Coupling Series Premiere 9.25
 

I don't know. The timing seems off already.

At least they used the same theme and the opening credits are decent. :lol:

Oh and :drool: over Carmen Electra and the Pussycat Dolls promo.

Well.. I like the theme song.

But it was just unsettling.. I guess I can't get the BBC version out of my head while watching.

But it did seem a bit off.. and almost painful to watch. I had high hopes for it too.. oh well.. At least I have season one of dvd and season 2 comes out soon :)
Go BBC

Yeah. 2nd act was a little better. I think the laugh track is far too invasive as well.

From the cold opening, the dialog is just too forced. Kinda hard to watch.........

i didn't quite get in in time for the theme song. is it the same as the BBC?

as for the rest of this show, ugh!! i agree with whave vryce said, i am just too attached to the original. i am gonna go try and watch the rest to see if it improves.

Yeah. Not sure if it is the same vocalist though.

This was not good. I will hold ultimate judgment until I see a few episodes w/o imported scripts.

I never thought I would say this, but I envy the people living in South Bend and Salt Lake City.

it was the same song, just changed a little.. a bit faster.. I like the bbc version better.. its slower, and more seductive sounding.
And I don't think it was the same singer.. but hard to tell..

Oh and the woman playing Sally ain't no prize.

True.. Not to mention that they needed someone a bit more zany to play jeff.

and the guy who played patrick was just annoying. certainly not the cocky and full of himself one we all know and love.

the biggest thing that bugged me about this was just the performances. i guess that the BBC version was just lucky that from the very get go the characters were pretty well developed. true, they have evolved a bit but even from the start, there were great performances. not so in this one.

I'm probably not breaking any news to you guys, but this show is not aimed at you. Its aimed at people who will see this and completely believe its an original show that has never existed before.

Of course its going to suck, you guys loved the original.


But why am I even commenting, I hated the original and wasn't even the slightest bit curious about this incarnation.

I never watched the BBC version but thought this was ok. Was this the same script as the BBC premier? If so I when did the show start? Because they had the girlfriend who doesn't accept the breakup (hmm didn't that happen to George on Seinfeld?) and the porn buddy (didn't that happen to Larry on CYE?). For the first episode you think they would have some more original material. Anyways, what was original was ok. The laugh track was over the top and annoying and the characters didn't seem to mesh too well, but I'll give it another try.

This episode premiered on BBC in 2000.

I was just going to say this. The rest of the cast is ok, I guess (I still like the BBC cast better) but these two are just dull. Also, the laugh track has got to go (or at least be cut by half).

Other than that, I'm surprised that I didn't wind up hating it. While it wasn't great, it wasn't the total disaster I was expecting.

I don't like any of the cast except Rena Sofer. I'd replace them all if I could, but for now replacing Jane and Jeff is enough. The parts of the show which were purely American jokes were funny (Jeff asking for the condom :up: ); the stuff that they tried to port over from the UK version wasn't (scene where he talks about Susan coming to the restaurant early :down: )

IIRC the opening song is No Doubt's rendition of the BBC version.
Tonight I saw how much of a vital role comedic timing plays in actual comedy. When I saw the 1st episode of the BBC version, I was rolling on the floor. It was hilarious. Tonight, we have almost the exact same plot and script and I barely cracked a smile the entire time.
None of the actors/actresses were even close to being as good as their predessesors (sp?). Jeff is a great character in the BBC version. He's to Steve what Kramer is to Jerry, what Mike is to Ed. He's not that here. The "porn buddies" delivery could have been his chance to make the character just that, but the scene just crashed and burned. And it didn't help that the speech about "the boyfriend zone" was changed to that substandard hand-stamping analogy.
If this show's going to last, they all need to sit down and watch the BBC episodes and learn something about line delivery.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and they didn't even use one of the most classic lines from the original:
"I wasn't aware you'd assessed them individually."
"You were alseep, I was bored!"

man.....these Coupling threads are gonna get really old really fast....we get it, it's not, nor will it ever be as good as the original....but you must realize that you, having seen the original, are in the vast minority. I've never seen it...clicked over for a few minutes and it seemed decent enough to me. But i'm a CSI fan, so that'll be getting my screen time from 9-10 on Thursdays.

why not lighten up a bit and leave it to those who haven't seen the original to decide? y'all sound like trekkies....kinda wierd really.....

My local PBS airs episodes of the BBC Coupling, on Wednesday. I notice that the British version, even with the stupid laugh track, is much better than the NBC version.

I know, what a unique opinion.

Never having seen the BBC version (shock! horror! ;) ), I can say without a doubt that this show utterly blows. I imagine it'll stick around as long as such well beloved NBC s*itcoms as 'Jesse,' 'Suddenly Susan' and 'The Single Guy' in my mind...

It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I expected, although I was anticipating the worst sitcom ever made based on word of mouth so in the end I still think it sucked.

The only characters I liked in this version were Susan and Jane. And the latter is the worst thing about the British show, so that won't help NBC too much. Steve is completely wrong, and Sally bore almost no resemblance to her BBC counterpart. Why did they cut out all her paranoia about aging? The jury's still out on Jeff. I thought he was decent, but Richard Coyle is by far the highlight of the original, so decent ain't gonna cut it.

Truthfully, I never though "Flushed" was that great of a pilot anyway, so I'll give the NBC version a few more weeks. But if they manage to screw up "The Woman With Two Breasts", this show is doomed.

So I can't offer my opinion because I've seen the original? An inevitable part of a conversation about a remake involves comparisons to the original. Yet you spout off like my previous post adds nothing relevant to the discussion. Here's a thought: since you didn't even bother to watch more than a few minutes of it, maybe you should just stick to the CSI thread instead of threadcrapping in this one.

I have seen the original, and I'm posting anyway. I think having seen a version that works really well can help clarify why parts of the US version don't.

I thought the episode was passable. None of the actors really worked for me, but they weren't horrible. Nobody felt really right, but I'm willing to give them a couple of episodes to settle in and develop actual chemistry. A lot of the back and forth didn't work for me, since it felt like they were talking at each other, instead of to each other.

The other problem is, of course, the writing. It looks like it'll be a number of weeks before we can find out if the US writing staff is any good.

I'd ultimately love for this version to succeed. I like the original, and I would be thrilled to have a 22-episodes-a-season version that I can enjoy. This episode didn't win me over, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting from the clip available a while back.

That would be nice. It would be a good surprise if, when the show starts on original episodes, it actually proves that it might have staying power.

Funny in parts, but felt forced. Gimme Scrubs already with the made-over Elliot. :drool: