So do we nitwits ever make anything the empire copies?

Wow, that's quite a list. Thanks. That's right, I remember Law & Order did make it over. I wasn't actually too thrilled with the first episode of that I saw. Haven't seen Breaking Bad but do feel Law & Order is a great show. Golden Girls, That 70s Show, The Hills all worthy too. As for the others ... red face?

Actually Britain's Got Talent is the original produced by Simon Cowell. The original host of BGT had a fight with the station, was banned from the network and so the American version aired first. You were correct with all the others though.

That's mostly TV of the lowest rung, and awfully little at that.

Who's The Boss got remade in the UK as The Upper Hand, which was ridiculous because Who's The Boss user to get shown around the same time on the same channel!

Don't forget that wonderful top export of them all, Baywatch.

My first thought is that it works, ie. that they make more money that way. If true that has some implications: The almost inevitably low quality seems to matter less than some foreign accent or (gasp!) a foreign language. That is sad.

However, they missed what viewers want in other fields, exhaustively and for a long time. It took HBO to explain how to make good television. Let's hope that this spills over and more good shows are watched all over the world.

OVerall I agree - British TV is MUCH much better than US TV; however, not all remakes are awful - "Getting On" I rather liked (even though the British original was better) and the US version of The Office I thought was much funnier. So it's not ALL bad :-)

I wasn't aware that 'The Killing' was a re-make - until now (thanks), but I think with that and the original The Bridge, subtitles are a hard sell in the US, and re-making was the right move. And I think both of those are quite well done. Another really well-done re-make is House of Cards - though they slipped a bit in the third season by making a major deviation from the general path to extend the series another season. I love both versions. Some might very well think the original is better, but I couldn't possibly comment. But The Slap, Broadchurch (Gracepoint), and Secrets & Lies re-makes were completely unnecessary, with the kind of awful transparently and pathetically Americanized rubbish results we should expect when the worst US capitalist entertainment industry hacks and execs think they have an idea in their coke-addled brains.

On PBS you might see the originals. But it is interesting that we do not see the original program but just a remake of it. Sanford and Son was a big hit that was copied. I think it was called Steptoe and Son.

Well in any case think the reason they do not show the originals here is because I find that TV programs made in other part of the world are much more liberal in showing things and saying things that might not make it pass the TV censors, simple as that.

We absolutely mess up the American adaptation of most movies we remake. American movies that were originally made in America are horrible for the most part also. And that all goes back to the Gaslight back in the 1940's. And probably older films, I never seen. People thing the Bergman Boyer was the original. But there was a British original with two other actors made earlier and the studios had ordered the originals be destroyed, and I know why. It was a better movie. But apparently they found a copy. I think it was a better movie. I think Anton Walbrook was much more menacing then the Charles Boyer and there was no romantic subplot. The policeman was on to the husband the day he moved back to the neighborhood.
Same thing with that James Cameron version of the Titanic. he knew there was a Nazi version of the movie, he thought all the originals were destroyed but they were not. Look at the Nazi version and the plot is almost like his version.
They dumb down movies and they change endings because Americans cannot deal with popular characters getting killed, children dying or something of the sort. I remember the Vanishing. The American version was horrible even though Jeff Bridges was in it, he did not even look comfortable in the role, And Jeff Bridges is a actor I never seen do a bad job in a movie. The ending was different also. And the strangest thing was the director of the original which a great movie directed the American version! He clearly got some meno stating he better make tha movie for American audiences. So we will forever make remakes of foreign movies and TV shows and hope we do not get to the original.

How many big stars are from the UK or Australia?? Is that a serious question?? That list is endless - most of the Game of Thrones cast, for example!! Kate Winslet. Nicole Kidman. Emily Blunt. Cate Blanchett. Daniel Craig. Clive Owen. Sean Connery. Keira Knightley. Jude Law. Orlando Bloom. Catherine Zeta-Jones. Robert Pattison. Ewan McGregor. Christian Bale. Colin Firth. Emma Watson. Michael Caine. Anthony Hopkins. Hugh Jackman. Heath Ledger. Russell Crowe.
And that list goes on and on!!!!