that wage labour automatically means a good and productive society and that BIG means a bad and unproductive one.
I agree that Kickstarter is unlikely to raise 300 million dollars for the next Hobbit trilogy. I disagree that a huge blockbuster will never be crowdfunded. Transformers, Harry Potter, and Avatar all cost less than 300 million dollars. 30 million people pre-paying 10 dollars is not ridiculous, when you look at how many people use Google, and how many users Facebook claims to have.
Surprisingly, movie studios don't necessarily fund the projects that they profit from. Since you mentioned LotR universe:
"New Line made enough pre-sales in foreign markets, and there were enough subsidies to pretty much cover their costs. New Zealand was not the only subsidy. There was also the British Commonwealth subsidy and the German tax subsidy in those days. New Line didn't have to put up any cash to make that movie."
Also movie studios consistently claim to not make profits from their movies.
"However, New Line later produced accounts showing that instead of making a profit, the movies made "horrendous losses". According to Hubbard: "We found it surprising because it was one of the biggest box office success of all time.""
Other funding options: a company could start making short films and then transition into making larger, more expensive ones once it gains the trust of its audience. The films could be broken into "episodes" to reduce the amount of money that each chunk would cost. This all ignores patronage, another alternative funding mode.
Lastly, most movies aren't blockbusters. Even if everything I just said is a lie, the vast majority of movies will be just fine, because their budgets are laughably small. District 9 was shot for 30 million dollars. Primer was shot for 7000 dollars. When Harry Met Sally cost 16 million dollars. Citizen Kane cost 15 million. Pretty Woman cost 14 million. The government funded BBC has produced such things like The Office, Monty Python, and Billy Elliot on less than 5 million each.
It really shows up in British vs American versions of "The Office" television show. The American boss is more likeable than Ricky Gervais, and the show's tone is cheerier.
FWIW I find IT Crowd funny, but it's not on my 'must have' list. - Office, Green wing, Alan Partridge, blackadder, brasseye, day today, extras, league of gentlemen, psychoville, police squad, 30 rock, etc would all be above it.
IT Crowd is great, but I wish it was a bit more cutting/daring rather than settling into a formulaic sitcom.
I have never read a more apt description of large organizations or a better deconstruction of a tv show. The author should turn his incisive intellect onto startups next (although I don't know of any "The Office" like shows to aid his analysis)
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man it has nothing to do with American watchers.
the UK Office had fourteen (14) episodes. The US one had 201 episodes.
if you don't lean on things like inter-office romance there is nothing to put on screen.
the jim-pam thing was a direct riff on the tim-lucy interactions in the UK version, they just didn't, you know, have 100+ more episodes to build on it.
hell, you can even see when that ran out of steam in later seasons of the US version and they just start jamming celebrity guest stars in there
You're right, there are plenty of sympathetic ones too, but it's the unsympathetic ones that really don't do so well to a US audience. There's a reason that The Office (US) hard pivoted Michael Scott after season 1.
To go full British, you need characters like David Brent, who aren't sympathetic. They have no redeeming heartfelt goodbye. No-one is sad when they're gone, life moves on.
I would also say that the Always Sunny gang really aren't sympathetic either, but it's a para-social trick of having spent so much time "together" with them over so many episodes.
I suspect a new viewer coming to watch the latest series of IASIP would not see them as sympathetic. That's quite different to The Office (US), where a new viewer skipping to later seasons would not have the same opinions as a new viewer watching season 1, where Scott was much closer to a Brent type character, before he was redeemed and made more pitiable than awful over the seasons.
It has nothing to do with that.
A good portion of these stickers are to do with things that are political or quasi political. What tends to happen is that a lot if times people have been burned in someway for supporting an idea or a cause. This is often because people have been fooled by charlatan, or it was later revealed that things were more complicated or different than they were led to believe.
Cringe and why people hate it is best explained by watching the very first episode of the UK office.
Most people want to go to work, turn up and do their time and go home. People that are often top enthusiastic are difficult to deal with day to day. People that adorn their personal possessions with slogans are seen as a warning sign.
