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More Weekly Vampire On The Way!! Syfy Orders 13 Americanized Episodes Of The BBC’s BEING HUMAN!!
I am – Hercules!!
Weekly doses of “True Blood” and “The Vampire Diaries” not getting it done for you?
Syfy has ordered 13 episodes of an Americanized “Being Human,” based on the BBC series about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost who team up to fight crime. Or maybe they don’t fight crime but they’re all roommates.
No writer or cast is yet attached to the project but Syfy hopes to have it on the channel by summer.
Find all of The Hollywood Reporter’s story on the matter here.
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Really like the BBC series and hate most shows on SyFy. Expect the show to suck.
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Excellent UK series - hope the 'americanization' of it doesn't screw it up - but i'd suggest catching the UK version first.. To see it in all it's raw form
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No american copy has ever worked, the original is brilliant, it doesnt deserve to be ass raped into a bastardised version that will suck ass through a straw!
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I never got far enough into it to find out.
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There is no real explanation for it, he just can, they altered that piece of vampire lore so that they could in fact go out in the sunshine.
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so that some passport-hatin redneck somewhere who'd never watch PBS or BBC America in a fit, will think it is a great new show and an example of how all the best shit is made in the USA.
Ay cayn't be watchin no furren sho, cuz ay cayn't unnerstan a fugin wurd deyz sayin! -
This is a very bad idea. And there goes the pedo episode.
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The last adaptation of a British show that worked was "All In The Family". Syfy will just dumb it down because they think Americans will not understand it. Look at how long Life On Mars and Life Is Wild (Wild At Heart) lasted. Just buy the rights to air the show. In the long run it'll be cheaper....
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The concept was brilliant; but the execution was severely lacking. Give the show something more than a 10 cent budget per episode & it might work. Especially given the piss-poor manner in which the show ended. Give us an actual werewolf who transforms on camera - more than just the once. Give us vampires who act like vampires and don't just do a Gavin Rossdale in Gwen Stefani's shadow "mope" impersonation. Move the "ghost" special effects into the 21st Century please. A remake could only improve this slip of a good idea.
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This is a brilliant show and acted out very well. The cast are excellent. They don't do crime fighting though. They just try and live out their lives the best they can...the premise sounded really bad at first, but I was sold after the first well produced episode. America better not screw this up...although, it is so damn hard to make a good tv show anymore, what with everyone being a critic now a days. Also, they will probably put it on a Friday night, so it will be cancelled a few weeks later. That's how it works now, right?
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however, i am sure the BBC does it 20x better. has anyone seen MI-5? now that show has balls and beats the shit out of jack bauer.
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Hey...I have an idea! Let's try an American cersion of Doctor Who while we're at it! Oh and MI-5 and Primeval and Robin Hood! What the fuck is wrong with these networks. British shows rarely ever work as US versions. Maybe if they got the original actors....
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I loved the pilot. I even signed the petiton to make it into a series and they give us some hollyoaks looking shit that is poles away from the pilot in feel and performance. The new cast members are awful. Especially the ghost. The original ghost had me in stitches.
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Syfys seems like it will be so iffy. After the Brit pilot I really think the nailed such a good cast and kept the best from the pilot, George. I will certainly give it a try on Syfy but I am more interested in season 2 on the BBC. Anyone know when that will start?? If it going to be in 2010?
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Oct 29, 2009 7:22:07 AM CDT
Goul bags- didn't those pricks learn anything from LIFE ON MARS
by famouseccles
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I doubt believe it's mentioned "on camera" but the behind the scenes explanation is that vampire mythology is exaggerated in some aspects and accurate in others - sunlight is uncomfortable but liveable thus vampires have been able to live among us without drawing attention - the effect of religious symbols and electronic devices remain the same
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And good luck finding a better Annie than Leonra Crichlow. First time that I've ever wanted to get it on with a ghost.
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God, I love AICN's top-of-the-line editing feature, don't you?
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Now normally I'd say that UK shows tend to be on the whole a little sharper and wittier than a lot of US tv. Whereas Being Human just bites ass in the worst possible way.
It's neither particularly funny, nor clever and the vampire/werewolf/ghost schtick just doesn't work in the UK where things don't have that glam, uncertain world feel.
Plus the main characters are just a bunch of idiot cocks. fail fail fail and quadrupal FAIL. -
Get in line ... I have been asking for a new edit feature ....for a long time now! Harry needs to get with the times!
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What do vampires actually act like? Considering they actually don't exist :)
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they'll be in college in this version and live in a parent's garage or basement. one of them will dress emo with a trenchcoat, etc.
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so this can only be an improvement
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...how opinions truly differ. Some folks here really love it whilst others think it's shit. It is all in the eye of the beholder indeed...(still, this is a good show and it's witty and smart and yes, has no budget but still performs well. Oh and for the record, the original pilot with the original cast was SHIT...hence new actors (apart from the werewolf who is excellent).
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This is exactly what I mean when I say the show was great in concept, but horrible in execution. Yes, they cover over the fact that the vampire walks around in broad daylight with a story that the vampire myths are exagerrated. But practically speaking, the vampire walks in daylight becuase it's a helluva lot cheaper to shoot by day than it is at night. The show will undoubtedly work better if the supernatural creatures actually look, act and have the abilities that they're supposed to have. Otherwise, the show's just a mopey "Three's Company."
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Daylight being harmful to vampires is a product of the movies. Nosferatu actually, and only because Murnau needed a way to end the movie that was different from Stoker's Dracula. Folkloric vampires were never harmed by the sun.
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And make it Count Chocula and Boo Berry living with Yummy Mummy or Frankenberry. THINK OF THE POSIBILITIES!!
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Thank you :) And, not to mention, there are tons of other shows, books, and I believe movies that have allowed their vamps to walk around in the daylight, sometimes unimpeded and sometimes slightly hindered.
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This is beyond stupid. The British version has a great cast. If you want a better product, just throw some money at the Brits. Making a second version that has to be compete with an established show that lots of people like is only going to start you off with bad initial buzz. This is just the latest of many stupid moves by the "Syfy" channel.
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Whether you like it or not, it's successful. Also, there is no way Being Human could go anywhere but up if it's Americanized. Everything made in England is not gold people. The prigina; version of this show sucks.
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Didn't Stoker's Dracula walk around in sunlight? As Coppola kept for his version.
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It relied a lot on the charm of the cast. If Sci Fi picks a good cast, this might be a fun show but that's a huge if.
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I thought you had coined a new slang word for insulting British guys.
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Oct 29, 2009 11:23:52 AM CDT
The prigina version of hst666's post sucked
by richard_gere_raped_my_gerbil
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For. Fucks. Sake.
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Excellent show. Great cast, well-written, and completely addicting.
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I'm definitely in the camp that thought Being Human was just brilliant as it was and it needs to stay away from an American remake, especially on the SyFy channel. From beginning to end, the first season was amazing with great characters, relationships and plot buildup. Not since Buffy has a show so deftly used the supernatural as an exploration of human relationships and societal issues. Probably my favorite new show of the last few years, next to Dollhouse. Don't remake - give the BBC show another airing!
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and if they really think that Being Human compares to Sanctuary in any way, we're fucked.
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Granted, as much as we gripe about our entertainment media, every motherfucker from across the pond or any other country will jump over their own mother to get a gig in the states.
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it also has a bunch of stupid moments occasionally as well. Sorry, but I can't imagine SyFy improving on it much though.
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But be American (played by Canadians), so that we can understand them.
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The original version is shit. A remake will be even more shit. Stick with something good like True Blood, because this is a stinker in the making. Fuck, it used to be that America ripped off our good shows - comes to something when they're scraping the bottom of the shitbarrel for excrement like this. What's next? Are we to infect our American cousins with the downfall of Robert Lyndsay as well? Here on Fox: My Family. A wacky family comedy that has no laughs whatsoever and will make you all kill yourselves simply for something better to do. All of my fellow Brits, in the homeland or out of it teaching Johnny Foreigner how to behave - feel ashamed. We just did something really, really awful to America. And we didn't even pull the chain afterwards.
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The BBC's Being Human is a miracle of a genre show: intelligent, witty, funny, emotional, tense, scary as hell, and tragic. Can anyone seriously think that an "Americanized" version will preserve any of these qualities? Of course not! The cast will be made up of pretty-pretty, generic, sub-par actors, the scripts will be turned into simplistic, Twilight-like melodramas/soap operas and the whole thing will end up a pale, idiotic imitation of the real thing. In other words, it will be like every other UK series which is "Americanized" and yeah, I'm including American version of The Office, which has gone on far too long and is no longer even remotely funny. Feh.
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Download it online or wait until the DVDs show up in the US. The SyFy US version is sure to suck hard.
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But of course they'd never cast him. They'll find someone like those pretty boys from Gossip Girl and pat themselves on the back for being attuned to "what the Twilight kids want."
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I prefer Young Dracula... I can't wait for somebody over here to steal the idea
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It is not good at all. Poor production values, storylines that drag on and seemingly go nowhere at the same time. Not great acting either. But the Ghost is a nice piece.
