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The IT Crowd US Pilot (2007) [video]

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Re: The IT Crowd US Pilot (2007) [video]

#261

Post by WorldMaker »

dotBen wrote: post #8

I'm pretty sure this pilot is the same script as episode 1 of the original UK series. Clearly someone felt the need to recast and reshoot the series with US actors (plus Richard Ayoade), like they did the US Office. I wonder if that's old thinking (or wasn't actually needed) - the amount of UK TV that's now on Netflix and other OTT platforms seems to suggest that US audiences are open to enjoying original UK series w…

That kind of thinking still exists. The most recent example I can think of is Ghosts on CBS as the US version of the UK Ghosts. CBS' streaming service (Paramount+) will even recommend the UK original and you can compare them side-by-side.

(Another somewhat recent example to mind was FX's Wilfred as the US version of the Australian Wilfred TV show. Hulu picked up the Australian show so that you could compare them side-by-side. For streamers this is easy content recommendations.)

TV and Movie executives are always looking for "low risks" and "proven formula" will always be a way to lower risk. Shows and movies from the same originating country get "rebooted" all the time. Doing a fresh take across cultural boundaries is interestingly a higher risk as studios try to figure out if the original premise has legs in the new country. Some of what we see is survivorship bias: The US Office was huge so that gets mentioned a lot. But there were a lot of similar attempts that never made it past the pilot because the risks were too high or it just didn't seem to work or whatever.

Off the top of my head, similar to this US IT Crowd pilot there are also "lost" pilots you can find for US Doctor Who and US Red Dwarf. The fascinating thing about both of those attempts occurred during different points of the height of the PBS/BBC partnership. Up until about the late 90s/early 00s PBS was the most common importer of BBC programming from the UK. (That shifted when the BBC decided it could be a stronger revenue stream, starting chasing bigger bids from US cable channels, and then eventually cofounded the BBC America cable channel.) At various points in time PBS' biggest audiences tuned into Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, and Blake's 7 (among others on the sci-fi side of their programming), so even in the "old" TV era these US attempts knew there was some pre-existing audience familiar with the original UK shows through PBS at the time. So streamers have exactly created that as a "new" idea or new thinking so much as shifted the economics of it. (PBS was public funded and not making a lot of money for how popular its showing of UK shows were. Streamers are all big for-profits that use multi-cultural content for moats around their subscription fees. Including BBC America's current home AMC+.)

Re: The IT Crowd US Pilot (2007) [video]

#262

Post by ConchParabola »

jrockway wrote: post #96

Too bad they didn't make it to episode 2. I feel like "they're not just THE emergency services, they're YOUR emergency services" is one of the most British things I can imagine. (I say that as an American, though, so I don't really know what I'm talking about.) The IT Crowd always impressed me with their set design. I was working as "IT" at the time, and our office was nearly identical to the one in Season 1. We had…

I made an account just to say thank you for your work. And also that I was an undergrad at the time and once used the liquid nitrogen to freeze-dry some cheese fries.

Re: The IT Crowd US Pilot (2007) [video]

#263

Post by autoexec »

lowercased wrote: post #249
autoexec wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure airing a single episode is a good measure of interest. Especially if they didn't market it much. What's the point of going through the trouble to secure the rights to air something if you aren't going to give it a fair shot? I really don't get the reasoning behind these kinds of decisions. I've heard amazon cancels shows if they don't perform well enough after their first few weeks on prime. With all the…

> I'm not sure airing a single episode is a good measure of interest. It's probably not in most cases. How many decades have we heard of shows that were about to be axed because of poor ratings or apparent disinterest, then... somehow they turned out to be megashows? Even something as simple as changing the day it was aired often could make or break a show. > personally I won't start a show like that until I can bing…

> Are 'shows' now being produced with the knowledge they'll all be watched within a couple of days, not dramatically played out over weeks/months?

