5 Reasons Why American Remakes Of British Sitcoms Fall Flat

5. Changing Over Writers

Sometimes writing TV scripts is managed differently in America. Some of the biggest sitcoms over in the UK are often penned by one or two screenwriters - Only Fools and Horses, for example, one of the most well-loved and successful sitcoms in history, was written solely by John Sullivan. Many American comedies, however, often adopt a team of writers to try and prevent things from getting stale. The downside to this is the risk of inconsistencies in the sitcom. A team of writers want to adapt a popular British comedy, but it could be a mistake not to somehow involve the original writers. In fact, some of the more favoured American remakes have the same people working on them who produced the originals. The Thick Of It creator Armando Iannucci used his own show as inspiration when creating the American comedy series Veep, both of which are award-winning shows. It's like you sitting there reading this - create a character in your head right now. Give them some quirky traits, an image, flaws, ambitions, tendencies, etc. They could be crazy, neurotic, awkward, obsessive, loveable, hilarious, oddball, really idiotic... Anything, really. Now try thinking up a little storyline they can feature in. Maybe they get arrested, get stuck up a tree, work up the courage to ask their crush out for coffee, attend a public speaking master class and inadvertently end up saying their speech like Adolf Hitler. Now imagine someone else, be it one person or several people, taking over your character and deciding how they behave and what kind of situations they find themselves in. Can you imagine they would be able to do it just as much justice? The answer could be yes, but it's more likely to be "Hmmm... I'm not really sure."