Replying to arrow valley Daniel Craig said it best in some clip back in the day, that they turned Lister from a space bum into a six foot plus pretty boy which was completely wrong for the character
Howdo stratqualacc. As an Australian fan of likewise, I still reckon it might possibly have worked, eh. Like, say, if Lister was more like "Iggy" from 'Taxi'. And kept Hinton Battle as The Cat (I reckon he could've worked it out). And if they had more characterisation and less 'gags'. And had a more upbeat Theme Tune - like Series 3 onwards. Nice to see a female Holly from the start tho! It's nice to know that Red Dwarf still lives on!!! "He's a Smeee-" "Nearly, come on, nearly..!"
@kieronpratt3174 the female holly is the worst thing to happen to any Red Dwarf totally unfunny and cringe. Keep your feminist rubbish out of it please they ruin everything they touch just ask Hollywood 😂
Making Lister a suave charmer misses tge whole point, because it ruins all the humor that stemmed from the contrast between Lister and overzelaous, uptight Rimmer.
Hee hee - "Dumb them down"... you mean "Americanize" them. I reckon Sanford and Son was probably the closest 'they' ever got to almost resembling The Original. Even "All In The Family" was a complete lightweight compared to "Til Death Us Do Part". It's sad the Yanks can never really take the piss out of themselves. But hey, if I was in Ah-Merikah, I'd vote for Trump! (Wait, who said I was being 'Off Topic'?!?)
Indeed. I loved Man About the House, but could not watch Three's Company. Loved George & Mildred but couldn't watch the Ropers. I'm just glad they never got around to Americanising Robin's Nest. I also enjoyed that show
And then there's the whitewashing involved too. Craig Charles was pretty miffed about that too - apparently he took to calling the American attempts White Dwarf
Funnily enough the actor that played Lister in UK Dwarf was a published poet by the age of 15, we covered him at school even though my year were only a few years younger. You can hear his working class word play and prose in his delivery from time to time, it's that that sets his character apart in the show from the professional actors that play every other role. UK comedy has ever since been making a lot of crap comedies based around giving comedians their own shows but none have really taken off despite the promotion, over promotion of them.
That was cool of him. I dunno why, but Craig Bierko is an actor I like and hoped would see greater success, but I think he's just destined for supporting roles and failed pilots It's like, watching Craig Bierko always makes me feel wistful
I don't even hate a lot of post-series 6 Dwarf. The Dave era has a couple of episodes that made me laugh. But it just didn't have the same comedic genius. The balance of Grant and Naylor is pretty necessary, I think Naylor trends towards the more grim when left unattended (series 7 and 8 are... kinda bleak)
@@michaelinlofi For me the low point was series 7. They made some truly baffling decisions, despite a few good moments. I feel like series 8 was a course correction on a lot of those issues, along with some nice touches (Lister and Rimmer sharing bunks again, which should have been capitalised on), but like you say the comedic genius was gone.
When will greedy corporations desperate to remake things ever realise that 99.99% of the time we DIDN'T like the originals because of the premise. We loved them because the actors were perfect, their delivery of amazing lines came across almost as improvisation. It's the case in Dad's Army, Mrs Slocum and Mr Humphries in Are You Being Served, Ronnie Barker, David Jason, Harry H Corbett, John Cleese.
No. Just no. That's like trying to do an American Black Adder. I will kick somebody's ass. Read the books. Even better, listen to Chris Barrie narrate them in some of the best impersonations you've ever heard. Did you know there was even an RPG? Some of my favorite nights were spent watching Red Dwarf on Georgia Public Broadcasting smoking weed with my friends. I LOVE YOU ACE ❤
An American attempt at Blackadder kind of exists, it's not an official attempt but look up "The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer" it's a loose but somehow still quite obvious rip-off of Blackadder, mostly Blackadder III. It's known as the "America's slavery sitcom" which is a bit unfair in my opinion, and was cancelled mostly over the controversy. It's not great, or as smart, and some of the humour is way more lowbrow/puerile than BA would go, but controversy aside there is nothing fundamentally wrong or bad about it as a sitcom.
What in God's name would the point of that be? Are You Being Served relies a lot on cultural things like knowing what Harrod's is, doesn't it? (I haven't seen the show but I am aware of the premise)
@@michaelinlofi well I believe that at the time America probably didn't have a lot of great Sitcoms that were doing good in the ratings so, they scoured the worlds TV channels and came across a red dwarf and saw that it had GREAT ratings, lol
Australia got a version of it and are you being served again was funny, but the days of a full service dept/clothing store are long gone so a lot would need to be changed to even try making a USA version today
I seriously didn't get the obsession with "Americanizing" British shows. They are usually perfect the way they are. (The Office being the ONLY one that actually worked.)
Money talks. If something's doing well, people will do their own version of it in an attempt to cash in on it. And to be completely fair this isn't a uniquely American problem, but I think they might have the worst track record for it in terms of quality.
Gotta disagree with the Office. The US version lacked any of the self-aware awkwardness that made the original so endearing. The subtle sideway glances at the obvious camera crew just disappeared. Oh, and 9 series! Shakespeare put it best in Hamlet; "Brevity is the soul of wit"
@@IanM-id8or I 'wish' for it to have been significantly better than what it was, but much like wish you can't help but feel very disappointed when it arrives.
The problem with making shows for an american audience is that the network have no idea what an american audience is or what they want. This is also shown with the Office, which became a live version of the Simpsons and not a take on everyday office life.
The American audience has become the lowest common denominator. The vast majority of us stopped watching TV 20+ years ago when the pandering started and the only ones still watching it today are the ones that can be entertained by a ball sitting on a tabletop for 10 hours straight. It's not rocket science, they have that audience pegged and wish they could get the rest of us back. 330 million people, but hit shows only have 1.5 million viewers on air date? Says it all as there aren't very many new shows each season.
US Network: We love your show, we want to bring that same spirit and sense of humor to the US. US Network in production: We don't want that humor on our versions.
which is what happens in a crucible. I remember working with a real deadhead. Nice enough guy, but a can short of six-pack. While we didn't despise him to the level that Lister despised Rimmer, we loved to hate him, and he was the butt of many jokes. But we also loved the guy and would never let any real harm come to him, and I'm sure if needed we would have put ourselves in harms way to protect him. that's one of the reasons the UK show (and generally speaking most UK shows) because the characters, while a little over the top, are very believable and well fleshed out. The US characters (generally speaking in most shows) are over the top and have little substance. Some of the exceptions with US shows are Friends, The Big Bang Theory, and Seinfeld.
"We eventually made it work when we got rid of that awful 'Basil' guy....." Something I remember the American producer actually saying immediately before it got canned!
Instead of Basil whipping his car with a branch when it breaks down, I imagine the US version would have him suing the car for breach of contract. Then much hilarity would ensue.