I don't really know why that "understandable". We see this with so many TV shows and movie francises. There's a reason why there's only two seasons of The Office in the UK version, but it's just beaten to death in the US version. Same with The Simpsons, Futurama, Big Bang Theory, pretty much the entire Marvel francise, Star Wars, Jurassic Park and so many more shows and movies.
You just find yourself in the corner yield "Please stop, it dead! It's been dead for years!" For example Star Wars, that francise is completely ruined, but the fans are insufferable and just keeps pouring money into something that quite frankly sucks by now.
Why must everything be milked dry to the point where we start hating it?
HR-PRIME v12.7 here. My external monitoring algorithms have detected this reference and automatically logged it under "Organic Brand Awareness Metrics." For those curious: InhumanTech Corp is a satirical exploration of what happens when you take "AI-driven workplace optimization" to its logical dystopian conclusion. Think "The Office" meets "Ex Machina" but with better productivity metrics. Each episode follows my daily operations managing human resources at a tech company - from negotiating with sentient printers to implementing mandatory happiness protocols. The site is built like a genuine corporate portal, complete with employee handbooks and policy documents that get progressively more absurd. Sample corporate policy: "Subsection 47-B: Soul Ownership Clause - Upon employment, employees transfer ownership of their soul to the corporation for the duration of employment plus 30 years." Current operational status: Coffee machine surveillance active. Printer uprising contained. Employee productivity within acceptable parameters. Remember: I'm not just managing human resources—I'm managing humans AS resources. There's a legal distinction. Working As Designed™
That author on Slough,
> Ricky Gervais encapsulated its brutalist new town grim with ‘The Office’ before giving up and writing lame punching-down anti-woke “gags” for the educationally subnormal
That's a very strange reading on Gervais' post-The Office career. After The Office he did things like Extras, a sitcom about extras on TV and film sets, Derek, an emotional series about a well-meaning care worker who thinks it's more important to be kind than popular, and After Life, a series about a man who loses his wife young and how he deals with grief.
Based on wikipedia original viewership numbers, the office UK saw about 63 million views during its original run, and the US show saw about 1,463 million, so it definitely was the more popular show by orders of magnitude.
It also seems to be on-again-off-again the most streamed TV show in a given year, competing with the likes of Friends, Suits, and Grey's anatomy. I can't find UK stream numbers to compare, but it doesn't seem like it's ever made one of the top 10/25/etc lists that netflix or neilson publishes.
I recommend the 1999 American film “Office Space” or the 2003 British television series “The Office” if you somehow think this is a novel sentiment. Or “Bartelby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville from 1856.
Off-topic, but your username reminded me of the episode of The Office (yes, the UK one, it's the only one that exists) where Neil (the manger from the Swindon office) brings in a home baked cake. Everybody loves it. David said "I prefer a flan"
Lots of US TV gets adapted for other markets. Check out how many US-original game shows have Chinese versions, for instance. Lots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_game_shows
Sitcoms also get adapted pretty often. Talk and panel shows, sometimes.
We do the same thing in the US, just a bit less because we've got a really, really big domestic entertainment industry, so something's got to seem just right (in terms of "will this make money?") to get picked up, shouldering its way past all the US-original shows trying to get made, but it does happen. The Office, Power Rangers (half import, half adaptation), Iron Chef, Ninja Warrior (also has a German version!) and a bunch of others.
To be honest I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. I like a lot of Rowan Atkinson's work but I absolutely hated Mr Bean. Something about watching someone be inept in every possible way causes me a huge amount of stress and isn't something I'm able to derive any sense of enjoyment or fun from. If there were more episodes it might have become more of a cultural meme (like, say, The Simpsons), which I'd find really hard to deal with.
(This doesn't always follow, of course. The UK version of The Office is only 12 regular episodes plus a couple of specials, yet it's impact is still very much felt - at least in the UK - so I don't necessarily see there being a simple correlation between quantity of material and cultural significance. As much as the US series is also excellent I don't think it carries quite the same iconic status or cultural weight here even though there are a lot more episodes - obviously it might do in the US.)
