American 'Office' preview unimpresses UK fans

American 'Office' preview unimpresses UK fans
Monday, January 31 2005, 00:04 GMT -- by Neil Wilkes

A preview for the American version of The Office hasn't gone down well with UK fans of the show.

The preview, available through the NBC website, features clips from the first few episodes. Mostly the script is identical to the original, although some changes and additions have been made to suit the US audience.

"It's like some surreal world that has stolen jokes from The Office and made them not funny at all," said one poster on the Digital Spy Forums.

"Gervais and Merchant have created a comedy classic and anyone trying to redo it will fail," added another.

Other posters described the preview as "cheesy," "forced" and "cheap."

The show is due to premiere in the States this March.

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Once again, I'm completely embarassed by American TV. Why do we have to steal everything just to make it worse!?

NBC's "The Office" site

Article link

Atrocious.

Gervais wanted nothing to do with the American version in the end, because they were butchering what was an excelent show.


for anyone to try and re-create such an AWESOME piece of film is a total moron. especially because they are trying to Americanise what is essentially only GOING to work as a Brittish mockumentary.

eep! Are the networks mistaken or is this really the level that the American public's humour is at?

i know hindsight is perfect but how anybody wouldn't see that coming, i don't know.

some things you just don't remake. for me, the office is one.

previews here: the office

alasdair

^ that site alone (without me even bothering with the movie clips) looks disgusting.

what a shamble


why is it they have to basically go and steal all the jokes from the british version of the show and then filter in some "american" based humour.

just put the original on, if people don't understand it, too bad

Exactly. Just show the British version!

that's not really fair. they didn't steal anything - the show is co-written by the original creators of the uk show. can you steal your own jokes?

'the office' is, for me, one of the most intelligent, acutely-observed, laugh-out-loud-funniest things i have ever seen. i just don't see it translating but i'll hold off final judgement until i've actually seen it.

alasdair

yeah Merchant and Gervais helped, but it's still not impressive in the least the way that it's basically a mirror image of the UK show.

humor is an extremely culturally specific thing to start with, and when you add that to the fact that pretty much all studios these days thrive off developing formulas from successful shows in order to guarantee a stablised market, they in this process, and hollywood and the american film and television industry in particular do this regularly, they standise they're product, which hence essentially means that they rip all the soul out of it.

i think that's what's happened here, and it's sad. as others have said they should just stick to airing the original.

this is such a stupid bloody idea.

oh well, everyone that has half a brain can just watch the original anyway.

well, they did a little more than helping - they were 2/3 of the writers.

i'm intrigued to understand your point - in what sense did they steal material given they wrote the original?

alasdair

This truly saddens me. I discovered the original series a few years back while traveling back and forth to the UK and instantly thought it was the funniest thing I have seen in years, but I totally agree that humor is incredibly difficult to translate between cultures. Despite the fact that many of my friends and myself think the original series is absolute comic genius, others have watched it and to my disbelief, found it amazingly boring.

Typically, Americans love over the top humor. Big jokes, big punchlines, explosive laughter. The Office is far more subtle in it's delivery, relying on its own unique brand of wit as opposed to knee slapping one liners. I am not going to say that one style is inherently better but rather that they are just different.

I also think it's difficult to judge this new series fairly, having already seen every one of the jokes played out in the original series. It's like watching one of your friends try to tell a group of people one of your own old jokes. (How could you actually expect to find it just as funny as the original ?)

Despite these clips and the initial negative feedback, I am still going to cross my fingers and hope for the best. It doesn't have to be quite as good as the original to still be entertaining.

At least it isn't another REALITY SHOW, right?

woes me

BUMP seeing as this made its debut last night, was it really as bad as advertised

You'd think they learned something from the disaster known as Coupling.

I read a really good review in the SF Chronicle, though. We'll see.

alasdairm said:

Originally posted by keystroke
yeah Merchant and Gervais helped...

well, they did a little more than helping - they were 2/3 of the writers.

i'm intrigued to understand your point - in what sense did they steal material given they wrote the original?

alasdair

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sorry, what I meant was everyone is going to be praising this "new" David Brent and his sense of humour, when the jokes are 100% taken from the original.

This is stupid. I watched the american version of this last night and found it hilarious. I have never seen the british version though, so maybe its a comparison thing? I dont know though, I loved it, it had me cracking up and I plan to keep watching.

The Office was filmed in Scranton, PA... which is about 5 minutes from where I work. Which is funny because there really isn't anything interesting about this area