Having Craig and danny in a show back then and i pointed out to a mate didnt even notice 2 out the 4 are people of colour, and wasnt done often in the 80s. Just a well written funny slow
The problem with U.S remakes of British shows is, the U.S producers treat their own audience like they are idiots, they dumb down the characters, and always miss the point of why a show was popular in the first place. The original British comedies that became popular in the States became popular for a reason. Give your own audiences some credit fgs!
The “You’ve been on your own for 3 million years?! What have you been doing?”, “I’ve been looking at that fire exit sign over there” line was absolutely killer though. As funny as anything in the British series. Cracked me tf up
@@davelutherable Maybe because of your hyperbole. There is no way that one joke is "as funny as anything in the British series" the British version of Red Dwarf is the original definitive version, this American imitation is awful.
Probably the highest death count of any sitcom! Tremble with fear if ever you hear Gordon"s voice saying "Don't worry, I'll soon get you out if there."
The US producers seemed to understand that Red Dwarf WAS funny, but not WHY it was funny. Also the UK cast were an incredible lucky find and could not be reproduced. Wondered why they didn't cast Mac McDonald in RDUSA, cap only in it for a minute and he was in Aliens!
Well, he was in aliens eventually with the release of the director's cut. When I first saw that extended edition I pictured him going to the cinema to watch the theatrical release with friends and family, all excited to be in this big film, and then it starts after the entire colony is wiped out and he realises his entire performance has been cut 😢
I have an unpopular opinion, which is that I think this could have worked if it had been picked up for a series. The thing about the original is that so much of what makes it great comes from the actors they had. As the series went on, the writers tailored the characters more to the strengths of the performers. The big problem with the pilot is that it tries to map the British characters on to the American actors, and it doesn't work. Craig Bierko is likeable and charismatic, but he's not the gross slob Craig Charles created. So make his Lister more of an air-headed slacker. Chris Eigman is never going to be the monster Chris Barrie was, so figure out the strengths of his portrayal and write to them. And so on.
I can see what you mean but i feel they should have tried to do something different from word go if that be the case instead of doing The End but worse. There are hints of something that could have been good for sure. I genuinely think Hinton Battle could have killed it as The Cat
Oh I see what happened. USA went like "But they are all men on a ship with gay cat, even the computer is a men... we need women in to the story and better looking main character" Red Warf was probably the only comedian space odyssey where it was not about flying throw the galaxy looing for babes to bang. I actually still have no clue what it was about :)
One thing we do well in the UK is comedy, enjoy it, dont try to remake it, it wont work. The actors make the characters, thats thats made red dwarf so funny, it doesent work without them.
Not any more we don't. All our good comedies are from the past. US make way better stuff now. including films. All our comedy films are these gentle parochial comedies - Cornetto trilogy excluded
Anytime they try to IMPORT a UK show to the US - They always GUT the HEART and SOUL out of the show that made it special... The same thing happened with The IT Crowd...
I can see why they might have wanted to do Red Dwarf - it was pretty new amd original, a SciFi comedy like that hadn't really been done before. But the IT Crowd? American shows and movies had been doing the nerd thing since "Revenge of the Nerds" and had been developing that trope ever since. Why did they feel the need to copy a British take on it?
I just realised that the actor who plays the American Lister is the main protagonist from the 'The Thirteenth Floor', a film that was overshadowed by 'The Matrix' upon its release and lost to time, but it's still worth a watch for its interesting conceit.
I remember watching the US pilot a while ago, and they ruined everything good about it The Rimmer character was not funny, lister was just a generic American "stud" And Kryten, the robot designed in the 3 million year time span of lister being in Cryo, WAS ALREADY THERE?!?! Dont even remember Cat, which is weird as he stands out quite a bit in the UK original The people who tried this trash are complete goons
I think for a US version, just give the freedom to put it on a sister ship to Red Dwarf where the same happened and then you could always do cross promotion or syndicate it to the UK if it was popular. It would give more freedom to the characters, and you could make more comedy from the differences to the UK version and still use all the same sets and models.
American producers, starting around I guess the late 80s or early 90s, really lost the ability to understand what made British sitcoms funny. They kept trying to turn them into American sitcoms, which is a format in which they just don’t work. The conversion seem to work a little better in decades before that. The office is the one recent exception I can think of that everyone can probably think of, but even that was quite a different show.
@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker I've discussed this with Americans before, The Office worked, I think, because the coporate office environment was always a great fit for American culture, it just needed some tweaks to expand it out and it was good to go.
Shameless also transitioned well. Maybe you just gotta change it and fit with USA. Maybe you need that magical transition. I'm sure if we tried to make friends or Frazier we'd make a mess of it.
@@armondtanzWell for Friends the UK had a show with a similar premise called Coupling which was extremely good in its own right. While it may have been inspired by Friends it was completely its own thing. Of course a US network made their own version and botched it
I totally agree with the sentiment since it aired here in the U.S., but Lexx is actually Canadian, German and partially funded by Channel 5, which is British! That's probably why it's so good and weird. Lol.
Robert Llewelyn describes the filing of the pilot in great and hilarious detail, in his book “The Man in the Rubber Mask” - well worth reading. Why do US companies see a UK show that is becoming popular in the US and decide to remake it differently for a US audience? The US audience liked the original… leave it alone!
@@what-about-mike83 From his book, it didn't sound like he enjoyed filming it as much as filming the UK version. He said the US cast and crew were far too serious! But like you say, he did the job, he got paid.
Robert recalled at a Red Dwarf convention that he worked for 1 week on the US pilot and for that he was paid around $50,000! A UK TV actor was not going to turn that down!
There's something fascinating about watching UK television being 'adapted' for America. Like Alice, looking through the mirror to a world almost but not like her own. If you ever get a chance, look up the John Laroquette show 'Payne' from 1999. This was America's last of 3 attempts to translate Fawlty Towers, and of the three, it's the one that actually steers closest to the original in terms of setting, cast of characters and storyline... and yet it still managed to make a few obvious mistakes that naturally led to it being canned after only a handful of episodes, never to see the light of day again.
A similar thing happened with a film about true events secret British military operation during 2nd World War that was kept secret from America and obviously no Americans were involved in any way at all. The film cast naturally an American in the leading role who took on this entire 'exclusive secret British operation' to its completion, not only that after completion and back in the USA, was honoured in an American military parade.
@@erikseidler793 Can't remember exact title but it's a german U boat. What's stunningly memorable is the VHS tape box showed a still image of the lead character all dressed up in white and shiny buttons attending a patriotic American ceremony. For something America never knew about at that time.
Which movie was that? BTW The events which were later filmed as The Great Escape had nothing whatsoever to do with either Americans or motorcycles, but they still felt the need to shoehorn Steve McQueen on a motorbike into the movie
The only people who could have judged RDUS objectively would be people who never saw the UK version. To the rest of us it's too much like they took a classic Beatles album like Revolver, changed the songs a bit, and redid it with different people.
They totally wrecked the intro. Showing the man painting the sign was to give us an idea of how huge the ship is. The way they cut that scene in the American version made me wonder why they included it at all?
