10 Rebooted TV Shows That Were Better Than The Original

This is wildly controversial, but there’s no denying that NBC’s The Office will go down in history as a game-changing comedy series, whereas Ricky Gervais’ original will be an interesting footnote. It might not be fair, and fans who like the BBC Two original but hate the NBC remake will certainly disagree, but in the end NBC’s The Office changed the face of the modern sitcom, whereas the BBC version only aired 12 episodes and two Christmas specials.

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s The Office put them both on the map and gave cringe comedy a new face. It also brilliantly skewered everyday life and proved that TV comedies don’t need to deal in wacky, outlandish scenarios to be funny. There’s no doubt that the show was groundbreaking, but when it came over to the US The Office blew up and became a cultural institution in a way that the original never could have dreamed of.

Launching actors’ careers and bringing us the (again, this is controversial) even better Parks and Recreation, The Office thrived in a US television landscape that was too often “nice” and “harmless.” British humour needed to come to America, and thankfully when it did it breathed new life into television comedy and arguably inspired dozens of the great comedies that are on American TV today.