Coupling gets the axe!!!
Finally, NBC came to their senses and got rid of this awful show!
shareI'm not surprised. The American version was pretty abysmal. It was a mistake to use the same characters from the British version. It shouldn't have come as any surprise that the American actors didn't have the same great chemistry that their British counterparts have but it was still a tremendous let down to those who were expecting to see something on par with the original episodes. Instead they should have created an entirely new group of characters so viewers wouldn't have come in with preconcieved notions of what they should be like. As an added bonus, a new cast of characters would have opened the door to crossovers with the British show which could have been interesting.
The recycling of the British scripts was another mistake. It again created the expectation that the show would be just like the British version which, of course, it wasn't. Especially since the shorter format of the American version meant that a significant part of the original scripts had to be cut out. Then there was the matter of the American censors forcing the show to water down a lot of the humor. I have to wonder if the decision to switch to original scripts when they did was made because the discussion of pornography in "Inferno" was deemed too sensitive for American television.
While the converted British shows were painful to watch, the "original" episode was just not funny. Instead of "Inferno"'s plot of Steve and Susan getting into a fight over him watching porn, a situation a lot of people seem to be able to relate to, we got the two of them worrying about whether or not they were giving great performances in bed as way of repaying each other for picking up the tab at dinner, which no one I know can relate to. "Inferno" is funny. "check/mate" just makes Steve and Susan look like a couple of schmucks.
And whose bright idea was it to replace the gag about Patrick getting a haircut that makes him look gay with a gag about him buying a car that makes him look like he's got a small penis? Are the writers so disconnected from reality that they haven't noticed how many big trucks and SUVs are on the road? No one I know would ever accuse someone of having a small dick just because they drove a Hummer. The things are just too popular for anyone to make that sort of association. But I guess they were afraid that the gag about Patrick's hair might offend gays.
Anyway, I'm glad to see it get the boot. It was hurting sales of the original series in Europe where European networks were making decisions to buy the American version, sight unseen, instead because they expected it to have higher production values and be a slicker product. Hopefully the quick death of the American show will give the British version a boost.
Actually, I do think that men who drive Hummers are trying to compensate for something they're lacking, but that's another story. I'm glad it was cancelled, and agree with the other things people said (no chemistry, stupid plot changes, obtrusive laugh track, etc.), but Ialso think that British people are funnier in general. Maybe it's cause I'm American, and I really like the accent, but it just makes the show more interesting. Why don't they show the British version on NBC? I mean, all over the world people view American shows, it wouldn't hurt if we were introduced to a popular British show (most people who watch it love it). They did it with Trigger Happy, and I think thant's going pretty well...
Just a thought.
I doubt you'll ever see the British version on one of the American broadcast networks. The British episodes are 30 minutes long, without commercials, which means they won't fit gracefully into a standard broadcast schedule. The network would either have to edit out a third of the episode to make room for commercials or add commercials, making the episode run about 40 minutes like it does on BBC America, and then figure out a way to pad out the remaining 20 minutes of the hour. Of course once the network censors get through with each episode making them fit into a half hour time slot might not be a problem after all. No, putting the British episodes on American broadcast television is a bad idea.
shareI agree. This is why the Networks are losing viewers in huge numbers to cable tv each year. When we can watch cable networks like BBC America, Comdey Central, etc. where everything does not have to edited down by the Puritan censors and viewers can be treated as adults, it's understandable. I'll be amazed if the broadcast networks are still in place at all in another 20 years.
shareI know what you mean... there's a bit of anglophilia in all of us, and that comes into play when sentences like "now we can see women naked in the dark" are totally charmless compared to the original version. The accents, which Americans tend to associate with respectability and primness, made the show a lot funnier -- not to mention the use of such fascinating slang as "fancy" instead of like, "lads" instead of guys, "flat" instead of apartment and "cupboard" instead of closet. It's all just so quaint!
shareBRAVO!! I couldn't have worded that better if I tried! I knew the American version would be NOTHING like the British version, but even I didn't realize how badly they would do it!! I couldn't get over how awkward all the characters were...very uncomfortable...none of them really worked off each other the way they do across the pond. And really, Phoef Sutton? Who hired this guy to write for them?? I wish I could have sent NBC his book "Always Six O'Clock" before they made the horrible mistake of hiring him. He's a half assed writer.
Again, Bravo to you for pointing out the pure stupidity of it all!! bridget
My impressions of the four episodes that aired were negative. The three remakes were just not good (while their British counterparts were), and "Check/Mate" was pretty bad in its own right.
Even after the disaster of the first episode, I planned to watch the show for two original episodes and/or until "Inferno" to see if it improved--though most everyone else had less patience than I did, apparently.