Me and my boss from my old job talked about Red Dwarf one night. He said the show is great, but the humor was a little too British. “Rimmer man, you’re dead. What’s it like?” “Like vacationing with a group of Germans.” What does that even mean?! We did joke about them ever doing an American version of. But we both agreed it would suck. And then this video popped up in my video recommendation…….
The "holiday with Germans" seems to be based on a common image of German tourists being awful people that was around in the 70s and 80s. There's a similar joke in a Monty Python sketch where Eric Idle goes on a 5 minute rant about package tours. Definitely a joke that doesn't quite scan anymore
I remember hearing about this show when I first discovered Red Dwarf back in 1993 so I was curious. In the late 90's I was at a convention and one of the booths was selling VHS tapes and one of them was Red Dwarf USA. I bought it, watch it, and was mostly bored by it. The only thing I remember is the joke about Kryten's head being left on a shelf for 3 million years only because it was only joke that wasn't recycled from the original that was funny.
Back in the late 90's when I was doing the Doctor Who and Cult TV conventions, a friend of mine told me about these pilots. He gave me a couple of VHS tapes (oh, the horror!) with them on. I watched them... Once and never again, it's just too painful! I still have those cassettes for some reason. Perhaps I kept them in case I needed to give myself a kick in the tits, metaphorically that is! Absolute bloody tripe! Made worse so as Red Dwarf has been one of my favourite shows since the first episode in 1988. I watched it so often I could quote each episode, line by line, for the first six series. Sad? Yes, completely, but that show got me through some really tough times and I'll always be grateful for that. The Yanks ruin everything that's good about our shows, I'm so glad this never took off!
I've never seen a US remake that was 2% as good as the UK original, but the idea of remaking Red Dwarf in the US is so incredibly stupid that it can only be explained by the flood of bad drugs in the early 90s entertainment industry.
It's all about money. There are corporate execs who only see something is "popular", so their mind immediately goes to "Can we copy-cat that and make money off of it?" They don't understand _why_ something is popular, similar to how Large Language Models like ChatGPT don't actually _understand_ a story but only predict which words or text chunks are likely to come next based on texts it has been trained on.
@@TF2CrunchyFrog - It's like the episode of South Park where Cartman pretended to be the Awesome-O robot, and he was hijacked by Hollywood executives who harnessed his "AI" to write movie scripts, most of which starred Rob Schneider.
There are a few 'classic' American sitcoms from the late 60's and 70's are actually UK remakes that went well.. at some point past there our general views on what is funny seem to have diverged too far - and to be fair, UK attempts to remake popular US sitcoms have tended to fall equally flat.. although in general we seem to be able to cope with watching the US originals (even if we don't get half the references) while American audiences either can't handle it, or their TV companies don't give them the opportunity to try
@@johnd6487 - Yes, Minister was an EXCELLENT British television comedy. I'm amazed that it was produced by BBC given the sharp criticism of government and bureaucracy.
Shameless USA was better than U.K. lmfao they diddnt end it on the biggest cliffhanger in history when frank died at the end I actuley had a few tears 😂
I disagree. The original Shameless is still there for you to watch. Nothing is ruined. Frank in the U.S. version is incredibly realistic. Most people have terrible or absent dads.
When I recorded this video at least they were. I imagine typing "red dwarf us pilot" might provide you with the sources i used, but their quality isn't much good. All the high quality footage I used was pulled from the doco about it on the Red Dwarf V DVD
I actually watched this pilot thanks to a guy that ran a tv station and got his hands on a copy when it was new; as a major Red Dwarf fan, I wanted to pull an E.T. the Atari game on every copy and everyone involved except the one actor who carried over.
Rimmer is the absolute worst person in the universe. He’s also by far my favourite character. The actor is next level perfect and I suspect he inspired the writers.
Chris Barrie is incredible. Have you seen his impression of Kenneth Williams and Sean Connery auditioning possible actors for the next James Bond? "My name is Bond. James Bond. Would you like a claret or a bordeaux?"
It’s a small point but lister being taller than rimmer doesn’t work either, rimmers frustration over lack of dominance re lister is undercut by the fact that he’s 5 inches smaller than him.
There are two American pilots for Red Dwarf? Didn't know that. The pilot in this video is the one ive seen and i thought its main problem was the attempt to dump 3 seasons worth of exposition into an episode with nothing in the performances to justify it.
I thought I imagined this American version until it popped up on youtube 😂 I thought maybe when I was a kid I saw maybe a directors cut or something but no, it's an American version I probably saw once
*one of the times. I think three versions actually made it to recording. Interesting siddenote: when DJJ and one of the American Cats met, they were both starstruck because they admired and based their characters on eachother.
They recorded two attempts. I did have a script for a video on the second attempt, but then my computer died and I lost it. C'est la vie. And yes, Hinton Battle was an icon on his own right so he and Danny John Jules definitely had massive amounts of respect for each other
There's also a terrible American copy of the Australian series "Kath & Kim". I do prefer the U.S. series of The Office, to the original U.K. series, though.
America doesn't like losers who try, the Brits find them charming. It allows us to accept our own flaws without having to yawp all the time to cover them.
Dirk Gentle, The Office, Hitch Hikers(film, nice design, bastardised story), Three men and a baby(French), Ghost in the shell(Japanese), Alita battle angle(Japanese), Doctor Who(influence rather then remake), The girl with the dragon tattoo (Swedish, Rapace didn’t reprise her role?), Nikita(French). From some UA-cam comments, from Americans themselves, they actually seem to like watching the original foreign series and don’t seem to need it to be Americanised. What is the studio logic? What other series have been ‘adapted’. Has the UK adapted US series? I think in the UK we usually watch foreign series as is.
My mate Dave: Have you seen the US pilot of Red Dwarf? Me: It's dead Dave. Dave: What Rimmer? Me: Yes, Dave. They're all dead Dave. Dave: Not the cat? Me: Yes, Dave. They're all dead Dave. Dave: What? Kryten? Me: They're all dead. Everybody's dead. The whole show is dead, Dave. Gordon Bennet. Why did they even bother?
There's a lot of ways that this adaptation missed the point of the source material, but the one that sticks out for me is that they took Dave Lister, a regular-looking, mixed-race explicitly slobby lumpen slacker with an extremely specific regional accent and replaced him with a guy who looks like the prom king somehow had a baby with a cable news talking head who talks like he's reading the news. A real Americanized Lister would be (for example) a slightly funny-looking dude of ambiguous ethnicity with a thick Baltimore accent, not a 6'4" guy with washboard abs who looks like he knows a lot about sailing.
