The Medium is Not Enough

It can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that remakes – aka “format purchasing” – have become all the rage in the US of late (and other countries, too). The forthcoming Fall season has shows like Viva Laughlin (remake of the UK’s Viva Blackpool) and Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (remake of the UK’s Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares) as well as existing remakes, such as Ugly Betty, The Office and many other minor shows on cable networks (eg Spouse Swap, Faking It, etc).

It’s a good plan. Why bother having to come up with new series when you can buy in existing successful series from other countries? And why risk having the audience being unable to relate to a different country filled with people who have funny accents and maybe even speak a different language when you can buy the format behind a show more cheaply and then make it yourself with your own cast and your own scripts?

However, there’s a realm of possible pain here. As you’ll have noticed from the demise of US versions of Coupling, Absolutely Fabulous and other shows, it’s possible to lose all the things made a show good in its native country when you remake it.

I’m assuming something like this happened when the networks failed to pick up a remake of BBC4’s The Thick of It. As we all know, The Thick of It is rather excellent, so quite why the US networks weren’t interested is unfathomable unless there were some bad cock-ups along the way.

Is it always the case that a remake has to be worse than the original?

Continue reading “Remakes: any good ones?”