I think so. They'd have to have been aware of the risk once it was common for TV shows to be released on DVD and anything developed for streaming services should expect it too. It seems like shows really stepped up their continuity game after internet fandoms started pointing out all their mistakes.

Shows do still have cliffhangers, but that crutch isn't leaned on as often outside of season finales. I doubt we'll get many shows that always end on them these days.

Re: The IT Crowd US Pilot (2007) [video]

#264

Post by ConchParabola »

mh- wrote: post #229
rkangel wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you watch an NFL game on Sky there are a load of breaks where they cut to a UK analysis crew. Every single one of those is an ad break that they have in the US but not in the UK. Sky does still has ads, but clearly far far fewer than the US is willing to tolerate. NFL is an extreme example but I always found the comparison interesting.

For those wondering: a 30 minute slotted network show in the US is 21-22 minutes long. A 60 minute is simply double - 42-44 minutes long. How many breaks this works out to varies by show, since they try to cut it at strategic points. Usually 2-4 per 30 minutes. If anyone has actual data on this I'd love to see it. Especially historical data.

In 2019, it was 14-18 minutes of explicit advertising per hour depending on the network and the genre (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1025656/ad-time-primetim...), up from about 13-16 minutes per hour in 2009 (https://time.com/96303/tv-commercials-increasing/). "Bumpers", network identifiers, and other content inserted by the airing network that is not ad space sold to a third party are not included in all of the counts. Local (as opposed to national) advertising time is also missing from some of these datasets. Overall, the duration of scripted US television shows is now approximately 40 minutes per hour: http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/commerciallength.htm

Other ways television advertising has increased over time:

Number of ad breaks. In the 1950s and early 1960s ads were aired before and after shows, often with the host of the show doing the ad reads for one or two products that were billed as the show's "sponsors". A break for ads in the middle of the content was added in the mid-1960s, and the number of breaks per hour increased at least into the 1990s. https://ibuzzle.com/television-advertising-history

Number of ads per break. Television ads have gotten generally shorter over time. 30 seconds became the norm during the 1970s. From 2009 to 2019, the percentage of ads that were 15 seconds long increased from 35% to 42% (https://time.com/96303/tv-commercials-increasing/).

Amount of paid product placement inside the shows. In 2009, product placement occupied between 5.5 minutes and 19.25 minutes per hour, with unscripted shows the highest (https://www.marketingcharts.com/television-9434). Spending on television product placement has increased since then (https://www.marketingcharts.com/cross-media-and-traditional/...).

Addition of advertising to previously ad-free platforms. I recall that most cable networks originally did not air ads but cannot find the data to back that up. In 2021-2022, streaming services have increasingly added ads: https://www.marketingcharts.com/television/tv-advertising-22... In a 2022 survey, 41% of American TV-watching adults felt there were too many ads on television vs. 18-25% for various streaming platforms (https://hubresearchllc.com/reports/?category=2022&title=2022...).

Re: The IT Crowd US Pilot (2007) [video]

#265

Post by randombits0 »

HPsquared wrote: post #188
jrockway wrote: post #96

Too bad they didn't make it to episode 2. I feel like "they're not just THE emergency services, they're YOUR emergency services" is one of the most British things I can imagine. (I say that as an American, though, so I don't really know what I'm talking about.) The IT Crowd always impressed me with their set design. I was working as "IT" at the time, and our office was nearly identical to the one in Season 1. We had…

On the hard drive thing, I had an old HDD which (after years in a drawer) would not start up (wouldn't start spinning). After trying it in a couple of different computers I accidentally dropped the drive and it hit a metal table leg. After dropping it, the HDD started up and worked fine, and I could copy the contents off. Maybe the liquid nitrogen worked the same way (thermal shock in place of mechanical shock).

Stuck stepper. Bet it was a Seagate ST225 or similar. The bearing grease would harden, especially if left not running for a while.

The solution is to use your pinky finger on the stepper motor spindle and twist. As long as you felt the stepper move from home, you’re good, you’re not stuck anymore.