I don't think the absence of "Inferno" was because of some sort of self-censorship. The original version had between six and nine episodes a year; American shows usually have 20-26 episodes a year. They'd have run through all three years of the UK "Coupling" in season 1 if they didn't have original episodes (and some of the British shows have plots dependent on Steve and Susan having dated for a while--so that wouldn't have worked). My suspicion is that the original plan had "Inferno" playing in November sweeps. At least, I would have.
As an aside: I wonder if they've made that episode? I read a description--I think on NBC's website--of an original US episode that never aired (the plot involved Steve wondering if he should get Susan a Yom Kippur gift or something like that--the description made it sound like it was going to be either really funny, or, more likely, really painful).
What went wrong in the US version? They jammed 30 minute scripts into 23 minutes--usually managing to do so by cutting a running joke (I suppose the original US episodes could have solved that problem by using a cut running joke in a later "original" show--but they never did that). Also, the US show seemed less focused than the UK version--an example of what I mean hear is found in the first episode: in the UK "Flushed," Steve and Jane are arguing about the Crippen (sp?) murder--which is relevant to their situation; in the US pilot show, they're arguing about the Titanic--thus, Americanizing the joke, and also removing its relevancy to the relationship. I think the NBC series' lack of focus was why the American version came across to me as being vulgar, while the British version is just bawdy fun. Mostly, thought, the American cast lacked the charm of the British cast--someone else said that Steve and Susan came across as schmucks in one episode--and that's the perfect word for it, but for the whole series. I never figured out if that was bad acting on their part, bad casting, or just that I'm so familiar with and fond of the British cast; not knowing that was why I kept watching the US show as long as I did--giving it the benefit of the doubt. In the final analysis, I think that NBC wanted a new "Friends"--and they were willing to tear apart a much better show in a vain and inept attempt to get it. Pity--a "Coupling" with 20 shows a season could have provided more laughs. (It's possible that the quality of the British version is better because they don't have to put out the quantity—-but there have been funny American shows in the past, even as recently as "Seinfeld.")
That's my take on the subject--highly subjective, but it adds up the general consensus--the British "Coupling" is great, but the American "Coupling" stank.
I wouldn't call Coupling a 'much better' show than Friends. After all, Friends lasted a decade with 24 episodes for much of that tenure each and every season. It was highly successful in the much more flooded American market. I like Coupling a lot, especially the Jeff character who sadly has left, but let’s not get crazy.
Also, regardless of what the creator says, it's painfully obvious that Seinfeld and Friends inspired Coupling. Three guys, three girls, just like Friends, only it's a bar instead of a coffee shop. An eccentric (Kramer, Phoebe and then Jeff), a chauvinist (Joey, Jerry and then Patrick); a central relationship (Ross and Rachel, Jerry and Elaine--sort of and now Steve and Jane). The similarities are pretty darn strong, and both Friends and Seinfeld came way before Coupling.
It doesn't change the fact that Coupling stands on its own as very funny- though it has lost a step since Jeff's departure- but still, show a little respect to the forbearers.
Anyway, Friends was always enormous in Great Britain, as we saw when they shot a season finale in London and the fans were fanatical- more so than in the US even. It was only a matter of time before they made their own 'Friends'. Why NBC would recycle their own idea via a British show is beyond me, it was obvious that it was the performers and chemistry, not the plot or idea (been done to death), that makes Coupling great, just like Friends and Seinfeld before it.
I always thought Coupling was like Friends set in the Cheers bar written by Frasier's writing team, then I bought the DVD with the interview of the writer on it and it suddenly made sense. This guy once wrote a kid's TV series called Press Gang which was so good that it on repeat it transferred to an adult slot, and Coupling is very much in this guy's style. The similarities with Friends are actually pure coincidence. His TV producer wife wanted a comedy and asked him to write one. He couldn't think of a subject, so he wrote one about them. Then he decided that the show needed more characters so he invented two more guys, one of whom was him only moreso (Jeff), and the other was him but far more shallow. Then he did the same for his wife... Once you know this, watching the first episode, you can see how it all developed.
Everyone keeps saying that the US version sucked because it had to be truncated for the ad breaks. Has anyone considered that it might have been better to extend it to an hour? On the DVD the writer complains that he was always having to cut material to fit it into a half hour, so the extra material was there, and US writers could have bulked it out with 'Local content'. At an hour it might have developed into another 'Desperate Housewives'.
Just a quick note about Seinfeld. Doesn't that strike you as being very British? Seinfeld's comedy is straight out of classic Brit stuff like Hancock, and The Likely Lads.
You hit the nail on the head! Of course they're afraid of offending gays.
The episode of the suggested threesome where Patrick and Jeff scream on seeing each other, rather than an extra girl, must have been highly offensive to our fair friends.
I dont know what your talking about but ive found more than 60% of people driving 4WD or SUVs where your from are actually women.
Part of the whole i'm not intidated by you men look im sitting taller in a strong vehicle (well they arent anymore KIA rio for example)
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