22 posts tagged “american”

Here’s the full publicity picture from US Life on Mars, including the American Gene Hunt himself (Colm Meaney), Sam Tyler (Jason O’Mara) and Annie Cartwright (Rachelle Lefevre).

   What is American for ‘You great, soft, sissy, girly, nancy, French, bender, Man. United-supporting poof!’?
   Here’s another pic from the network:. Question: who’s the old dude on the left? Is this the American Ray?    And, finally, the trailer, which is of great interest to me. Fans of the original, you’ll notice many things are repeated from the first episode in the UK, except the Americans drive on the wrong side of the road—so Sam stops his Jeep on the right side. (He is, interestingly, struck from left to right, too.) The suspect’s name, Colin Raimes, is the same, Sam’s girlfriend in the present is called Maya, and even the Life on Mars title card looks very much like the original with a few changes for US tastes. IMDB says Edmund Butt, who scored the original, has the same job this time around.
   Gene seems less tough in this incarnation though. Maybe Philip Glenister desensitized us?
   I was laughing through most of it (note the American VO with ‘Back in the nick of time’, used in the second series) but unlike most Brit fans, I am looking forward to this.    Un pub pour la nouvelle série américaine Life on Mars, avec les photographies de publicité. Il y a beaucoup de similitudes avec la série originale britannique du BBC.

Interesting commentary on ABC’s brand-new hit shows for 2008 in the American TV Week:

Buzz projects: Game show “Opportunity Knocks,” which takes the game show out of the studio and into contestants’ front yards, is gaining steam. An adaptation of British crime drama “Life on Mars” is virtually on the air, although producer David E. Kelley’s involvement is in doubt.

   We know Life on Mars is a remake, but Opportunity Knocks? Talk about reviving something very, very old.
   It began on BBC Radio in 1949 and the Hughie Green TV version on ITV began in 1960 in the UK.
   While this version sounds a bit different (‘contestants’ front yards’?) I can’t help but think it’s somehow the same show—it certainly sounds like a talent show with everyday contestants, as with the original.
   The original was infamous for having a young Su Pollard beaten by a dog and some dude called Gerry Dorsey (Engelbert Humperdinck to most of us) getting rejected at auditions. But it was a solid ratings’ hit for ITV and Thames in its day.
   It was so famous that Benny Hill did a parody of it in 1971, pretending it was on German television:

   Again, I shall be interested to see what transpires, and I mean that most sincerely, folks.

I’m not even that huge a fan of Kath & Kim but I find the US remake news interesting. The two lead characters will still be Kath and Kim Day, but there will be no Sharon, Kel or Brett! Yes, they are being Americanized to Heather, Phil and Craig!
   I am keeping an open mind but just as I can’t visualize this set in the US, I can’t see Sharon called Heather!
   Official site is now up with very little content: http://www.nbc.com/Primetime/Kath_and_Kim/index.shtml.
   I’m wondering what sort of American accent would equate to Melbournian suburban—and no one I know in Melbourne talks like Kath and Kim anyway!

 

   Meanwhile, I understand that Outrageous Fortune already has a UK remake (Honest, with Amanda Redman) and that the US version approached Rene Russo for the Robyn Malcolm role, but IMDB says it has gone to Catherine O’Hara. I was wrong about the name: Throng reports it is to be called Good Behavior and IMDB confirms this.

For some reason I enjoyed researching these US-built cars on Autocade. Some are forgotten for very good reasons, others out of unfairness. Not a complete list by any means, but hopefully I can challenge some memories out there.

Eagle Medallion. 1988–9 (prod. unknown). 4-door sedan, 5-door wagon. F/F, 2165 cm³ (4 cyl. SOHC). Renamed Renault Medallion, an Americanized Renault 21. New marque after Chrysler bought AMC in 1987, but cars quickly cancelled in favour of Mitsubishis. Actually a good car compared with its competition, but AMC’s small size and rumours of takeover damaged its chances; and the problems were not solved with the change of marque.

Cadillac Cimarron (J-car). 1982–8 (prod. 132,499). 4-door sedan, F/F, 1796, 1991 cm³ (4 cyl. OHV), 2837 cm³ (V6 OHV). A good idea: build a Cadillac that could take on the BMW 3-series, and do it cheaply, on J-car platform. Seville showed that Cadillac could go smaller and succeed, but at least that car did not look like the Chevrolet Nova. Here, Cimarron was essentially a Chevrolet Cavalier clone, yet the price was nearly double. Few were fooled into buying the smaller Cadillac—at least not at the prices the company wanted to charge. Four-cylinder engines did not help perceptions, though V6 arrived in 1985 and was standard from 1987. Final year production of 6,454; cancelled afterwards. Sector not filled till European-market BLS launched.

