{"id":5892,"date":"2011-01-11T10:35:51","date_gmt":"2011-01-11T08:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/?p=5892"},"modified":"2011-09-04T15:57:37","modified_gmt":"2011-09-04T13:57:37","slug":"british-vs-american-tv-series-coupling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/5892","title":{"rendered":"British vs American TV Series – Coupling"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a thorn in my side and I\u2019m going to blog about it. An entire series on why British TV rocks my socks and why Americans need to stop trying to recreate it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something about British TV that is so<\/em> great, great in an entirely different way to anything we watch on American television.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to describe… the humor is different, it\u2019s more dry and requires a bit more brain power to pick up on. I guess it\u2019s not as in your face and obvious as a lot of US shows. \u00a0Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of American TV I enjoy, but I just despise when they try to go out of their element and try to recreate something that they are just incapable of pulling off.<\/p>\n

I love that the characters are more real. They live in real houses, have real friends and wear real clothes.\u00a0 They don\u2019t all live in fancy apartments or mansions, they don\u2019t all have money and their storylines aren\u2019t as outlandish and unrealistic. \u00a0It’s easier to relate to the characters on British TV because they are more like the average Joe, rather than seeming a world away from the viewers.<\/p>\n

This irritation was kicked off recently when I saw an ad on Facebook boasting about Showtime\u2019s Original Series, Shameless<\/em><\/strong>. Original series my ass!\u00a0 This has been going on for NINE seasons in the UK, and much better too, I might add! \u00a0I will talk about Shameless later though.<\/p>\n

I know that a lot of people on the other side of the pond don\u2019t even realize that some of these shows were happening before they came into existence there, and that\u2019s sad, because the originals are SO much better.\u00a0 I think the most glaring example of this is Coupling.<\/p>\n

The original series, and by that I mean the first one that actually existed<\/em>, was in the UK, and it was fantastic, the American version. Not so much.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s compare\u2026<\/p>\n

\"couplingcompare\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, that just says it all, doesn\u2019t it? \u00a0There is no competition really\u2026<\/p>\n

I watched only one episode of the US version of Coupling and it was painful. Very very painful.\u00a0 Mostly because of Jeff.\u00a0 In the UK version he pretty much makes the show.\u00a0 Anyone I\u2019ve ever spoken to agrees that he is by far the best part of the series, because he\u2019s funny and awkward in a way that none of us have ever seen in a television character before.\u00a0 Here\u2019s one example\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Now try to imagine some random American douchy actor trying to pull this off, because that’s pretty much what happened. It just does NOT work!\u00a0 Without the OJ (Original Jeff) there is no way this show can be remade.\u00a0 The program also relies heavily on a certain type of humor that also cannot be Americanized.<\/p>\n

Ok, I won\u2019t try to explain it any further, look for yourself\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

See what I mean?<\/p>\n

In some cases I think the American versions of British shows do ok because the American viewing audience has never experienced the real thing, but I don\u2019t think that was the case with Coupling.\u00a0 Even having never seen the British version, people still thought it sucked because I don\u2019t think it even lasted an entire season.<\/p>\n

THANK GOD FOR THAT.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve never heard of this show and have never watched it, search high and low until you find it.\u00a0 The only way I can describe it is that it\u2019s like Friends, only\u2026 better.<\/p>\n

If you use BitTorrent you<\/a> can download all four seasons<\/a> here.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t use BitTorrent, umm, why not? No seriously, you can\u00a0 watch it online<\/a> here.<\/p>\n

If you use newsgroups, you\u2019re on your own I don\u2019t know how to use those.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a thorn in my side and I\u2019m going to blog about it. An entire series on why British TV rocks my socks and why Americans need to stop trying to recreate it. There\u2019s something about British TV that is so great, great in an entirely different way to anything we watch on American …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,6],"tags":[549,57,14,132],"class_list":["post-5892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-entertainment","category-tantrums-rants","tag-british-vs-american-tv","tag-rants","tag-tv","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5892"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5898,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892\/revisions\/5898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}