"Firstly, British series are almost always changed when they are adapted for a foreign audience -- everyone knows that -- and quite often those changes are necessary. Don't agree to an adaptation without accepting that. American people are very different from English people, and that has to be accounted for. "

It's no wonder Americans are so insular when tv networks are afraid to show anything remotely un-Americanized. US citizens are treated like morons by their media, so morons they will remain.

You're complaining about the very things the show is about.

We get it tonight in the UK, I'm not saying it will be the greatest show ever made, but you've certainly convinced me to watch it!
America can have Extras, what a overblown, selfserving, bloated waste of time the second series was.

To those complaining about shows being "Americanized": the British "Anglicize" the shows they adapt, too. "Coupling" was an adaptation of "Friends." Adapting shows to a new culture isn't necessarily a bad thing, although I do agree sometimes they take it too far. And when the US made their own "Coupling," it was god-awful!!! And the first episode (the only one I saw) had nearly identical dialogue. Also, the first episodes of "The Office" (Am) used the same jokes and plot as the British version, and they are much clunkier than what the show became... when it developed it's own identity and - dare I say it - became Americanized.

Matt LeBlanc spent so many years playing simple-minded Joey Tribbiani that it's easy to assume he doesn't have any other tricks in his bag. That notion will be shattered once you get into this rich satire about British writers who come to America to adapt their BBC hit and are forced to cast ... Matt LeBlanc. You'd think we'd have had enough of self-referential series about showbiz, but the show sizzles, largely because LeBlanc is game to poke fun at himself. More important, "Friends" co-creator David Crane and real-life partner Jeffrey Klarik have written all seven episodes, clearly relishing the creative freedom and control they weren't allowed on their last collaboration, "The Class." Sunday's pilot is the weakest of the lot, but stick with it. 9:30 p.m. Sun., Showtime.

A remake of a foreign TV show!? YAY! We badly needed another, with the obvious successes of previous attempts! Nobody could resist!

You wonder what's wrong with Americans, and really, what do they have against everyone else? Sure, you remake a foreign language movie because Americans can't be bothered to read subtitles, look at funny-looking people and study the world custom and cultures... but remaking TV done in English? What's so different about English and Australian culture that it had to be Americanized, packed into badly wrapped Reese Pieces packages and fed to a public who still swears, more than 50 years later, that thanks to them the world needn't eat sauerkraut for dinner?

"Episodes" seem to recognize how actually frustrating it is for others to see your work torn apart and shredded to pieces by Hollywood, pokes fun at the situation and at Hollywood, but managed to somehow failed to convey to the public that this show is about them 'getting it'. It's a premise that MIGHT have worked after "The Office" aired, and maybe, just maybe after "Kath and Kim", but it's a little too late now after "Life on Mars" and the tens of remakes and re-remakes of "Pop Idol" and "Kitchen Nightmares" and "I'm a Celebrity! Get Me Out of Here!" all over... everywhere, really.

No one cares. And Jersey Shore's on its third season.

"Everything we make is not uniformly bad and everything England makes is not disproportionately sparkling anymore, yet that dated ratio is the very backbone of this show's premise."

P.S. You will not find one Brit who claims our television is stellar. Our best stuff may be remade (Skins, Shameless, Being Human) but the emphasis is on *best.* There's a reason why it's not more than a handful of shows.

I don't think the problem is that Britain and the US are inherently culturally different and comedy can't cross over without being changed (as has been pointed out, many US shows have been hugely popular in the UK), it's just that the show... isn't that funny.
From the look of the first episode, anyhow. There have been many a show where I disliked the pilot, but ended up loving it in general.

On that point about culture, the look of horror when Matt Leblanc was announced wasn't believable. Puh-lease, Friends was huge in the UK, and, as comedy writers, they would have known he was a great comic actor, whether or not they think he's suitable for the role.

I didn't quite get the ultra defensiveness of the review, though. Episodes is apparently saying US TV is crap and British is brilliant. All I got were some gentle pokes at Hollywood. On better British shows, you will see far more scathing attacks than that on our own culture.

