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I don't know. I've seen every episode of the BBC Coupling, and I saw the first episode of the NBC version. The NBC version was very faithful to the British original. Much of the dialogue was word-for-word the same. Yet something about it just didn't work. The BBC version was hilarious. Pitch perfect. The American version was completely flat. To this day, I'm not sure why. I've since seen all those actors in other things and thought they did fine. But there was just something about the American version that was flat and uninteresting in every way.
It also was bandied about to replace Friends when Friends ended. So people were told to believe it would replace it and then saw it and was like "this is replaced Friends?" That and the fanbase of Friends maybe were burnt out on that style of sitcom at the time. (Though How I Met was in a similar vein and launched about a year after Friends ended.)
I think that there is a lot to this. Check Wiki or IMDB for any of the younger actors/actresses appearing in British TV like "Merlin," "The Musketeers," etc. and virtually all of them have serious academic credentials pertaining to their craft.
They don't sit around waiting to be discovered at a coffee shop or on a beach the way so many seem to have done in the U.S. They work all the time - stage, TV, screen - and the experience shows in the product.
Is it any wonder so many are now getting hired for U.S. TV - Tom Ellis, Eoin Macken, Ioan Gruffud, Hugh Dancy, Damian Lewis, David Tennant, Martin Freeman, Alan Cumming, Matthew Rys, David Morrisey...
Something else that I've noticed, both with British TV and Canadian TV, is that the focus is much more dialog-driven and less about BIG moments. American TV is very bombastic and somewhat staccato. British and Canadian TV, even shows like "Flashpoint," feel much more even-tempered even during the most dramatic moments.
It's always nicer to be talked to than yelled at.
It isn't so much that British actors are all classically trained, for some reason Americans like to refer to it that way.They don't refer to their training as such. The British actors I have known just refer to their training as their training. It's just how they do it over there.
Their methods of acting training are very different than ours and we see the results. Even our serious actors who learn their craft academically learn through different techniques than those taught in British theater schools. It's just two very different schools of thought on the subject of acting.
The Brits also have their actors who just get their jobs by chance though. Not every British actor goes through rigorous acting training. They have had their former models and sports stars appear on movie screens just as we have.
I have studied both the British American acting techniques and I prefer the British school of acting. I can well see the results in acting techniques when I see performances done by both.
It also was bandied about to replace Friends when Friends ended. So people were told to believe it would replace it and then saw it and was like "this is replaced Friends?" That and the fanbase of Friends maybe were burnt out on that style of sitcom at the time. (Though How I Met was in a similar vein and launched about a year after Friends ended.)
I caught a re-run of Friends the other night and was a little amazed at how dated it is. I can still sit down and enjoy an episode of Cheers, Seinfeld, or Frasier. But watching it now, Friends is actually not very good. No fault of the cast, all of whom were great. But the writing is very formulaic and predictable. You can see every joke coming, and none of them are very funny. And surely it is the death knell of any story when giving one of your characters a monkey is considered character development.
It isn't so much that British actors are all classically trained, for some reason Americans like to refer to it that way.They don't refer to their training as such. The British actors I have known just refer to their training as their training. It's just how they do it over there.
Their methods of acting training are very different than ours and we see the results. Even our serious actors who learn their craft academically learn through different techniques than those taught in British theater schools. It's just two very different schools of thought on the subject of acting.
The Brits also have their actors who just get their jobs by chance though. Not every British actor goes through rigorous acting training. They have had their former models and sports stars appear on movie screens just as we have.
I have studied both the British American acting techniques and I prefer the British school of acting. I can well see the results in acting techniques when I see performances done by both.
Perhaps more accurate to say "academically" trained, I think.
There certainly are some younger American actors who have graduated from acting programs (Zachary Quinto and Matt Bomer both graduated from Carnegie Mellon for example), but, I think that the percentage of British actors/actresses who have is much higher.
I don't know. I've seen every episode of the BBC Coupling, and I saw the first episode of the NBC version. The NBC version was very faithful to the British original. Much of the dialogue was word-for-word the same. Yet something about it just didn't work. The BBC version was hilarious. Pitch perfect. The American version was completely flat. To this day, I'm not sure why. I've since seen all those actors in other things and thought they did fine. But there was just something about the American version that was flat and uninteresting in every way.
NBC's "Coupling" stunk because British men and women aren't American men and women. Trying to keep the exact same script and so froth and merely drop it across the pond just didn't work.
Good comedy has a rhythm and timing no actor worth their sort tampers with; but rather those who know their craft also know what to do with a good script and so forth. It is the same reason many British remakes of American sitcoms like the Golden Girls just didn't work.
So much about Coupling was just on a different level than what most Americans routinely want in a sitcom. Captain Subtext, Junior Patrick (when Steve gives Susan's mother a *gift* she really *really* liked...), The Girl With Two Breasts, etc.... just don't really work over here I should think.
I enjoyed "Being Human" but the American version was truly terrible ; it had the same script but the 'actors' and the lines fell flat.
I agree.
I think I watched two-three episodes of the first season of the U.S. version and I was done.
And, the U.S. version of "Life on Mars" - oh, my, what a waste of talent.
I would pass on "Gracepoint" except...David Tennant.
I especially love the dramas~ Ballykissangel,and Lark Rise To Candleford,and some of the sitcoms such as To The Manor Born.I watch the seasons on DVD from my library.
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