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But parent company NBC-Universal still has an alliance with BBC for remakes. Siffy went through the backdoor to get the show.One problem, BBC America and Siffy have at least 70% of the same audience. Why watch the remake when you can watch the original just 7 channels over on your favorite list. This is a very risky move for NBC-Uni considering the state of their company.------later-----m
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There are multiple posts by Yanks who've seen it who think it's terrible. AngrySnowMonkey for example, he think it's got poor production values, is too slow-paced and that the acting is bad. Whilst the last bit is pretty much clear nonsense, unless he's comparing it to non-genre stuff on HBO/Showtime, it certainly is low-budget and has the kind of measured pace that a lot of British shows do. If he's representative of the US audience, and I think he is, given US shows, then it would need a lot of tweaking to go over decently in the US. As it is, the UK version is a good show (only the ghost, who is hot, could be accused of bad acting - George is better than 99% of actors on US TV, and the vampire is in-between - the support cast were also generally good, but not sufficiently attractive for a US show), but not for people who want action or heavy supernatural SFX stuff. It's not going to appeal to the Supernatural crowd, I mean, they like something with terrible acting, terrible scripts, fast-paced, hott guys and gals and flashy FX. Nor to the Buffy crowd (insufficient violence and banter). It might, if given a MUCH bigger budget, appeal to the True Blood crowd, though. It does risk coming off as something of a non-Southern non-R-rated True Blood rip-off, though (even though it isn't).
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That's original!
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so I fully expect the daywalking vampire to sparkle in our version.
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It isn't necessarily about the mythology, or the production values...its about the acting, the writing. Its the only supernatural show I've seen that's come close to having that Buffy feel, that wonderful mix of comedy and drama and horror....I loved this show and hope that the SyFy version isn't just a Vampire Diaries level shitfest.
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In that like W13 they will probably start off promisingly and then add an annoying teenager to spoil it all.
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Why not just, you know, pay for the rights to re-broadcast the original? I can't imagine it being more expensive than producing a series from scratch.
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I'm at a complete and total loss when it comes to understanding why vampire stories are so 'hot' right now... the number of vampire tales in any medium right now is OUT OF CONTROL. I wish the people green-lighting all these vampire stories were like this agent Peter Rubie who says: "The reality is that the bulk of material agents receive is just not up to a publishable standard. I love to come across great material, but people don't read enough and have no idea what's fresh and what isn't, what's been done and what hasn't. I get tqueries that say, 'I've written a unique book about a vampire that's called AIDS' It seems like a great idea except that I get the same idea sent to me at least ten times a week."He gets it... whats funny, is that quote is four years old. I cannot imagine how frustrated he is today with the obscene amount of vampire shit these days.
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but the first five minutes bored me
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Is women can fantasize never growing old and about young love being eternal. This is especially appealing to middle aged women who don't feel as creepy lusting after a 20 year old if he's supposed to be really 500 years old.
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To anyone wondering about the show who has not seen it well the original pilot was True Blood(made before that show btw)kinds of awsome whereas the recast series was 90210 shit.This is why you have such a difference in opinions as essentially those who watched the recast series are also the sort of people who tend to go for the sort of crap Cw/abc Family churn out for the tweens.To think where they could have gone from the pilot (which was very dark in tone), a real cult classic along the lines of Spaced is really about the only thing I can compare it too.Why would SyFy remake it just show the already remade Brit version and save some money.
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I can't stand BBC America. Here in NorCal, it is transmitted so poorly that it looks worse than VHS resolution. And that's on both Comcast and DirecTV. Absolutely terrible. And where is this mythical BBC America HD channel? It's like only Time Warner Cable in New York City has it in all of the US. WTF? SyFy has a lot of questionable material but I'll support them over BBC America any day. I'm thoroughly pissed that BBC Worldwide Americas is so stupid and greedy that they'll be moving *Doctor Who* over to BBC America and thus cutting the average audience it receives on SyFy by at the very least 500k viewers. Their executive is so stupid that he actually said in an interview that Americans would be willing to spend $10 per episode to watch *Torchwood* online via the BBC iPlayer if it aired on the same day as it does in the UK. So I have 2 words for BBC America and BBC Worldwide Americas... FUCK YOU.
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Somebody said above that American remakes of British originals are never successful. Oh really? Hmmm... off the top of my head. THREE'S COMPANY, DEAR JOHN, ALL IN THE FAMILY, SANFORD & SON, THE OFFICE, WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE...
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As noted above, vampires in daylight is not a deal breaker. The folklore has been changed and twisted so much that the most common denominator is that vampires are undead. And we go from there.
