Lost in Translation
January 28, 2005
When I first heard they were remaking The Office for American television. I was aghast, as these things never go well. News about it had died down, and I just assumed it had died an appropriate death. OH NO. The show will begin airing on March 22nd and a poor quality WMV of the pilot was posted on Metafilter.
And boy howdy, it is no good.
The pilot is a straight up remake of the first episode of the original, except not particularly funny. Steve Carell takes over for Ricky Gervais and is OK, but can’t quite walk the line between annoying and hilarious like Gervais did. The supporting cast is worse… the Tim replacement is generically bland rather than sympathetically everyman, and Gareth (now named Dwight) doesn’t have the pathetic ineffectiveness to him. It’s kind of hard to pinpoint exactly what’s wrong. The whole thing feels like a show fed through Babelfish: The words seem right but nothing makes any sense at all.
Soul-crushing office life isn’t intrinsically English, but there is something horribly, horribly wrong here. To end on a positive note: The stapler in jello gag never gets old.
Posted in Idiot Box
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January 31st, 2005 at 6:49 am
I dunno, it took me a couple episodes to get into The Office. The first one never really made me laugh, so I don’t hold it against the remade version that it didn’t make me laugh either. Still, I don’t get why its been remade, unless Americans can’t handle accents.
January 31st, 2005 at 9:26 am
I think after a few episodes they stop doing clones of the BBC eps, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens.
it’s just weird to watch the pilot because it’s like Bizarro World Office.
January 31st, 2005 at 9:59 am
I kept waiting for him to show off the monkey on top of the coat rack.