10 US Remakes Of British TV Shows Which Were Actually Pretty Good
1. Veep
The first attempt at remaking The Thick Of It took place in 2007, and all signs pointed to a great success. Christopher Guest was to direct his frequent collaborator Michael McKean, and it co-starred Alex Borstein and Oliver Platt, with creator Armando Iannucci on board as an executive producer.
The problem, though, was that this was network TV, and so swearing was a no-no, and improvisation was off the cards, too. Few shows use swearing as well as TTOI, so this was a hurdle for the adaptation.
The next effort was Veep, made by HBO, and the rules thereby went out the window. Julia Louis-Dreyfus led a stacked cast as Selina Meyer, the hapless new Vice President in the snake-filled corridors of American power.
Veep maintained the vibe of its source show but added significant scope and ambition, bringing in a great many perfectly realised characters and charting the rocky political journey of its lead character.
The show had Iannucci at the helm for the first four seasons before transitioning to new writers, allowing it to seamlessly maintain what made the UK version great while establishing its own identity.