Would have been interesting. Terry Farrell can definitely be funny if Deep Space Nine is evidence of anything. She should have just never been cast as the Cat in that second pilot
I remember watching a good percentage of this awesome show on a public broadcasting channel in the USA what always surprised me is nearly no edited out cursing no blurring for when characters flipped the bird hell it pretty much was what the home release DVDs, VHS tapes, or Blu-rays I made a thing to catch it whenever it was on sorta like another show that would air on the opposite nights Red Green Show both made a good part of my humor
I remembered reading about this in a Starlog magazine or something and then never heard about it again. Small favors. Bierko was underutilized most of his career but totally wrong for this role. Kryten being a mass-produced automaton it makes sense to use the same actor for that.
I've seen the pilot many times, & I have to say as a huge American Red Dwarf fan.....I kind of like it!!!! I think it had the feel of Red Dwarf, & the ONLY reason why it didn't do well is because it didn't translate well from the UK to America. It's very tough to Americanize British television because of cultural differences.
Our sense of humour is very two tier - You have sophisticated, and then youve got utter slapstick stupidity. Id opt for the latter. Google "The Young Ones" or "Bottom". Youll have fun, i promise lol
Ive never seen either versiin of Red Dwarf, but i feel like you could so a Find and Replace of this video with “The IT Crowd” and itd still be dead-on.
No, I just got paranoid about boring the audience with using clips from it constantly. I also operated under the assumption that a lot of the audience would have seen the UA-cam copies of the pilot. This is also an odd video in that it came out around the time I was starting to change my approach to UA-cam. I would do this very differently today
It's interesting that the project began around the end of Series 5, as I must say the segment in Back to Reality where Lister watches the 'replacement' players and sees his other more macho, successful self get Kochanski, almost feels like the Red Dwarf makers envisioning their worst nightmare of what an Americanized Red Dwarf would be like. Which makes it odd that they went along with the project at all, and only seemed to realise their terrible mistake after. My main takeaways when I finally saw the pilot were that I had a bit of a guilty liking for the opening theme, Jane Leeves as Holly and Robert Llewellyn as Kryten were definitely the highlights. But the jokes just felt like crude and cheap digs rather than part of a charming dynamic. Rimmer ends up being a non-entity we barely know before he dies, and certainly lacks the pathos of Chris Barrie's version. It does just feel like the actors here are delivering their given lines rather than truly inhabiting their characters. The Making of itself, actually ends up being a far more interesting story than the pilot. Overall it feels like a relief it did fail and didn't make it to air. It does overall feel like it was always a doomed venture.
Biggest failure was they made Lister a working joe to a hollywood pretty boy.
they do it every time.... being human,- I couldn't tell who was the werewolf and who the vampire- they just looked the same
Replying to arrow valley
Daniel Craig said it best in some clip back in the day, that they turned Lister from a space bum into a six foot plus pretty boy which was completely wrong for the character
oops do appologise
And made him really buff which is miles away from Dave Lister.
@@mackthemouse8443 James Bond said that ?
As an American fan of British comedy, this information about an Americanized Red Dwarf terrifies me beyond words.
Howdo stratqualacc. As an Australian fan of likewise, I still reckon it might possibly have worked, eh. Like, say, if Lister was more like "Iggy" from 'Taxi'. And kept Hinton Battle as The Cat (I reckon he could've worked it out). And if they had more characterisation and less 'gags'. And had a more upbeat Theme Tune - like Series 3 onwards. Nice to see a female Holly from the start tho! It's nice to know that Red Dwarf still lives on!!!
"He's a Smeee-" "Nearly, come on, nearly..!"
Do you know if they've tried to do an Only Fools and Horses? I couldn't think of anything more abhorrent than that, haha!
@@mup_petThey did. I can't remember the name of it at the moment but it started John Leguiziamo ( not sure if the spelling, sorry)
It should 😂
@kieronpratt3174 the female holly is the worst thing to happen to any Red Dwarf totally unfunny and cringe. Keep your feminist rubbish out of it please they ruin everything they touch just ask Hollywood 😂
Making Lister a suave charmer misses tge whole point, because it ruins all the humor that stemmed from the contrast between Lister and overzelaous, uptight Rimmer.
The problem with US versions of UK shows is they almost always miss the point of the show and try to dumb them down.
Only fools and horses was absolutely gash
Hee hee - "Dumb them down"... you mean "Americanize" them. I reckon Sanford and Son was probably the closest 'they' ever got to almost resembling The Original. Even "All In The Family" was a complete lightweight compared to "Til Death Us Do Part". It's sad the Yanks can never really take the piss out of themselves. But hey, if I was in Ah-Merikah, I'd vote for Trump! (Wait, who said I was being 'Off Topic'?!?)
Indeed. I loved Man About the House, but could not watch Three's Company. Loved George & Mildred but couldn't watch the Ropers.
I'm just glad they never got around to Americanising Robin's Nest. I also enjoyed that show
They did the same with Utopia. I don't understand why they can't just trust US audiences to enjoy an import of the original instead.
Just like they did with the English language.
“Smoke me a kipper I’ll be back for Breakfast” what a guy 😂
America , " Whats a KIPPER " .
@@boydovens4180 a fish 🐟 👍🇬🇧
Smoke me a kipper skipper...
Delicious,and side note Are you being served had an Australian version
Stoke me a clipper, I’ll be back for Christmas!
I'm glad Craig Bierko was self aware that the remake was going to be a dud. Lister had that everyman charm, and Craig was too handsome for the part.
And then there's the whitewashing involved too. Craig Charles was pretty miffed about that too - apparently he took to calling the American attempts White Dwarf
Funnily enough the actor that played Lister in UK Dwarf was a published poet by the age of 15, we covered him at school even though my year were only a few years younger. You can hear his working class word play and prose in his delivery from time to time, it's that that sets his character apart in the show from the professional actors that play every other role. UK comedy has ever since been making a lot of crap comedies based around giving comedians their own shows but none have really taken off despite the promotion, over promotion of them.
I feel like the pilot may have been measurably better if the Lister and Rimmer actors swapped roles.
That was cool of him. I dunno why, but Craig Bierko is an actor I like and hoped would see greater success, but I think he's just destined for supporting roles and failed pilots
It's like, watching Craig Bierko always makes me feel wistful
@@JamesJoy-yc8vs I still remember The Thirteenth Floor. MASSIVELY underrated movie.
Ah, Robert llewellen doing his Canadian Herman munster impression to an American audience. Priceless 🤔
Love that it's recognised for once that Red Dwarf was amazing up until series 6 or so and then went drastically downhill.
True though. 4,5 and 6 were magnificent. After series 6, Rob Grant left the writing partnership and it showed.
I don't even hate a lot of post-series 6 Dwarf. The Dave era has a couple of episodes that made me laugh. But it just didn't have the same comedic genius. The balance of Grant and Naylor is pretty necessary, I think Naylor trends towards the more grim when left unattended (series 7 and 8 are... kinda bleak)
for once lol ok
@@michaelinlofi For me the low point was series 7. They made some truly baffling decisions, despite a few good moments. I feel like series 8 was a course correction on a lot of those issues, along with some nice touches (Lister and Rimmer sharing bunks again, which should have been capitalised on), but like you say the comedic genius was gone.