And, to completely the miss the point of this whole debate, I am now curious what a US version of The Thick of It would be like.

I think a lot of folks were missing the point and getting really hung up about the reviewer comments about why the US make changes to programs. I would also add that the Americans do it the most but also probably make more tv than anybody else. The Office was redone in France and Germany with even more changes to the Michael, Jim and Pam characters, they didn't just do the same scripts and translate the dialogue into French and German. And we could find other example too and talk about why these things are considered culturally necessary or just laziness of the culture but the point is it's completely out of date for the writers to not have expected changes. THis would have been funny if these comments were made when The Office was first adapted to American tv but now it just looks like those two lived under a rock.

Having said that, I was hoping that the show would have more to say about both cultures then what the review tells us. Matt LeBlanc appeared on Regis and Kelly to promote it and the clip they showed contained a joke about the tv show the Lincolns were selling resembling the plot of History Boys. Having just watched the first episode of Downton Abbey I got the same feeling of deja vu and I loved that joke.

I stopped reading after referring to British people as English and the UK as England. There are other parts apparently...

I might have been biased because I am a fan of Green Wing, thank you Hulu. But there is a lot of humor in wanting to substitute Richard Griffiths, Harry Potter's uncle, with Matt LeBlanc. And the whole process was funny, between the exec loving the show but never seeing it and the head of comedy not having a sense of humor.

The thing is, looking at Top Gear USA, horrible americanization is still being done.

BTW Coupling is not Friends in any way, shape or form. Jeff and Jane are not analogues for Brady Bunch characters.

Coupling is actually an autobiographical work of Steven Moffat's and to some extent a sequel to 1993's Joking Apart. It is built with the main characters being a representation of him and his wife, whilst the others are archetypes of different figures in relationships, with Jeff, Oliver and Sally representing characters who are neurotic and lacking confidence, and Jane and Patrick representing people who are overconfident and self absorbed. In doing so it explores the nature and dynamics of how different relationships work.

Whilst their are some vague situational similarties with Friends, six friends often meeting in public meeting place, 3 men and 3 women, you could just as easily claim HIMYM to be a rip off of both.

Don't really get the gripes of the author. The whole remaking business IS annoying.

You don't need to spoon feed an audience everything culturally adapted. It's actually interesting (and probably good for people) to watch and live with stories from various cultures.

After all every other audience in the world is completely fine processing shows that feature folks from other nations. But Americans need to be "anglophile" to like a British tv-show? Ridiculous.

I've seen 5 episodes of this show just to give it a fair shot, but it's horrible. I'm a Big fan of the two British leads (Green Wing, Black Books, etc..), and while not much of a fan of Friends or LaBlanc, was more than open-minded to him playing a Larry David-esque version of himself. The one and only real problem is this show's writing is just awful. These characters are so 2 dimensional, the 'gags' so cheap, and the plot that plays out is so foolish that I just can't at all believe any of it.
A running gag with the security guard the neeever recognizes them? So why don't they just sigh and hand them i.d.? Because this is written like a cheesy 80's network sit-com -'plus swearing', as if that makes it 'premium cable worthy'. It doesn't.
The premise of an 'implied' classy, dry, erudite British comedy ('History Boys' the sit-com) slowly 'adapted' into a complete U.S. bastardization could be great, but they handle this in the silliest way possible at EVERY turn, and no plot points beyond that premise add an depth or humor either.
Oh, and like most here admit, LeBlanc does a decent job. Frankly, everyone on the show does a decent job. It just doesn't seem like it because they're all performing exactly what's written in these stinking, hack-job scripts they're given. The difference on screen is just that LeBlanc's character is the only one that seems at all like an actual real person-and just barely.
This show is an utter shame compared to so many really good modern cable comedies (Curb Your Enthus., Entourage (though not recent seasons), Weeds, Sex and the City, US of Tara, Extras, etc...)
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