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The premise is sound... It just needed actual action and a cast that actually committed to the production and wouldn't skip town after the 14th episode...
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I also liked the pace and direction of the first series. I enjoyed the setting (Bristol, right?). I also agree that the fellow who played George the werewolf gave the best performance.
The first year's main plot thread of thwarting a vampire takeover of humanity seems laughable in concept, but I really liked what they did with it. The villain was diabolical without being reduced to some stock super-villain. In fact one of my favorite scenes at the end was when he leaves his fellows to have the big confrontation. There was something endearing about watching how they patted him on the back and wished him well as he set forth. His send off was low key and personable.
I would like to see it adapted for U.S. audiences with better production values (i.e., better budget and effects) without giving up its mission statement: supernatural creatures trying to maintain (werewolf), rediscover (vampire), and/or hang on (ghost) to their humanity. -
Americans can't handle the accents and locations? They have to completely reshoot it? Over in the UK do they get things like reimagined British versions of Happy Days?
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Really, fuck you right up the ass. Just unplug your cameras, tape decks, editing consoles, yank out all the wiring, turn out the lights, and just admit you totally SUCK once and for all.Seriously, is there any studio that is more inept and lame than NBC/Universal? Who the fuck is picking up checks in their offices? Because one thing's for sure -- it's not people who SHOULD be holding down a steady job. Instead of getting their jobs based on actual talent or business skills, they only work at NBC/Universal because they already had family working there (to pull some strings) or because they're banging someone, who in turn works in some other wing of the corporation. Those are the only explanations I can come up with for a company filled with so many nitwits.Bottom line: once again we see Hollywood creativity at its best. You have an economic downturn, all their shows and movies failing...and yet even though there are literally thousands of ALL-NEW concepts and scripts floating around Hollywood, coupled by the untold numbers of creative people ready to bring those visions to life...NBC, Universal and SyFy decide we need yet another remake. Better yet, OF A SHOW THAT ONLY CAME OUT THIS PAST YEAR and that fans of the genre ALREADY SAW. For fuck's sake, it's not even like they're importing a Korean show or something like that, where you'd have to remake the show due to language issues. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT A BRAND NEW SHOW THAT ONLY JUST AIRED, THAT WAS FILMED IN FUCKING ENGLISH, WHICH MEANS YOU COULD SIMPLY SHOW IT AS IS.I swear, anytime I think Hollywood can't show how creatively bankrupt it is, they hit an all-new low. And then they wonder why everyone is tuning out and ratings and box office returns are so down. At the very least, I just hope the fucking moronic employees at NBC/Universal all go sterile overnight, lest they have kids and water down the human gene pool even more...
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I liked the first season of that show but once they got rid of Cassie and Azazeal, it lost its drive and entertainment value.
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not in the same way that Twilight and Vampire Diaries and all that shit. Vampires are just part of a picture of groups that isolate themselves from humanity. There's no 'romance' angle, tortured vampire in love with a human crap, that only Buffy ever made work (well, and Dracula). There are relationships, sure, but they're not overly-romanticized tripe. Being Human deals with our connections to society, morality and social rules, humanity, community and other people. It's about loneliness and isolation, and not the broody emo version. I have a hard time imagining an American SyFy version getting that.
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Americans today are bored by anything deeper and more meaningful than morons battling each other in a big house or on a desert island, so of course SyFy won't be able to use the British Being Human scripts as a strict template for their version. For one thing, Americans don't want to see main characters living in a run down, thrift-store-furnished house - it will have to be big, glossy and over-decorated, like a Target ad. Secondly, forget all that stuff about isolation and loneliness - too much of a downer. Oh and the supes will HAVE to fall in love with humans in the US version, including the ectoplasmic ghost. Must hook the fangirls outright, you know. None of the UK actors are gorgeous enough for American audiences, either - all of the recast actors must have six packs and look as if they've walked out of NYT fashion mag ads. Yes, this US version is certainly going to be an improvement,,,
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by the people that brought us Benny Hill.Too Old? Having lived in England, there is a lot of shit on their TV as well. The IT Crowd is fine, but it's a pretty basic sitcom. Torchwood is hackey shit a lot of the time as well (although Children of Earth was pretty good).
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actually evolve and express real emotions, not the cheap melodrama that passes for reality in British TV.
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Many good British shows as well - Spaced, The Young Ones, the new Doctor Who, Absolutely Fabulous, Top Gear, Fawlty Towers, That Mitchell and Webb Look, The Graham Norton Show.
