10 Foreign TV Shows That America Ruined

Now, before you get crazy, we’re not going to say The Office. In fact, there have been many television shows, including the aforementioned classic, that were adapted from foreign versions and have done great in America, or even been improved upon — American Idol began as the UK’s Pop Idol, Sanford and Son was originally a British hit called Steptoe And Son, and of course, the Columbian telenovela Yo soy Betty, la fea was remade as the great Ugly Betty. But for every successful American remake of another country’s show, there are five failed attempts — some of which are so bad they never even saw the light of day. Click through to see our list of ten foreign TV shows (yes, they’re mostly British originals, but that’s the trend in life as well as in our list) that America remade and totally ruined, and let us know your own major remake disappointments in the comments.

Skins

We all gaped when the pilot for the US remake of this British cult classic teen drama looked like it was almost recreated shot for shot. Though they did seem to follow most of our suggestions, from our standpoint the show looked harsher but was secretly much tamer than its UK counterpart. After a lot of hype that went nowhere and just one season, MTV cancelled the show, saying “Skins is a global television phenomenon that, unfortunately, didn’t connect with a US audience as much as we had hoped.”

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[...] Americans ruin everything [...]

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In fairness to the American Men Behaving Badly, 35 episodes is almost 6 series of the typical Britcom (6 eps per series).

I'm surprised the Simon Pegg/Jessica Hines/Edgar Wright show "Spaced" didn't make this list. The UK show is probably one of the best Britcoms ever made. Have you ever watched the pilot FOX ordered a few years ago? It was practically unwatchable. The show didn't have the wit and the chemistry between the cast that the UK version had. Fox almost ruined the brilliant cult classic "The Young Ones" as well. And a few years back, NBC almost ruined "The IT Crowd".

does anyone know how/where i can watch the new season of skins? it's killing me!

In fairness, you could compile a list of the reverse (American shows destroyed by foreign remakes) and the results would be unending. For the purposes of this list, you could have included Whose Line is it Anyway? And more controversially, The Office. I never watched the American version, and I'm sure it was ok, but no one should have messed with the original; period.

Y'all are aware the country of Colombia doesn't have a U in it, right?

Its quite sad. America copied season 1 of skins almost word for word and it was still a failure. I hear they are attempting to do The Inbetweeners next. just shoot me.

I think Kath and Kim mainly didn't work because American's have little to no concept of "bogan" culture which it is poking fun at, which is in some ways comparable to the whole "redneck" stereotype but not really, so that whole integral element was lost. Although as an Australian I have no idea why any one even wants to watch the original it's so cringeworthy, so I have no idea why America tried to pick it up to begin with, but that's a personal scrap. I heard that Misfits is being remade and I'm worried it will be Skins all over again, America seems to have a problem with representing edgy youth (in TV at least) that the UK has no qualms with, I don't know if it's a sensitivity issue or something but it just doesn't translate well if Skins was anything to go by. I hope they don't butcher it as well.

Thank God I never saw any of these except Fawlty Towers and the Canadian vs of 'Dragons Den', which wasn't half bad. Does this make me a tv retard?

What about US versions of Top Gear and The IT Crowd?? They were like running nails down a chalkboard..

Coupling is infinitely better and funnier than its US counterpart AND Friends.

Kingdom Hospital remake of Lars Von Trier's Kingdom/Riget.

Note my comment was about Red Dwarf (not Skins).

Having said this only the middle three (which at 6 eps per season would = 1 US season) were actually any good and it is very doubtful that the UK show would have survived past season 1 in today's much less forgiving climate. And the true abortion was the Red Dwarf sequel miniseries made very cheaply (no money for sets so they just dumped the actors in London with a stupid time travel plot) a year or so ago - avoid it all costs. Has any revival of a much loved geek show ever worked? - the last two seasons of Buffy (barring 2 superb episodes), the last season of Babylon 5 (again barring 2 episodes - one of which was actually held back from S4), Farscape Peacekeeper Wars were all Godfather 3 levels of dreadful. (As for the Star Wars prequels and Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull I refer you to the South Park show where the kids try and get Lucas and Spielberg arrested for butt-raping Indy).

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