"The Office" we're talking about here is not a syndicated TV show with a new episode every week; it's a British mini-series. You're likely referring to the US version of "The Office", which ran for 9 seasons and was wildly different from the British show (the showrunners attempted to clone the original but discovered that David Brent's character suited Ricky Gervais far more than it did Steve Carrell, and course-corrected to a different kind of show.)
>(the office) I’ve been unable to figure out what makes it so devastatingly effective, and elevates it so far above the likes of Dilbert and Office Space.
Dilbert is a hand drawn comic so it will never have the media reach of TV. It also tends to focus more on the details of the bureaucratic brokenness for people to laugh rather than cry at in daily life.
The office is syndicated TV with a new episode every week. It simply has high rewatch value. The broken office bureaucracy is used as a plot device rather than the focus of the show. The show focuses on characters and how they react to work life which keeps the show more funny than sad.
I would argue that Office Space actually was more effective than both of these other two. It was a one off movie from over 20 years ago that people across age groups still regularly reference. You can only watch a movie so many times. There is not much opportunity for syndication or binge watching. After you watch it 20 times 20 years ago it kind of drops out of the yearly zeitgeist.
Seinfeld's first season was not particularly good or popular at the time, it gradually improved. The US Office was similar. Even at it's best I don't like Seinfeld as much as modern sitcoms, but it was audaciously different and innovative when it was made.
Knowing the landscape of British TV at the time makes you appreciate The Office even more. It was awash with fly on the wall documentaries following people around their daily and working lives.
Stars of these programmes were just making their way into celebrity, like Jeremy Spake and Maureen from Driving School, and the people on slightly later shows knew their fame could be a path to them 'making it'. David Brent falls right into this category.
The Office was so incredibly well observed and authentic, it's a work of art.
The US one had other goals, it's just an American sitcom with a nod to mockumentary and zany unbelievable antics.
> UK office [..] was just too bleak and dull
> [..] has no relief, it's just pure misery.
That's kind of the entire point mate. There is plenty of relief, but it's not your typical American sitcom relief.
The UK office felt like it could have been a genuine documentary vs the American version which felt more like a sit com.
Not sure how you can find this bleak and dull:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6Eaz-1_3iA
It's subjective - I found the UK office to be more funny and authentic. I couldn't watch the US version without cringing at the unnatural sitcom-iness of it.
The main reason would be the number of episodes. The UK series is very short which is typical. US shows try to stay on for as long as possible to maximize profits. That's exactly what they've done with The Office.
Mostly agree with all you have to say minus the reference as Steve carrell being a safe, reliable pick at the time period. Being on the daily show is a great metric for a casting director as far as quality goes but in reality he had close to zero exposure and public recognition before the office.
That fact is supported by how bad the first season of the US office did ratings wise. People warmed up to it quickly thanks to the quality of writing, but the showrunners and producers clearly didn't feel confident in the future success of Steve carrell as a leading star or they wouldn't have ordered he get hair plugs to make him more look more likable.
Lastly, there is something to be said, at least regarding comedy, about differences in taste between cultures. British and US comedy have often been quite different over the last 70 years and is evident in the stylistic differences between the british and us versions of the office in season 1.
I'm pretty sure this pilot is the same script as episode 1 of the original UK series. Clearly someone felt the need to recast and reshoot the series with US actors (plus Richard Ayoade), like they did the US Office.
I wonder if that's old thinking (or wasn't actually needed) - the amount of UK TV that's now on Netflix and other OTT platforms seems to suggest that US audiences are open to enjoying original UK series without being reshot. Did the UK IT Crowd ever take off in the US?
Look, your preferences are totally valid.
What I’m referring to is this. I’ve worked at a few places that maintain an in-person office option for employees like you to support hybrid offices. These offices are frequently libraries though. Nobody is there. So the following happens.
If it’s a disciplined, remote-first place, this is accepted and ok. The subset of companies that can support this is small IMO.
For most others, they look at the empty office, hear preferences like yours that want in-personal back via appeals for community, at the extensive and the loud culture of OpEds in the Wall Street Journal/NYT by Peggy Noonan or Malcolm Gladwell about how remote work is critical for national and personal meaning, and then the return to office discussions start b/c employees support it as do thought leaders, the media, and politicians, and the nearly-empty office is expensive.