Ford Falcon (1970½). January–August 1970 (prod. 26,000 approx.). 2- and 4-door sedan, 5-door wagon. 250 in³ (6 cyl. OHV), 302, 351, 429 in³ (V8 OHV). For half a model year, Ford transferred its Falcon nameplate from the compact model to the intermediate Torino–Fairlane bodyshell (117 in wheelbase for sedans; curiously, the wagon was on 114 in), making the Torino’s engine options available. Still marketed as an economy car, the last American Falcon is characterized by its swooping design. After 1970, Falcons were made only in Australia and Argentina (with an assembly plant for Australian models in New Zealand).

Chrysler Imperial. 1990–3 (prod. 41,276 approx.). F/F, 3301, 3778 cm³ (V6 OHV). Last cars to wear Imperial badge. Upscale Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue of these years, with 3·3- (1990) or 3·8-litre (1991–3) V6. Y-body developed as largest version of K-car platform. Different nose and tail which made it longer than New Yorker by 4 in, though wheelbase stayed the same. Not that refined, with poor performance, suspension and transmission.

New Zealanders and Americans are divided by a common language, it seems.
   All the reports I read about the US election said that the economy is the number one issue on Americans’ minds. Why, then, did Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton do so well in the Super Tuesday primaries for her party? She has just taken California, I see.
   As a Wal-mart board member, Mrs Clinton was quite happy to be anti-union and see jobs outsourced to Red China. That was her position from 1986 to 1992.
   By the time she was First Lady, her husband presided over an administration that saw this trend continue in full force, satisfying the technocrats. That was her position from 1993 to 2000.
   Today, while Sen. Clinton says Wal-mart no longer represents her beliefs and that she respects the right of workers to unionize, she still took $20,000 in campaign contributions from Wal-mart. That is her position in 2008.
   Add the 2004 joke she made about Mahatma Gandhi being some guy who pumps gas in St Louis, and it’s plain to see that Sen. Clinton is no friend of the American worker. She spent only a year working with a non-profit—certainly her record is not as grand as she would like voters to think.
   Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton thinks along élitist lines and that is the one consistent position she has had throughout her life. Watch any speech she gives: she thinks she’s better than you.
   If it’s about the economy, stupid, to borrow a 1990s phrase, then she would be the last person whom I would associate as being a friend of the American worker.
   Or of any worker.
   Sorry, Democrats, this guy sitting in New Zealand just doesn’t get it.
   Mind you, if she gets her party’s nomination, this sure is ammo for the Republicans to use.

A lot of people chide Americans for not knowing their history. When a contestant on Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? answers that Abraham Lincoln was FDR’s immediate predecessor, it’s easy to make that criticism. My belief is that we are all largely in the same boat, with a limited awareness of our history, especially in the west.
   Germans are admired for their intelligence and if you examine their economy, you can generalize that many of their exports are founded on the intellectual endeavours of the German people. But there is a similar lack of awareness, as I read in an old Wired article today:

In November, the first children born after the fall of the [Berlin] wall turned 18. Evidence suggests many of them have serious gaps in their knowledge of the past. In a survey of Berlin high school students, only half agreed that the GDR was a dictatorship. Two-thirds didn't know who built the Berlin Wall.

   The criticism of the US comes simply from the fact that more of its citizens are exposed to international scrutiny. Mount the same number of cameras or do the same number of surveys in other nations, and I think the same pattern emerges.
   It reminds us, however, that not only do we have to be aware of our history, we must protect it from revisionism, something that is plaguing countries such as the Republic of China.

My comment on the Journeyman Blog today:

Mike, you are being generous. I’m no longer going to watch American serials that don’t have self-contained episodes as my “default” position, making exceptions for presently unforeseeable situations. I feel that strongly about Journeyman.
   Journeyman was an exception, but I have managed to stay away from all the other so-called hits with “story arcs” anyway (Lost, Heroes, The Nine, Traveler, Prison Break, 24, etc.).
   Like you, I was a Day Break fan and we managed to get, fortunately, all 13 episodes networked here (albeit at a really sucky time). I gave Journeyman a chance on the strength of a fabulous pilot but now, if I hear ‘Made in USA’ along with ‘story arc’, I just won’t bother.

