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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 338860" data-attributes="member: 23">Last night I watched the Pilot of Who's The Boss? as a lead-in to watching the British remake. I'll continue posting about the British version elsewhere, but since I do a lot of comparing between the two series I'll repost my comments of the first episodes here in case it's of interest (it's quite lengthy so I've done it over several posts so as to keep the page length down):Many of the British sitcoms I've watched and rewatched in recent years have later been adapted into (generally inferior) American versions:Man About The House and George & Mildred became Three's Company and The Ropers. Fawlty Towers had at least three ill-advised translations, including one with Bea Arthur as a female Basil and another with Betty White as Sybil (part of me now wants to see them edited together to watch married couple Arthur and White sniping at one another). Miss Jones And Son became Miss Wimslow And Son. As I've learnt in this very thread, Agony! and For The Love Of Ada also received their own American remakes. Even the current Ghosts has received a similar American makeover (the trailer was enough for me).In <a href="https://tellytalk.net/threads/the-great-british-sitcom.205/" target="_blank">the British Sitcom thread</a> (and it's pre-crash iteration), I've steered clear of British remakes of American sitcoms. There are a few good reasons for this. Firstly, to me it seems a little tacky and narrow-minded to create a translation of a successful and popular show made in the same language when the original is available. Secondly, something almost always gets lost in translation. Just as American remakes tend to twee things up and lose the source material's bite and nuance, so do British remakes of American sitcoms often lose their source's cosy appeal. Thirdly, Brits are generally quite aware of culture outside of our own island and not averse to watching imported sitcoms. Because of this, we can sniff out a fake a mile away, which is a key reason why our remakes flop so badly I couldn't watch them if I'd want to.The key example that jumps to mind for me was The Brighton Belles: a British remake of The Golden Girls. It had a terrific cast (Sheila Hancock, Wendy Craig and Jean Boht played the characters analogous to Dorothy, Rose and Sophia), a decent time-slot and a heap of good intentions, but it just didn't work because recapturing lightning in a bottle cannot be engineered this way. The Golden Girls continued to be a hugely popular series in the UK and it seemed pointless to watch the same lines being recited by different actors. The series was poorly received, and rightly so. ITV pulled it when only around half the produced episodes had aired. We breathed a sigh of relief and switched to Channel 4 to watch repeats of the original.This raises the question of if a sitcom remake is ever warranted. After all, how many King Lears have there been on stage? Or Miss Marples on film? And how many White Christmases have been performed in recording studios? What does it take to make it worthwhile?One reason might be to introduce a work to a wider audience who would not otherwise have encountered it. Another might be to put one's own spin on things and possibly even improve upon the source material.In the hope that this is not only possible but has been achieved at least once, I'm breaking with tradition and watching a British adaption of an American sitcom. <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.themoviedb.org%2Ft%2Fp%2Fw600_and_h900_bestv2%2FdYEegY5rwMr2qXy3y9MyRUS2P8V.jpg&f=1&nofb=1" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?