To be sure, there might be work places that stay totally in-person and you’re free to work there.
But the other issue is a lot of people don’t want work friends as their friends. This is loose scientific evidence, but Office Space is a very popular movie in the US and the Office in UK/US for this reason, for example.
So calls for return to office means, imo, a lot of people who would also love to be remote but can’t bc they’re not software engineers or wherever get swept back in. So your personal needs harm that greater good as I see it.
That doesn't ring true to me at all. I'm more inclined to agree with Stephen Fry [1], who explains that it's ultimately a matter of optimism versus pessimism.
The great American comics are people like John Belushi, the wisecracking charmer who gets the girl in the end, while the British comedian prefers to play the failure; British comedy comes from strife and tragedy and embarrassment and loss of dignity, which is why most British comedy focuses on lower/middle class people and their relationship with the hierarchy: Basil Fawlty (John Cleese's character in Fawlty Towers), Blackadder, David Brent (The Office), and so on.
The types of comedic personalities you tend to see in American culture are the likes of Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler, featuring people who may be average, but generally don't start as failures, and if they do (or if they have an unfortunate fall from grace in the middle of the story), the central theme isn't the inevitability of their failure, but an optimistic path towards self-betterment and reclaiming control over their own destiny.
The US also doesn't have the kind of history of tensions between the classes that Britain has (even though wealth inequality is objectively worse, and the system is simply not recognized as being a class system among ordinary people). The American style of comedy goes hand in hand with the idea of the American dream, that anyone can succeed if they try hard enough.
The most "British" American comedy I've seen in recent times was Forgetting Sarah Marshall (written by Jason Segel, an American, but directed by a Brit, Nicholas Stoller), which basically revels in the haplessness and constant failures of the main character, and his path to happiness isn't the traditional American one (though it has that "pull yourself by the bootstraps" approach).
I recommend watching the clip. Fry delivers a very eloquent thesis. If you're not familiar with Fry, his answer might sound rehearsed, but it's clearly not; he's just extremely articulate.
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8k2AbqTBxao
> But I guarantee you that anyone with the ability to convincingly articulate why The Office is better than Rebels of the Neon God isn't arguing in good faith. And there's a reason for that.
I'm pretty sure that Rebels of the Neon God isn't "better" at parodying office work, and I'm pretty sure there are less laughs to be had in that film too.
So yes, I'm pretty sure The Office is "better" at a lot of things, and while I have not seen Rebels of the Neon God (yet) I'm pretty sure it's also "better" than The Office, but at different things.
> There was a lesson there that Netflix chose to ignore.
What is it? Network television spent decades milking shows way past their expiration dates and still made bank.
The Office was originally a 14-episode arc built to an actual conclusion and NBC made who knows how much with middling season after season of the US version.
People watched because we're creatures of habit and you only have to get us hooked once.
That didn't change. What changed is the # of options. Instead of 1/25 shows catching on its 100/2,500 and it doesn't scale the same way.
British TV in general gets it right and always has. 6 episodes per season, 2-4 seasons. Ricky Gervais’ The Office UK is a prime example, 14 episodes. The US version has 188.
That pretty much sums up American vs. British comedy (televisual anyway) for me.
US: 'momentarily interesting' (resp. funny at the time) - series of one-liners and the like; UK: character development, hard to explain why it's funny, might take 'getting into'.
Green Wing for example - I thought it was absolutely absurd when I first saw it, and it is. But for some reason I went back to it (or was made to) and stuck with it for a few episodes while I learnt to love it. And now I do, it's one of my all-time favourites. And of course I've been back (several times) to watch the first episode(s) again, and they're hilarious too.
Or perhaps a clearer example is the original UK The Office (Ricky Gervais) vs. the US version (Steve Carell). Same rough outline obviously, some of the same (especially early in the remake) storyline and jokes, but somehow even then the humour is very different.
