NBC has already axed it’s version of the BBC comedy Coupling. Ok, initially it sucked – BIG TIME!!! But it was staring to break away from being a poor carbon copy, and starting to find it’s own way in the world (well that third one I didn’t recognize as a BBC script…) but that’s not the end of the story – they are apparently planning to do a version of the BBC mock-u-mentary series The Office. Now occasionally a show gets translated properly (ok, rarely…) and more frequently they don’t – or more specifically that they don’t play to the masses, something that the BBC doesn’t have to do (despite the fact that they do, but like PBS it doesn’t have to rule their programming decisions.) I actually enjoyed the US version of Men Behaving Badly, and it’s possible that the US Coupling would have improved to the point of being enjoyable, but the networks here in the US need instant gratification. They can’t allow a program to find it’s audience anymore, and they rely too heavily on committees, focus groups, memos from this VP and that VP (which contradict the memo from the first VP) and so on and so forth, &c, &c, &c…
But in the right hands (which, quite frankly, are probably not anywhere near a network program) The Office could be done right. But the fact of the matter is that BBCAmerica maybe gets a top viewership of 0.2-0.4% of the total TV audience on it’s top programs, so it’s hits are going to be so far on the fringe from the networks that the chances of any transplant becoming a hit on the big 3+2 has bigger odds against it than, say, the West Indies (a cricket team) beating the Yankees in the (baseball) World Series. But, when it happens…
Good lord, I sure can ramble on.