Word: britishers
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...This is, of course, not a brand-new programming strategy: All in the Family was adapted from a British show, reality hits from American Idol to Survivor have overseas DNA, and Ugly Betty and The Office are remakes of international hits, while CBS ran the made-in-Canada cop show Flashpoint this summer...
...shows that, as with Vegemite, not all flavors are so easily translated. The premise is the same as the original: single fortysomething Kath (Molly Shannon) has her life disrupted when her dim-bulb daughter Kim (Selma Blair) leaves her husband and shows up at Kath's doorstep. Like the British Absolutely Fabulous, it's a comedy of grotesques; Kath is a clueless ninny, Kim a crass, inarticulate walking...
...meanwhile, has two very funny British imports. Sadly, only one is a comedy. CBS's adapted Britcom Worst Week (Mondays, 9:30 p.m. E.T.) has a much easier premise to sell to Yanks, mainly because it's pretty much lifted from a Ben Stiller movie: hapless Sam (Kyle Bornheimer), just engaged, tries to impress his future in-laws, but every attempt ends up disastrously. (In the first episode, he accidentally convinces his wife's family that her father is dead, a social faux pas in most cultures.) It's game if unambitious, with plenty of misunderstandings and physical comedy that...
...bets confidently that Yanks and redcoats alike can be united by the love of a good penis joke. Comics Matt Lucas and David Walliams transport the characters from their BBC sketch show, while adding a few American originals. But their new characters don't measure up, and the original British ones - like Lucas as thick-accented juvenile delinquent Vicky Pollard - are so culturally specific that they translate to being plopped inexplicably into American settings here like spotted dick on a McDonald's dollar menu. (Except that spotted dick is funnier...
...Life on Mars should bring viewers back for a second episode, but the highly praised British original resolved its story in only 16 episodes. Can this American Life avoid becoming ridiculous stretching the story out over dozens of episodes? It will depend on how well it rethinks the closed-ended British story line. In the end, successful foreign-transplant shows are not really "imported"; they immigrate. Eventually, they need to learn a new dialect and new mores. If they succeed - like Archie Bunker and all TV's other Ellis Island inductees - they'll have to find a way to adapt...