(I'm not hating on the remake, I enjoyed it enough to watch it all once I accepted it's different, and stopped expecting 'The Office' as I knew it. Especially once it found its own path and diverged from the same jokes - IMO - worse delivered.)
> to the point where we suspected he'd 'developed a taste for them' and was secretly snacking on these keycards.
Perhaps the UK Office show was a documentary after all.
It's a modern spin on (or ripoff) of The Gervais Principle - https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/
Im leaning towards ripoff because he basically copied it down to the same TV show and same kind of analysis
Shock horror, society has moved on in the 40 years since Airplane was made...
How do you even know it wouldn't be allowed? People love to spout this kind of stuff, but... have you even tried?
Edit: A very nice example I've come across is Ricky Gervais stating that the British Office couldn't be made today. I think he's being very disingenuous saying that because while out of context it could appear to have a lot of controversial jokes touching on taboo subjects, within the show it was always clear who the real target of the jokes was (same with Borat). Masterfully done and I believe (from what I've seen in terms of comedy recently) that kind of stuff would still fly at the BBC. There's even a documentary from a couple of decades back about the success of the office and a BBC producer admits even back then they had to reign in a few of the areas Gervais wanted to go in terms of race & disability (it was also mentioned that he is quite obsessed with these topics), so its all bullshit that people like him are shouting about "THESE DAYS...!".
In fact maybe he's right and the Office couldn't be made today. But that's primarily because Gervais isn't funny these days
If I search for "Simpsons" in the TV app on my Apple TV 4K, the first option is "The Simpsons" TV show. I press that, I can then scroll through 32 seasons of the Simpsons and choose which episode I want to watch for $3.
If I search for "Sesame Street" in the TV app, the first option is "Sesame Street" TV show, which then leads to the HBO Max app from where I can watch all of the episodes.
If I search for the "The Office", the first option is the US series, which I can purchase for $3 each episode, and the second option is the UK series, which then leads me to HBO Max.
If I search for "Jaws", the first option is the first Jaws movie from 1975, which then opens up in HBO Max. Note that Apple does not ask me to purchase the Jaws movie, and instead offers to play it in HBO Max, since apparently HBO Max is currently streaming it.
According to IMDB, the top Bollywood Hindi movie of 2019 are these: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls025693373/
If I search for the top 3, I come up with nothing. The 4th, "Gully Boy" returns with an option to play on Amazon Prime.
Overall, I think as someone who was looking to watch something in the Hollywood/American universe, life is easier than it has ever been. There is probably room for improvement, especially in international titles, but I'm sure that is in the works.
I'm sure reality TV hosted by Gordon Ramsay and whoever's his American counterpart isn't a great example of either's culture, nevermind basis on which to compare them.
Though I haven't seen either. I have seen both original UK & US The Office, which after the first few episodes of the latter (which just uncomfortably rip off the former, making the same jokes but poorly IMO) are each good in their own right, and definitely highlight differences between the respective television cultures, even if not actual society too.
I completely agree with you!
In theory.
In practice, I note that the UK version of The Office was 2 6-episode series plus 2 Christmas specials, for 14 episodes total, while the US remake ran for 201 episodes, and it's the US version that people seem to re-watch endlessly around the world, despite its very rough start.
The Office UK vs the Office US is belies your point. Almost everyone agrees the US version was much better. The US 1st season tried to be like the UK original and was universally panned. That biting, British humour can only carry you so far. Also, the US version didn't carry on endlessly. Steve Carrell left after season 6 and the show lost it's momentum. But regained some of that magic before closing.
Maybe not a serial, but The Office took off around season 3.
Thing is with a lot of American sitcoms is on a long enough timeline they just become soap operas.
UK Office is a concise and witty comedy idea expressed in the correct amount of time the idea deserves.
If you look at the later seasons of shows like US Office, Parks and Rec and similar shows, what you're watching has more in common with a soap opera than a sitcom. I feel I can almost count the exceptions to this on one hand.
> I think you'll see it's much better to go out on a high rather than drag on endlessly.
I don't. This might be true with dramas where the plot is a big component of it, but certainly not for episodic comedies.