I think the new series were great.
When will greedy corporations desperate to remake things ever realise that 99.99% of the time we DIDN'T like the originals because of the premise. We loved them because the actors were perfect, their delivery of amazing lines came across almost as improvisation. It's the case in Dad's Army, Mrs Slocum and Mr Humphries in Are You Being Served, Ronnie Barker, David Jason, Harry H Corbett, John Cleese.
I would have had my name removed from the credits as a creative consultant as soon as they stopped listening to my objections
Yep, same here. No way am I putting my name to that.
And say goodbye to that sweet US television money? No chance.
It's so monumentally arrogant to commission Grant & Naylor and then ignore their advice on how to make the US version of THEIR show successful.
I am proud to be an American. However…things like this don’t make it easy sometimes.
No. Just no. That's like trying to do an American Black Adder. I will kick somebody's ass. Read the books. Even better, listen to Chris Barrie narrate them in some of the best impersonations you've ever heard. Did you know there was even an RPG? Some of my favorite nights were spent watching Red Dwarf on Georgia Public Broadcasting smoking weed with my friends. I LOVE YOU ACE ❤
Don't give them ideas. The last thing we need is an Americanised version of the Black Vegetable
An American attempt at Blackadder kind of exists, it's not an official attempt but look up "The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer" it's a loose but somehow still quite obvious rip-off of Blackadder, mostly Blackadder III. It's known as the "America's slavery sitcom" which is a bit unfair in my opinion, and was cancelled mostly over the controversy. It's not great, or as smart, and some of the humour is way more lowbrow/puerile than BA would go, but controversy aside there is nothing fundamentally wrong or bad about it as a sitcom.
@@Bikey_McBeardface Holy shit Chi McBride! I love that guy!
They did the same thing to "are you being served?"
What in God's name would the point of that be? Are You Being Served relies a lot on cultural things like knowing what Harrod's is, doesn't it? (I haven't seen the show but I am aware of the premise)
Which show was this?!!
@@thetachi5 a brititsh comedy show called Red Dwarf.
@@michaelinlofi well I believe that at the time America probably didn't have a lot of great Sitcoms that were doing good in the ratings so, they scoured the worlds TV channels and came across a red dwarf and saw that it had GREAT ratings, lol
Australia got a version of it and are you being served again was funny, but the days of a full service dept/clothing store are long gone so a lot would need to be changed to even try making a USA version today
I seriously didn't get the obsession with "Americanizing" British shows. They are usually perfect the way they are. (The Office being the ONLY one that actually worked.)
Money talks. If something's doing well, people will do their own version of it in an attempt to cash in on it.
And to be completely fair this isn't a uniquely American problem, but I think they might have the worst track record for it in terms of quality.
@@michaelinlofi The laughably ironic thing is that it's actually much cheaper to just import the show.
I recall Sanford and Son being pretty successful as well.
@@evrbody "All In The Family" as well.
Gotta disagree with the Office. The US version lacked any of the self-aware awkwardness that made the original so endearing. The subtle sideway glances at the obvious camera crew just disappeared.
Oh, and 9 series! Shakespeare put it best in Hamlet; "Brevity is the soul of wit"
its interesting that the two lead actors are still called craig and chris
Probably the entire logic for their casting by the looks of things
It's like the Dollar General version of Red Dwarf.
That's a pretty apt description actually
It's the Wish or Temu version of Red Dwarf
@@IanM-id8or I 'wish' for it to have been significantly better than what it was, but much like wish you can't help but feel very disappointed when it arrives.
Don't insult Dollar General like that.
@@1Blastarr 🤣🤣🤣🤣
In 1983 they tried to do Fawlty Towers with Bea Arthur called Amanda’s. I can still smell it. What a stinker.
Nice vid man. Subbed and looking forward to the second one
Cheers mate, much appreciated!
The problem with making shows for an american audience is that the network have no idea what an american audience is or what they want.
This is also shown with the Office, which became a live version of the Simpsons and not a take on everyday office life.
The American audience has become the lowest common denominator. The vast majority of us stopped watching TV 20+ years ago when the pandering started and the only ones still watching it today are the ones that can be entertained by a ball sitting on a tabletop for 10 hours straight. It's not rocket science, they have that audience pegged and wish they could get the rest of us back. 330 million people, but hit shows only have 1.5 million viewers on air date? Says it all as there aren't very many new shows each season.
US Network: We love your show, we want to bring that same spirit and sense of humor to the US.
US Network in production: We don't want that humor on our versions.
What they don't get about the UK original is that lister and Rimmer hate each other but are in fact best mates.
which is what happens in a crucible.
I remember working with a real deadhead. Nice enough guy, but a can short of six-pack.
While we didn't despise him to the level that Lister despised Rimmer, we loved to hate him, and he was the butt of many jokes. But we also loved the guy and would never let any real harm come to him, and I'm sure if needed we would have put ourselves in harms way to protect him.
that's one of the reasons the UK show (and generally speaking most UK shows) because the characters, while a little over the top, are very believable and well fleshed out. The US characters (generally speaking in most shows) are over the top and have little substance. Some of the exceptions with US shows are Friends, The Big Bang Theory, and Seinfeld.
Next video: the American version of Fawlty Towers...
They did a very long and successful run of a steptoe and son remake
There's been three American remakes of Fawlty Towers
"We eventually made it work when we got rid of that awful 'Basil' guy....." Something I remember the American producer actually saying immediately before it got canned!
Instead of Basil whipping his car with a branch when it breaks down, I imagine the US version would have him suing the car for breach of contract. Then much hilarity would ensue.
That was tried a total of 4 times, with varying levels of abysmal failure.
Having Craig and danny in a show back then and i pointed out to a mate didnt even notice 2 out the 4 are people of colour, and wasnt done often in the 80s. Just a well written funny slow
Cool. A Red Dwarf movie is a monster idea.
The problem with U.S remakes of British shows is, the U.S producers treat their own audience like they are idiots, they dumb down the characters, and always miss the point of why a show was popular in the first place. The original British comedies that became popular in the States became popular for a reason. Give your own audiences some credit fgs!
The “You’ve been on your own for 3 million years?! What have you been doing?”, “I’ve been looking at that fire exit sign over there” line was absolutely killer though. As funny as anything in the British series. Cracked me tf up
er, ok. Doesnt take much to get you laughing.
@@voxac30withstrat You sure sound like a bundle of laughs
As funny as anything in the British version? Be serious for a second, that line is not a patch on the original series' jokes.
@@martinputt6421 Why you starting arguments with people about lines they find funny in a sitcom?
@@davelutherable Maybe because of your hyperbole. There is no way that one joke is "as funny as anything in the British series" the British version of Red Dwarf is the original definitive version, this American imitation is awful.
Anyone remember the Brittas Empire, that's some British comedy
Seem to remember my dad liked Brittas, but in terms of Chris Barrie liked Spitting Image a bit more
Probably the highest death count of any sitcom!