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Being Human is one of my favorite shows. I love Mitchell, George, and Annie to death. The characters are awesome! I watched every episode on BBC America and purchased the first season from Amazon UK. I hate the majority of US televison shows. They are full of pretty boys and girls that can't act their way out of a paper bag. Why can't SyFy (Ugh) show the UK verison of Being Human like they did with Dr. Who and the Sarah Jane Adventures? Hollywood will ruin it.
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You can kindly keep it on your side of the Atlantic, please. And if meandering, uninteresting, unimaginative fare is you drug of choice, we can export Vampire Diaries, Jan Leno and Glen Beck for you, too?
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Calm down mate! Listen, Being Human is nothing more than a fun little piece of mindless entertainment. It's cheaply made but engaging, mainly down to the writing and acting. Certainly nothing to get offended by.
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Oct 30, 2009 10:27:06 AM CDT
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
by salamanderjones
loved the original - hope they don't fuck it up
What's wrong with just watching the original anyway????? It's not like it has to be dubbed or subtitled except for stoopid people. Why does every halfway decent brit show have to be americanized? Is it that frightening for you guys to watch foreign tv? -
"Americans prefer shows where the characters and express real emotions, not the cheap melodrama that passes for reality in British TV."
And your evidence for this is? Certainly not most of American's network TV, which is pretty much the epitome of "melodrama", albeit often of a high-budget kind.
I mean, isn't Medium, which shit in every possible way, writing, acting, plot, ideas/philosophy and so on like the most popular show in the US right now? Followed by flashy brain-dead MoR junk like CSI and NCIS? Stuff which is total melodrama with zero real character development.
There's certainly plenty of terrible British TV, but if you're thinking of things like Eastenders and comparing them with Dexter or BSG or whatever, you're being a cretin. Eastenders is the UK equivalent of Days Of Our Lives or similar Soap Opera. Both are "cheap melodramas", but the British one is grim and vaguely realistic, whilst the US one is glossy and ridiculous. Both suck, of course. Maybe you just don't understand what the term "melodrama" means, and you think that any kind of drama that's grim instead of glossy is "melodrama".
All that said, the US, finally, is producing more good TV shows than the UK, and has been for the last five years or so. You're also a bit out of date on good UK shows, but that's understandable. -
plus Mitchell is Irish (as is the actor) because the Brit's are capable of diversity, unlike you lot in the states
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Including an Irish actor in a UK production isn't exactly a sign of "diversity". A chunk of "Ireland" is still a part of the United Kingdom and the rest - although now independent - was ruled by England/Britain for most of the last millennium. And based upon recent genetic studies, whether one is English, Scottish, or Irish, you are related and rather closely.
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And I think they did this with Doctor Who as well, but those god-aweful "behind the scenes" and preview clips of the next scenes of the goddamn show you are watching! Do I want to be spoonfed snippets of the fucking show that I'm already watching? Hell no! Pimp something else!
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Including an Irish actor isn't a sign of diversity, but you seem to be suggesting that Britain as a whole is neither socially/culturally diverse, nor genetically. Pretty inflammatory stuff mate. Ever been here?
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Perhaps I was not as precise as I could have been. More precisely, most popular British TV appears to be more predictable and superficial than comparable US TV programs. Most of the US shows you list I don't like. The shows I was thinking of were Being Human, Torchwood, and the British Office (the latter of which I believe is very funny, just completely shallow). I also was not thinking of Eastenders at all.
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and ice them in the first episode without breaking a sweat. The end.
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Being Human is boring as fuck!
Maybe an Americanised version could shake up a decent concept a bit. Like one talkbacker said, its like watching Hollyoaks (terrible British emo soap like all soaps). I struggled through 1 episode and couldn’t be bothered watching any more. Maybe ill watch it again if I happen to channel surf upon it again but seriously it’s a very slow-moving, borderline-pretentious show. I really wanted to like it, that’s the annoying thing! And on a completely unrelated note, why has Curb your enthusiasm become parody of itself? It used to be clever, now it seems to be written by the same people who have been writing the Simpson’s for the last 10 years.
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There is no way, no possible way, they could recapture the brilliance of John Cleese and friends. They just released the new, complete, remastered DVD box set of Fawlty Towers, so go and re-live its Britcom glory. There is also a 'lookalike' contest where you can win a copy signed by Cleese himself! Here: http://tr.im/fawltycontest
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I loved the original pilot. Didn't watch the new, re-cast version. But i kinda don't trust 'syfy'. HA.
Bram Stoker's Dracula could go out into the sunlight without harm, he just didn't have his powers then. So Mitchel being able to bear the sun isn't anything new. -
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