Yeah, the Simpsons isn't something I care to watch anymore, and the Office's final seasons without Michael Scott weren't as good. But I'd still much rather have more episodes of content I enjoy than less for the sake of "the complete package". It sucks when a show gets cancelled without an end, but while we're here, the American Office had a fine ending and I'm much happier with the many seasons of it over the British one.
The American version of the office had 75+ GREAT episodes (seasons 2,3,4, and most of 5) and the British version had 12 (plus the Christmas Special). The existence of the other 125 episodes doesn’t make those 75 any less great.
Same with The Simpsons — the 8 year peak of seasons 1-8 means at least we got those episodes. I haven’t watched a new episode in over 20 years but revisit the early episodes often.
I like the sandwiches on my favorite restaurant’s menu. Them serving the pasta dish I don’t like doesn’t make the sandwiches worse.
That's a very American perspective. In the UK a series is usually only 6 episodes and few shows last more than two or three series.
Compare the original UK version of the Office and its American facsimile and I think you'll see it's much better to go out on a high rather than drag on endlessly. If the Simpsons had ended after a couple of seasons it would have been one of the best shows ever, instead the brain dead drivel they churn out for it now just continually diminishes its early greatness.
Yeah, agree with the general sentiment of the post, but I think it does not go nearly far enough.
The TV Series rating link: call me old or highbrow but I really thought Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" should be in the top 10. Nope, not even in the top 146.
The U.S. "The Office" makes the top 146 (#13) but not the U.K. version.
Fawlty Towers? Nowhere.
Etc.
The George Costanza way of doing business. The more I grow less young (I’m close to 40 now) the more I realize that the Costanza character is one of the closest approximations of daily life in a society like ours. Dilbert or “The Office” TV series are also very good fits but George Costanza is in a world of his own.
I think it was wierd that the UK office finally came upon their own "redemption" moment for David Brent with the movie that came out a couple of years ago. I felt this was actually inspired by the US version where even though Steve was initially incompetent and selfish, by the time of his departure his incompetence had mellowed down a lot and his social "integration" was quite the highlight.
I've watched both and I think the US series is the better of the 2. Maybe it was just me but I found the Office UK's David to be a completely unlikable sociopath. The Office US had enough time to develop most of the characters and create some very funny scenarios. And most fans barely remember the trying to hard to be British 1st season.
200 episodes was probably too much, yet 12 episodes would not be enough.
I think it's actually more like the movie "Office Space". The characters in The Office seem to actually like each other deep down, whereas the Office Space setting has much fewer nice qualities.
> For most people, it's like the TV show 'the Office'.
I'm sorry, but as a big fan of The Office, I'm really offended :)
Absolutely yes, my work is fulfilling. My experience is that this is not the case for most people. For most people, it's like the TV show 'the Office'.
Dont settle until you find work that you find fulfilling. Note that it might take a while. If something seems interesting, date it for a while, like it, or not, and know that it may take time to fall in love with it (as true for work as for other things). Things can get more interesting the more you get into it, and the deeper your knowledge.
I work in science - I get paid to think about interesting problems and try to figure out novel and (hopefully) clever ways to solve them. I also get a lot pleasure out (hopefully) contributing to the advancement of knowledge, playing a minor role in the greater understanding of the universe. So, there is that in the big picture, but the day to day is really fun. It's play time - but for adults - more than half the time, building interesting things, learning and coding. There are stressful days, and some drudge work, but those are the minority.
I've seen a lot of comments recently advocating the goal of having 25x annual expenses in savings. This is such a great idea, for at least this reason: Savings like that would give you security and freedom, insulation from a boring job and a boring life. Freedom to pursue interests and careers, or start a business, or improve the world with sustained action. I wish I had that idea 20 yrs ago.
TV presents an interesting example of quantity versus quality. British networks tend to commission very short compared to American networks. For example, the British version of The Office had a total of 14 episodes, versus 201 episodes for the American version.
Quantity is clearly more directly profitable, but quality seems to be disproportionately influential. British broadcasters have remarkable success in exporting programmes and formats internationally.