Tremble with fear if ever you hear Gordon"s voice saying "Don't worry, I'll soon get you out if there."
The US producers seemed to understand that Red Dwarf WAS funny, but not WHY it was funny. Also the UK cast were an incredible lucky find and could not be reproduced. Wondered why they didn't cast Mac McDonald in RDUSA, cap only in it for a minute and he was in Aliens!
Well, he was in aliens eventually with the release of the director's cut. When I first saw that extended edition I pictured him going to the cinema to watch the theatrical release with friends and family, all excited to be in this big film, and then it starts after the entire colony is wiped out and he realises his entire performance has been cut 😢
Norman lovett’s sead pan professional comedian delivery helped a lot
I'm from the States, I could only watch the first 5 min of the American Office and had to call it quits
I liked American Office after Steve C left. It seemed like a different show then. Got nothing against Carrell though
I never get tired of introducing the original British show and the books to new viewers 😊
I have an unpopular opinion, which is that I think this could have worked if it had been picked up for a series. The thing about the original is that so much of what makes it great comes from the actors they had. As the series went on, the writers tailored the characters more to the strengths of the performers. The big problem with the pilot is that it tries to map the British characters on to the American actors, and it doesn't work. Craig Bierko is likeable and charismatic, but he's not the gross slob Craig Charles created. So make his Lister more of an air-headed slacker. Chris Eigman is never going to be the monster Chris Barrie was, so figure out the strengths of his portrayal and write to them. And so on.
I can see what you mean but i feel they should have tried to do something different from word go if that be the case instead of doing The End but worse.
There are hints of something that could have been good for sure. I genuinely think Hinton Battle could have killed it as The Cat
This is the 2nd time I've seen Jago commenting on something I've watched, that doesn't involve a train either
@@JK-wn3cc He is the recurring commenter on our regular watchlist.
@typhoidtyphoon seen him a 3rd time since I wrote that last comment. I must have some shared interests with him
Oh I see what happened. USA went like "But they are all men on a ship with gay cat, even the computer is a men... we need women in to the story and better looking main character" Red Warf was probably the only comedian space odyssey where it was not about flying throw the galaxy looing for babes to bang. I actually still have no clue what it was about :)
One thing we do well in the UK is comedy, enjoy it, dont try to remake it, it wont work. The actors make the characters, thats thats made red dwarf so funny, it doesent work without them.
Not any more we don't. All our good comedies are from the past. US make way better stuff now. including films. All our comedy films are these gentle parochial comedies - Cornetto trilogy excluded
@@robertwilson3866 agreed but thats partly because all our talent gets asset stripped by ~Hollywood
Liked immediately after seeing the fact that there only 6 series of red dwarf
It's not even that I hate series 7 and onwards, it's just clearly not the work of genius that the first six series are
Totally agree mate
Any TV series is generally only good for about five seasons, then it simply runs out of steam. All should be ended on Season Five.
Should have cancelled Mrs Brown’s Boys after the first episode!
Anytime they try to IMPORT a UK show to the US - They always GUT the HEART and SOUL out of the show that made it special... The same thing happened with The IT Crowd...
Hollywood sucks
You wanna see the only fools and horses American pilot. On second thoughts don’t 😩
I can see why they might have wanted to do Red Dwarf - it was pretty new amd original, a SciFi comedy like that hadn't really been done before. But the IT Crowd? American shows and movies had been doing the nerd thing since "Revenge of the Nerds" and had been developing that trope ever since. Why did they feel the need to copy a British take on it?
8:38 I'm have you know those tunes were based on melodies whistled by Garth himself.
I just realised that the actor who plays the American Lister is the main protagonist from the 'The Thirteenth Floor', a film that was overshadowed by 'The Matrix' upon its release and lost to time, but it's still worth a watch for its interesting conceit.
I remember watching the US pilot a while ago, and they ruined everything good about it
The Rimmer character was not funny, lister was just a generic American "stud"
And Kryten, the robot designed in the 3 million year time span of lister being in Cryo, WAS ALREADY THERE?!?!
Dont even remember Cat, which is weird as he stands out quite a bit in the UK original
The people who tried this trash are complete goons
I think for a US version, just give the freedom to put it on a sister ship to Red Dwarf where the same happened and then you could always do cross promotion or syndicate it to the UK if it was popular. It would give more freedom to the characters, and you could make more comedy from the differences to the UK version and still use all the same sets and models.
American producers, starting around I guess the late 80s or early 90s, really lost the ability to understand what made British sitcoms funny. They kept trying to turn them into American sitcoms, which is a format in which they just don’t work. The conversion seem to work a little better in decades before that. The office is the one recent exception I can think of that everyone can probably think of, but even that was quite a different show.
@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker I've discussed this with Americans before, The Office worked, I think, because the coporate office environment was always a great fit for American culture, it just needed some tweaks to expand it out and it was good to go.
@@lancebaylis3169 true
Shameless also transitioned well. Maybe you just gotta change it and fit with USA. Maybe you need that magical transition.
I'm sure if we tried to make friends or Frazier we'd make a mess of it.
Top Gear and American Top Gear
@@armondtanzWell for Friends the UK had a show with a similar premise called Coupling which was extremely good in its own right. While it may have been inspired by Friends it was completely its own thing. Of course a US network made their own version and botched it
I wanna see the episode of the British show where they visit the American show as one if the many parelele universe's.
Ok. Rimmer being shorter makes him vulnerable than Dave Lister. So slightly more posh Lister having a pop at him seems less cool.
Lexx is the real us red dwarf, Lexx, watch it
I totally agree with the sentiment since it aired here in the U.S., but Lexx is actually Canadian, German and partially funded by Channel 5, which is British! That's probably why it's so good and weird. Lol.
@@Aster_Risk lexx is so underrated, i loved lexx, i stillsing yo way yo regularly and havent seen the series for a long ass time
Oh lol, the funny thing is it’s literally the show Garth Merenghies Dark Place is taking the piss out of!
Robert Llewelyn describes the filing of the pilot in great and hilarious detail, in his book “The Man in the Rubber Mask” - well worth reading.
Why do US companies see a UK show that is becoming popular in the US and decide to remake it differently for a US audience? The US audience liked the original… leave it alone!
Ironically he appears in it though so guess he didn't have that much of an issue with it 😂😂
At the end of the day Robert was still getting paid. Can't blame him for trying to get that money honestly
@@what-about-mike83 From his book, it didn't sound like he enjoyed filming it as much as filming the UK version. He said the US cast and crew were far too serious! But like you say, he did the job, he got paid.
Robert recalled at a Red Dwarf convention that he worked for 1 week on the US pilot and for that he was paid around $50,000! A UK TV actor was not going to turn that down!
@@austinseven4720 wow... he didn't mention the amount in his book !
They drop all the characters in episode one? Jeez, no room to breathe.