I had a Seagate I had to “twist” start every time it powered up, not often as it ran 24/7. You can do it with the drive in the machine as long as you can reach the stepper.

I’m writing this not so much for you but for the archivists thousands of years from now. Hope you get those Seagates started folks! ;)

Re: The IT Crowd US Pilot (2007) [video]

#266

Post by randombits0 »

teddyh wrote: post #123
mkwarman wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fascinating, I've never heard of hard drive data recovery using liquid nitrogen. Is the idea that the lower temperature prevents the drive from overheating long enough to recover the data? Sounds very cool.

I would guess that the hard drive platters seized, and the cooling made it shrink enough to un-seize.

I literally squeezed the data out of a drive once. 40M Connor, one of the first IDE drives. If I squeezed it too much, “Data Error, Abort, Retry, Ignore”. Too little? Same result. Just right? In like Flynn!

I spent 40 minutes copying that drive, got every bit back.

Boss asks, “What are you doing?”

“I’m milking the data out of this drive!” ;)

Re: The IT Crowd US Pilot (2007) [video]

#267

Post by RajT88 »

jedberg wrote: post #143
tonfreed wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that amuses me as an Australian is the subtitles when a pom, Irish, or Scot is talking. I've not seen it with Australians, but I wouldn't be surprised

Here in America they will often subtitle Asians speaking English. As someone with an Asian wife and kids I can never figure out if I should laugh or cry or both.

I have seen thick southern/country accepts get subtitled on reality shows, FWIW.

Re: The IT Crowd US Pilot (2007) [video]

#268

Post by jonathankoren »

kelnos wrote: post #129
jonathankoren wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK show has like 6 episodes in a season, while an American show needs at least 22.

That seems to be changing, though, for many popular (expensive?) shows. Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley, all the recently-new Star Trek series, The Expanse, The Mandalorian, The Orville... They all have seasons in the ballpark of 10 episodes.

With the exception of The Orville, none of these were ever network shows, and only The Expanse aired on basic cable, which does often have ~13 episodes.

IT Crowd USA was supposed to be a primetime NBC sitcom.

Re: The IT Crowd US Pilot (2007) [video]

#269

Post by icodestuff »

bena wrote: post #235
quietbritishjim wrote: post #6

That wasn't nearly as atrocious as I was expecting. Partly because the script is almost the same as the UK first episode, of course, but even putting that aside it was OK. Richard Ayoade is still great but also Joel McHale is a pretty decent choice as Roy. Even the actress playing Jen, although a bit annoying, wasn't too bad. And the twist that the boss actually isn't crazy is interesting. Not like the US Red Dwarf p…

See, I didn't like Joel McHale as Roy. He's too charming and attractive. I think the key difference is that O'Dowd played Roy as tired of this shit while McHale plays it as annoyed with this shit. But I think it suffers the same problem as the US Red Dwarf and the early episodes of the US Office, you can't expect to clone the characters. You have to deviate. Hew to the spirit, but not necessarily the letter.

Agreed. Seems like a miscast. Feels like any of the protagonists of Silicon Valley could have played the character better. Well, maybe not Kumail Nanjiani, for the same reason as McHale.

Re: The IT Crowd US Pilot (2007) [video]

#270

Post by foobar1962 »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #168
foobar1962 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mild derogatory slang in Australian english is not derogatory at all from the local perspective. Indeed. Derogatory would be "Pommie bastard."

And affectionate slang would be "pommie " - or, at least, that's the impression I get as a pom! :)

As an Aussie, that c-word thing isn't really a thing in my experience, at least not in the urban environments I inhabit. (It may be a thing in the bush.)

We tend to be "direct" and generally have no fear of speaking truth to authority: the whole "OMG we can't indict the former President" issue with Trump is confusing down here: politicians and people in positions of responsibility are held to a HIGHER standard of behaviour, not lower, and they'd be the first to be tapped on the shoulder (or we expect them to be, and would be asking why they haven't been yet).

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