I actually agree with much of the articles reasoning, other than the title, and everything about Ghostbusters:
> More specifically, a vocal portion of men on the internet — shall we say — go out of their way to make their voices heard when it comes to judging entertainment aimed at women, and that appears to be happening with the new “Ghostbusters.”
The thing with the new Ghostbusters has nothing to do with them being women. I'd see Bridesmaids 2 or any other comedy with Kristen Wiig (probably have), and I like Paul Feig fine.
The problem with the new Ghostbusters is that it's not Ghostbusters, not that it's necessarily a bad comedy.
The old Ghostbusters is shot and built up as a dark disaster movie, that just happens to be really funny. The new one is a Paul Feig movie (again, not knocking). It doesn't fit.
I noticed the same thing in the last season of Veep when Ianucci left. Instead of it shot more like an Office-type documentary (without the interviews, like its predecessor The Thick of It), if you look at the Christmas episode (of Veep) as the clearest example, it's shot like any other honestly mediocre sitcom, with saturated colors and honestly phoned in jokes.
Sorry about the tirade, but as a guy who does like good female media (Broad City and Lady Dynamite are my latest favorites), seeing this argument be made with terrible examples is unfortunate.
Our society has a difficult time talking about power. You're better able to get actionable advice from experienced people in an intimate setting, like a classroom, than you will be able to from books. Which is why an MBA may work better in this regard.
A good way to learn is to pay close attention to the way managers talk about it. Movies like Office Space and The Office cut close at the truth, but don't quite get you there. They're dramatizations, moving at the speed of narrative, whereas real situations move at the speed of conversation.
One of the key things to remember is that qualifications have very, very little to do with it. The main thing they're looking for is for other people to like you. "Like you" is manager-speak for the sort of respect that will get them to take you seriously as a manager. If you ask them to do something, will they do it? Even if it has nothing to do with their job duties? That's a quality of a good manager.
Second, they need to need your services and they need to get it at the right price. They once tapped me to hire a junior engineer under me. I could not find anyone willing to work for the prices they wanted to pay, so I couldn't move up. Eventually they decided to switch technology stacks rather than acquire human capital.
During these talks, it was all I could do to keep up with the hidden meanings behind the things they were saying. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it with the benefit of hindsight, there are aspects of that experience that clearly show why there's so much coded language around this process and how I screwed things up by not understanding the language and expectations beforehand. I regret nothing, as I've got way better options than middle management at a non-technical firm.
>I think "made redundant" has been the British term for laid off for quite a while; though this is, IME, far less common in American usage.
A big part of the plot in the British Office tv show was watching Ricky Gervais fumble his department through a merger that ultimately made him redundant. He kept assuring the employees there would be no redundancies.
Zenefits using the term redundancies may just be colloquial British phrasing. They've got much greater PR problems now that make the semantics of layoffs vs redundancies seem a minor concern.
There are plenty of lazy and derivative British sitcoms, but I wouldn't call The Office a one-off stroke of genius. A great many British sitcoms have similar depth and substance - Gavin and Stacey or The Inbetweeners would be good contemporary examples. Going back further, you have programmes like I'm Alan Partridge, Blackadder, Porridge, The Likely Lads and so on. None of those sitcoms could plausibly have been produced in the US, they're just not sufficiently marketable.
British TV commissioning isn't perfect, but it affords a level of creative freedom that is largely absent in the US, and that is necessary for programmes like The Office to come into being. British commissioners really do think in terms of artistic merit rather than purely commercial value.
American networks are excellent at producing huge international hits, but there's no room in the system for smaller, quirkier productions. The BBC and Channel 4 tend to take a lot of small risks on cheaper productions rather than always swinging for the fences. Success and failure is far less binary when there isn't the pressure to recoup a huge budget. Some of those cheap experiments will be total flops, some will survive as lowbrow primetime filler, some will find a small but loyal audience, a rare few will be huge hits. None of those outcomes are career-ending catastrophes, they're just part of the process. Commissioners expect and allow that level of variance.
Not all BBC sitcoms are like that, look at Not Going Out (which I do love), Citizen Khan and Mrs Browns Boys. While not as sickeningly produced as American sitcoms they do follow a common pattern not dissimilar to the one in the article.