There's something fascinating about watching UK television being 'adapted' for America. Like Alice, looking through the mirror to a world almost but not like her own. If you ever get a chance, look up the John Laroquette show 'Payne' from 1999. This was America's last of 3 attempts to translate Fawlty Towers, and of the three, it's the one that actually steers closest to the original in terms of setting, cast of characters and storyline... and yet it still managed to make a few obvious mistakes that naturally led to it being canned after only a handful of episodes, never to see the light of day again.
Inbetweeners and only fools and horses are also terrible.
I guess shameless and the office are the only 2 that crossed over well.
@@armondtanz Steptoe/Sanford & Son apparently worked well, though i didn't watch either show
A similar thing happened with a film about true events secret British military operation during 2nd World War that was kept secret from America and obviously no Americans were involved in any way at all.
The film cast naturally an American in the leading role who took on this entire 'exclusive secret British operation' to its completion, not only that after completion and back in the USA, was honoured in an American military parade.
Name of the movie?
@@erikseidler793 Can't remember exact title but it's a german U boat. What's stunningly memorable is the VHS tape box showed a still image of the lead character all dressed up in white and shiny buttons attending a patriotic American ceremony. For something America never knew about at that time.
U571 ?
Which movie was that?
BTW The events which were later filmed as The Great Escape had nothing whatsoever to do with either Americans or motorcycles, but they still felt the need to shoehorn Steve McQueen on a motorbike into the movie
Yeah its U-571. About capturing an enigma machine from a U boat.
Futurama is the american red dwarf done right IMO
The US tried to remake Faulty Towers but without Basil Faulty ever appearing in it.
The only people who could have judged RDUS objectively would be people who never saw the UK version. To the rest of us it's too much like they took a classic Beatles album like Revolver, changed the songs a bit, and redid it with different people.
YES!!!! Revolver re-recorded by The Osmonds! I think that would nail EXACTLY what you're saying.
They totally wrecked the intro. Showing the man painting the sign was to give us an idea of how huge the ship is. The way they cut that scene in the American version made me wonder why they included it at all?
Me and my boss from my old job talked about Red Dwarf one night. He said the show is great, but the humor was a little too British.
“Rimmer man, you’re dead. What’s it like?”
“Like vacationing with a group of Germans.” What does that even mean?! We did joke about them ever doing an American version of. But we both agreed it would suck. And then this video popped up in my video recommendation…….
The "holiday with Germans" seems to be based on a common image of German tourists being awful people that was around in the 70s and 80s. There's a similar joke in a Monty Python sketch where Eric Idle goes on a 5 minute rant about package tours. Definitely a joke that doesn't quite scan anymore
America doesn't have scousers there was no way to replace him an English Celtic hybrid is impossible outside scouse land
I remember hearing about this show when I first discovered Red Dwarf back in 1993 so I was curious. In the late 90's I was at a convention and one of the booths was selling VHS tapes and one of them was Red Dwarf USA. I bought it, watch it, and was mostly bored by it. The only thing I remember is the joke about Kryten's head being left on a shelf for 3 million years only because it was only joke that wasn't recycled from the original that was funny.
Back in the late 90's when I was doing the Doctor Who and Cult TV conventions, a friend of mine told me about these pilots. He gave me a couple of VHS tapes (oh, the horror!) with them on. I watched them... Once and never again, it's just too painful! I still have those cassettes for some reason. Perhaps I kept them in case I needed to give myself a kick in the tits, metaphorically that is! Absolute bloody tripe! Made worse so as Red Dwarf has been one of my favourite shows since the first episode in 1988. I watched it so often I could quote each episode, line by line, for the first six series. Sad? Yes, completely, but that show got me through some really tough times and I'll always be grateful for that. The Yanks ruin everything that's good about our shows, I'm so glad this never took off!
Kryten would never unironically say "boy"
I've never seen a US remake that was 2% as good as the UK original, but the idea of remaking Red Dwarf in the US is so incredibly stupid that it can only be explained by the flood of bad drugs in the early 90s entertainment industry.
It's all about money. There are corporate execs who only see something is "popular", so their mind immediately goes to "Can we copy-cat that and make money off of it?" They don't understand _why_ something is popular, similar to how Large Language Models like ChatGPT don't actually _understand_ a story but only predict which words or text chunks are likely to come next based on texts it has been trained on.
@@TF2CrunchyFrog - It's like the episode of South Park where Cartman pretended to be the Awesome-O robot, and he was hijacked by Hollywood executives who harnessed his "AI" to write movie scripts, most of which starred Rob Schneider.
@@Liberty4EverTwo US remakes that worked are Welcome Back Kotter and All in the Family, but that's going WAY back.
There are a few 'classic' American sitcoms from the late 60's and 70's are actually UK remakes that went well.. at some point past there our general views on what is funny seem to have diverged too far - and to be fair, UK attempts to remake popular US sitcoms have tended to fall equally flat.. although in general we seem to be able to cope with watching the US originals (even if we don't get half the references) while American audiences either can't handle it, or their TV companies don't give them the opportunity to try
@@johnd6487 - Yes, Minister was an EXCELLENT British television comedy. I'm amazed that it was produced by BBC given the sharp criticism of government and bureaucracy.
I saw the first American pilot as part of a test audience. I didn't find out until years later that it wasn't the real show.
They ruined Shameless as well.
Absolutely, Frank Gallagher was one of the best characters in any TV series ever imo...
Shameless USA was better than U.K. lmfao they diddnt end it on the biggest cliffhanger in history when frank died at the end I actuley had a few tears 😂
I disagree. The original Shameless is still there for you to watch. Nothing is ruined. Frank in the U.S. version is incredibly realistic. Most people have terrible or absent dads.
The cast members didn't even know Robert from the uk one was doing this
It doesn't help that the Rimmer is shorter than the Lister and isn't as pompous
Its always hard to change a way of thinking with complexity from another perspective to another way of Guess. Complexity
Good review, but would've liked to see more of the actual footage so I'd make my own opinion on the US version
PS Are those pilots available on UA-cam
When I recorded this video at least they were. I imagine typing "red dwarf us pilot" might provide you with the sources i used, but their quality isn't much good. All the high quality footage I used was pulled from the doco about it on the Red Dwarf V DVD
I actually watched this pilot thanks to a guy that ran a tv station and got his hands on a copy when it was new; as a major Red Dwarf fan, I wanted to pull an E.T. the Atari game on every copy and everyone involved except the one actor who carried over.
If it's not broken, Don't try and fix it.
Everybody's dead dave,
Dave, Everybody's dead.
Rimmer is the absolute worst person in the universe. He’s also by far my favourite character. The actor is next level perfect and I suspect he inspired the writers.
Chris Barrie is incredible. Have you seen his impression of Kenneth Williams and Sean Connery auditioning possible actors for the next James Bond?
"My name is Bond. James Bond. Would you like a claret or a bordeaux?"
