Cringe, Laugh, Repeat

That's the basic reaction the first time you watch The Office (which I've spotted at $Cdn 37 for both seasons at Costco.)

Of course, NBC, after making an American version of another BBC favourite - Coupling: which is banned by the Geneva convention as a weapon of mass defecation - is at it again, "Americanizing" The Office and again the result is familiar:



Truth be told I found the original BBC show to be a bit of a downer. What makes up for it is the sheer nastiness of the humour. All are skewered.



American major network sitcoms are light and frothy - no one who watches NBC wants to be reminded of real life anytime soon - so something that is this nasty would be better suited to cable, where it could find an audience to appreciate it. The very things that make the BBC version funny preclude it from being a "feel good" "laugh a minute" riot-fest that the U.S. version of Coupling should and could have been- nastiness, office politics, disappointments great and small, and in the end layoffs.

Highlight below for discussion of what would be in the American version that would ruin it. Don't if you don't want to spoil the BBC version that you eventually must see:

In the American version Tim would get the girl (a supermodel posing as a receptionist, because the Dawn in the original wouldn't be acceptable to audiences accustomed to Friends-level attractiveness), Gareth would get laid, and David Brent would be spared redundancy layoff after begging for his job and there'd be an ahhhh shucks huggy moment at the end, where all the characters would learn something valuable about themselves and I'd puke puke puke

NBC should just walk away while it can...