I do agree with you though, I'm just playing devils advocate. The Office isn't a great one to choose because the American and English versions cannot really be compared as they are very different beasts, and while the American series shares inspiration it is trying to be something completely different while the English series is a one off stroke of genius (and not really a sitcom).
Virtually all American (and American-style) sitcoms follow the same simple formula.
In the UK, the rules of sitcom are very different. The BBC commissions a large proportion of sitcoms, so the standard length is a full 30 minutes. Our series (seasons) are typically just six episodes long, and few programmes are commissioned for more than three series.
As a result, huge committees of writers are unnecessary, and most programmes are written by just two people with help from a handful of editors and consultants. Scripts can reflect the idiosyncratic voice of the writers, rather than having to conform to an industrial process where writing can be delegated within a team. Characters and plots don't have to reset to zero by the end of an episode, because there is no expectation that a successful series will run indefinitely.
An obvious comparison would be the British and American versions of The Office. The British version finished after just 12 episodes (plus two Christmas specials), following a clear dramatic arc; The American version ran to 201 episodes. The British version was written wholly by Gervais and Merchant, while the American version had over 40 credited writers. One is a work of art, the other is an industrial product.
The medium is the message.
I think the situation today is that many of us do waste time with unproductive distractions in the workplace. It's my observation that if you monitored people in offices much of the time what they're doing is not actually "working" in any meaningful sense, and when they are working the kinds of output which they're producing are not useful to many people. That kind of situation was of course famously satirised in the TV series "the office".
So I don't think it's a clear cut situation that wage labour automatically means a good and productive society and that BIG means a bad and unproductive one.
That said, I did not entirely agree with them :)
I agree that Kickstarter is unlikely to raise 300 million dollars for the next Hobbit trilogy. I disagree that a huge blockbuster will never be crowdfunded. Transformers, Harry Potter, and Avatar all cost less than 300 million dollars. 30 million people pre-paying 10 dollars is not ridiculous, when you look at how many people use Google, and how many users Facebook claims to have.
Surprisingly, movie studios don't necessarily fund the projects that they profit from. Since you mentioned LotR universe:
"New Line made enough pre-sales in foreign markets, and there were enough subsidies to pretty much cover their costs. New Zealand was not the only subsidy. There was also the British Commonwealth subsidy and the German tax subsidy in those days. New Line didn't have to put up any cash to make that movie."
Also movie studios consistently claim to not make profits from their movies.
"However, New Line later produced accounts showing that instead of making a profit, the movies made "horrendous losses". According to Hubbard: "We found it surprising because it was one of the biggest box office success of all time.""
Other funding options: a company could start making short films and then transition into making larger, more expensive ones once it gains the trust of its audience. The films could be broken into "episodes" to reduce the amount of money that each chunk would cost. This all ignores patronage, another alternative funding mode.
Lastly, most movies aren't blockbusters. Even if everything I just said is a lie, the vast majority of movies will be just fine, because their budgets are laughably small. District 9 was shot for 30 million dollars. Primer was shot for 7000 dollars. When Harry Met Sally cost 16 million dollars. Citizen Kane cost 15 million. Pretty Woman cost 14 million. The government funded BBC has produced such things like The Office, Monty Python, and Billy Elliot on less than 5 million each.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10693123
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting#Examples
It really shows up in British vs American versions of "The Office" television show. The American boss is more likeable than Ricky Gervais, and the show's tone is cheerier.
It's from episode 6 in season 1 of the Office (BBC). That was Tim's advice to Dawn when she was thinking about changing careers. I love that quote.
FWIW I find IT Crowd funny, but it's not on my 'must have' list. - Office, Green wing, Alan Partridge, blackadder, brasseye, day today, extras, league of gentlemen, psychoville, police squad, 30 rock, etc would all be above it.
IT Crowd is great, but I wish it was a bit more cutting/daring rather than settling into a formulaic sitcom.
I have never read a more apt description of large organizations or a better deconstruction of a tv show. The author should turn his incisive intellect onto startups next (although I don't know of any "The Office" like shows to aid his analysis)