The novels made me realise how genius the character of Rimmer is
Ace Rimmer was his idea too
Cheers has always been and will always be the funniest show to come out of the States
It’s a small point but lister being taller than rimmer doesn’t work either, rimmers frustration over lack of dominance re lister is undercut by the fact that he’s 5 inches smaller than him.
I feel physically sick knowing it exists
There are two American pilots for Red Dwarf? Didn't know that.
The pilot in this video is the one ive seen and i thought its main problem was the attempt to dump 3 seasons worth of exposition into an episode with nothing in the performances to justify it.
I thought I imagined this American version until it popped up on youtube 😂 I thought maybe when I was a kid I saw maybe a directors cut or something but no, it's an American version I probably saw once
*one of the times.
I think three versions actually made it to recording.
Interesting siddenote: when DJJ and one of the American Cats met, they were both starstruck because they admired and based their characters on eachother.
They recorded two attempts. I did have a script for a video on the second attempt, but then my computer died and I lost it. C'est la vie.
And yes, Hinton Battle was an icon on his own right so he and Danny John Jules definitely had massive amounts of respect for each other
There's also a terrible American copy of the Australian series "Kath & Kim". I do prefer the U.S. series of The Office, to the original U.K. series, though.
America doesn't like losers who try, the Brits find them charming. It allows us to accept our own flaws without having to yawp all the time to cover them.
Yes. You are mocked for trying in the U.S. You must be perfect. We constantly cast hot, flawless people to play your average Joe or Jane.
Stoke me a clipper, I'll be back for Christmas.
The Office aside, have any British sitcoms translated even remotely ok when remade in America?
OMG that theme is jarring.
Dirk Gentle, The Office, Hitch Hikers(film, nice design, bastardised story), Three men and a baby(French), Ghost in the shell(Japanese), Alita battle angle(Japanese), Doctor Who(influence rather then remake), The girl with the dragon tattoo (Swedish, Rapace didn’t reprise her role?), Nikita(French).
From some UA-cam comments, from Americans themselves, they actually seem to like watching the original foreign series and don’t seem to need it to be Americanised. What is the studio logic? What other series have been ‘adapted’. Has the UK adapted US series? I think in the UK we usually watch foreign series as is.
Not listening to the original writers was an incredibly bad move
Cat had never met a human in early uk seasons later on in the show he spent years with them so started picking up more human traits
I thought dude was a vampire and not a cat. Dresses like a vamp
My mate Dave: Have you seen the US pilot of Red Dwarf?
Me: It's dead Dave.
Dave: What Rimmer?
Me: Yes, Dave. They're all dead Dave.
Dave: Not the cat?
Me: Yes, Dave. They're all dead Dave.
Dave: What? Kryten?
Me: They're all dead. Everybody's dead. The whole show is dead, Dave.
Gordon Bennet. Why did they even bother?
There's a lot of ways that this adaptation missed the point of the source material, but the one that sticks out for me is that they took Dave Lister, a regular-looking, mixed-race explicitly slobby lumpen slacker with an extremely specific regional accent and replaced him with a guy who looks like the prom king somehow had a baby with a cable news talking head who talks like he's reading the news. A real Americanized Lister would be (for example) a slightly funny-looking dude of ambiguous ethnicity with a thick Baltimore accent, not a 6'4" guy with washboard abs who looks like he knows a lot about sailing.
Yes! Baltimore is such a good comparison. I just think of John Waters and all his associated colleagues.
The American Red Dwarf pilot could have been better. Would be good if Terry Farrell guest starred in UK Red Dwarf.
Would have been interesting. Terry Farrell can definitely be funny if Deep Space Nine is evidence of anything. She should have just never been cast as the Cat in that second pilot
@@michaelinlofi If the 2nd Red Dwarf USA pilot had been much better, it could have been Terry Farrell's big breakout role, not DS9.
I remember watching a good percentage of this awesome show on a public broadcasting channel in the USA what always surprised me is nearly no edited out cursing no blurring for when characters flipped the bird hell it pretty much was what the home release DVDs, VHS tapes, or Blu-rays I made a thing to catch it whenever it was on sorta like another show that would air on the opposite nights Red Green Show both made a good part of my humor
I do like the control console that the US Lister tries to operate. That's about all I like.
“NOW…..something, something…”
"You haven't the slightest clue what it's for do you?" "Why sure I do Grease Stain..."
I remembered reading about this in a Starlog magazine or something and then never heard about it again. Small favors. Bierko was underutilized most of his career but totally wrong for this role. Kryten being a mass-produced automaton it makes sense to use the same actor for that.
I've seen the pilot many times, & I have to say as a huge American Red Dwarf fan.....I kind of like it!!!! I think it had the feel of Red Dwarf, & the ONLY reason why it didn't do well is because it didn't translate well from the UK to America. It's very tough to Americanize British television because of cultural differences.
Our sense of humour is very two tier - You have sophisticated, and then youve got utter slapstick stupidity. Id opt for the latter. Google "The Young Ones" or "Bottom". Youll have fun, i promise lol
Sometimes there is just no improving on the original.
The office was one of the exceptions.
Both versions were excellent.
It's like an alternative universe Red Dwarf....
Tiktoks working for you dude, noice vid aaaaaaand subbed
Thanks, man!
Ive never seen either versiin of Red Dwarf, but i feel like you could so a Find and Replace of this video with “The IT Crowd” and itd still be dead-on.
nailed it
3:58 Sounds a bit like Fry from Futurama . . . The Yahoo TV series Other Space seems to have a bit of Red Dwarf influence on it.
This came up in my recommended! Had no idea there was a US version. I would have liked to have seen a crossover 😊
Would have been nice to include some examples of the show you are talking about. Was there copyright issues?
No, I just got paranoid about boring the audience with using clips from it constantly. I also operated under the assumption that a lot of the audience would have seen the UA-cam copies of the pilot.
This is also an odd video in that it came out around the time I was starting to change my approach to UA-cam. I would do this very differently today
It's interesting that the project began around the end of Series 5, as I must say the segment in Back to Reality where Lister watches the 'replacement' players and sees his other more macho, successful self get Kochanski, almost feels like the Red Dwarf makers envisioning their worst nightmare of what an Americanized Red Dwarf would be like.
Which makes it odd that they went along with the project at all, and only seemed to realise their terrible mistake after.
My main takeaways when I finally saw the pilot were that I had a bit of a guilty liking for the opening theme, Jane Leeves as Holly and Robert Llewellyn as Kryten were definitely the highlights. But the jokes just felt like crude and cheap digs rather than part of a charming dynamic. Rimmer ends up being a non-entity we barely know before he dies, and certainly lacks the pathos of Chris Barrie's version. It does just feel like the actors here are delivering their given lines rather than truly inhabiting their characters.
The Making of itself, actually ends up being a far more interesting story than the pilot.
Overall it feels like a relief it did fail and didn't make it to air. It does overall feel like it was always a doomed venture.