The Office

Having heard great things about original UK version of The Office, and not-so-great things about its American remake, I promptly illegally downloaded purchased Seasons 1 & 2 of the UK DVD-rips DVDs and (ahem!) legally procured all available versions of the American show (up to episode 3) to find out for myself.
The verdict: I can understand how easy it is to jump on the naysaying bandwagon about remakes (my personal nightmare as realized by Hollywood: La Femme Nikita), but I strongly suspect a lot of the people talking shit haven’t even seen the UK version. I laughed as much during the American episodes as I did the UK ones, and think that if anything, they compliment each other brilliantly – even the subtle contrasts in office environment, for example, offer a peek into the core differences of our societies (I don’t imagine there will be many mid-day drinking scenes in the office in the US version, for instance). The overall comedy styles are quite different, but more importantly, they are entirely compatible. Sometimes seeing the same scene in the UK version as performed by the US cast makes for great comedy in itself. I think a lot of hard work by the cast and creators has paid off for both versions.
Now I’m just waiting for a “The Kaisha” spinoff starring Salaryman.
(Thanks to Mandy for getting me interested in this show; Wattstax review coming soon)