Before pressing on, I'll add that I thoroughly enjoyed watching both premiere episodes last night.
Who's The Boss? was much as I remembered it, but what jumped out at me was the chemistry between Judith Light and Tony Danza. It pretty much jumped off the screen during their first meeting and continued throughout the entire episode. I don't remember consciously noticing this when I was young, but I was viewing through a different prism then.
There's much about the series that's so similar it seems, on face value, rather pointless: not only is the storyline identical, so (with a few culturally appropriate divergences) is the script. The set layout of the home where we spend 90% of our time is eerily matched, right down to the location of the kitchen with its "accident waiting to happen" swinging door favoured by US sitcoms (presumably to allow action to flow from room to room more easily). Even the staging is very similar. In the first episode, British Tom retrieves his Crunchy Crawlers cereal from a storage area in the exact same place as that from which American Jonathan gets
his Crunchy Crawlers.
The value of the remake comes out of its differences. It's not about what the characters say or where they go, but about the way they read each moment. I suspect that most (if not all) of
The Upper Hand's cast would not have watched
Who's The Boss? beforehand, but if any have they play it a completely different way. And this is a strength. Rather than a karaoke version à la
The Brighton Belles, this is a fresh new reading of familiar material.
Helping to further separate them is a difference in era as well as geography. The
Who's The Boss? pilot was made in 1983 but, to me, its production values feel very much rooted in the Seventies.
The Upper Hand's first episode came along in 1990 and it feels early Nineties.
This comes across in the aesthetic of the two series. Everyone is lit to look good in
Who's The Boss, but
The Upper Hand looks more polished and natural, with shadows and everything. The sets may be almost identical, but the cinematography makes all the difference. Caroline's living room feels far less set-like than Angela's. In an episode taking place at night with a fire roaring it felt positively sumptuous. The backdrop outside the front door looks more convincing and spacious in the British version, and there's great attention to detail as well (Tom's Crunchy Crawlers cereal packet is a great example of this).
The cold opening for each series in the links above perfectly highlights the differences that makes each series its own animal.
Who's The Boss? feels every inch the American sitcom. There's an artifice to how it looks, with the artificial-looking tenement exterior. Every line Danza delivers (accompanied by broad gesticulations that make one wonder if he's acting it out for the hard of hearing) feels extremely knowing and ends with a "hey everyone, this is a punchline" inflection followed by a burst of rather contained audience laughter that cuts off suddenly and sounds suspiciously like the burst that came at the end of the line before.
The Upper Hand opens with a crane shot of a real street, accompanied by a poignant piano piece by Debbie Wiseman - a few bars of its soon-to-be revealed theme (which, as I'd inexplicably failed to notice before it was pointed out
here has a melody uncannily like that of
Knots Landing. In fact this blogger and many commenters on YouTube are convinced
The Upper Hand actually uses
Knots Landing's theme). It doesn't scream sitcom and it feels more meaningful.
For me the huge split in the cold openings comes with Tony/Charlie telling the neighbour to take care after saying that he loves his daughter more than he does the city he's leaving. In
Who's The Boss? Tony Danza delivers this line in the usual sing-song tone that keeps things light (because it's a sitcom, and the audience aren't here to experience anything real). In that same moment, Joe McCann's Charlie becomes reflective. It's a moment of truth that feels quite touching and suggests a depth to the character and his background that makes the journey ahead seem all the more tantalising.
If there's a British version of Tony Danza with (to put in kindly) his one-note acting style, Joe McGann is most definitely not it. He may not be as whack you round the head pretty and charismatic as his American forbear, but he does bring his own, different, earthy cheeky chappie kind of charm to the table, More importantly, Joe is an actor whereas every line of Danza's says "Tony Danza". While the latter has its own appeal, McGann's more nuanced reading has already fleshed out this series to feel as though it has a heart.
In a genre where, if done well, the humour should come from a character's truthful response to a situations with which they're faced, then
The Upper Hand's quite different casting - and the accompanying change in delivery and energy - is an incredibly wise move.