   This cannot be good for the US TV industry, but if it has morons running the networks, then what can it expect? Journeyman was the last straw, especially as I tracked how the show unfolded and how inept NBC had been. This isn’t the first series that I have followed that was cancelled prematurely—but after so many of these, where American networks cannot understand that loyalty to the network brand also depends on overall product quality, I am just fed up.
   This is the Ford Taurus syndrome. The story is this: the Taurus was a huge hit for Ford. Instead of continual improvement, Ford opted to abandon the Taurus, letting it get trampled by the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, when the SUV boom happened. Toyota and Honda, instead, kept improving their sedans and developed SUVs. By 2006, the Taurus was a joke, sold to rental car fleets. It was only for the 2007 model year that Ford transferred the Taurus name on to its Five Hundred. By that time, Ford lost a lot of customers to the Japanese and there are people who felt their loyalty had been thrown into their face.
   It also had the Ford Contour in the US, which the company refused to market properly, probably because it had been co-developed with its European branch. The claim was that Americans were not interested in the CD-sized market that the Contour occupied. Reality: Dearborn probably wanted to cover its own butt by saying, ‘We are not taking this European stuff because we have to sell domestically designed.’ It’s perhaps all political. Meanwhile, Americans were buying the same-sized car from BMW and Mercedes. Buyers just kept going foreign.
   Ford’s latest refusal to sell the German-designed C307 Focus, and instead facelift the older model for American buyers, is yet another example. Now the Focus is getting trampled by the Honda Civic, and the next Toyota Corolla will beat it even more. History keeps repeating there at Ford.
   In other words, Ford thinks Americans are dumb Yanks.
   NBC has combined these moves, but really, every network is guilty of this. While Journeyman was not a huge hit, NBC knows its poor scheduling and non-existent promotion are to blame. Instead of allowing an audience to build (the numbers were growing), it decided to interrupt Journeyman’s schedule just as the show found its legs. It had a quality product which it intended to kill. And in the meantime, viewers are feeling that the networks are not listening. They will happily go to cable, DVDs and other services. NBC’s remaining offerings—dumbed-down reality fare—will be like the 2005 Ford Taurus.
   In other words, the US networks think Americans are dumb Yanks. 
   No, foreigners do not think Americans are dumb because of George W. Bush. Foreigners think Americans are dumb because that is how American corporations treat American citizens, by making decisions that disrespect the American consumer’s intelligence. Foreigners then make an erroneous presumption that that is what consumers have asked for—when in fact most Americans are as upset about the strange corporate decisions that take place.
   As television globalizes—and it will—the US networks will be like Ford, where perceived quality and loyalty will no longer be there.
   Bad moves against quality products do affect the overall parent brand—something that even brand consultants need to remember.
   And, sadly, the parent brand’s image can often be tied to the national one.

There’s the petition, and now there’s an online grass roots’ effort: Dennis West suggests that Americans watch Journeyman next Monday, December 3, on nbc.com. It’s when the 11th episode was meant to be on, but NBC is trialling Life in its timeslot.
   I realize few are going to watch 10 hours’ worth of a single series, but if you haven’t caught it before, I heartily recommend it. At least try the pilot and see if you enjoy it. The high production values are, for the most part, continued, and the writing and acting actually get better.
   If you wish for a two-parter, then the ninth and tenth episodes (eighth and ninth if you don’t count the pilot) are a good choice. Each can exist as an individual story, but the two link together very well.
   And let me dispel one myth: this is not a Quantum Leap rip-off. The fictional Dan Vasser does time travel and does not know why, but it explores his relationship with his wife—especially as Dan encounters his dead fiancée in his travels. But each week, he manages to put right the life of someone he is tracking.
   Those Americans who liked the journey through our recent years in Forrest Gump might get the same emotions watching Journeyman. If you hate reality TV and want to take a stand against its bitchiness and smut, then this is a good remedy. And those sci-fi buffs into time travel shows will love it, because it does touch on paradoxes. It’s far less straightforward than Quantum Leap. Anyone into really well written character-driven drama, remember that Journeyman is from the guys who made The West Wing and it has even more depth. 
   Brits can begin enjoying the series on Sky One. If you are Stateside, please consider giving Dennis’s suggestion a shot.

Did you shop for great deals on Black Friday or Cyber Monday? Or did you observe Buy Nothing Day?

Why would there be special deals on Friday the 13th? For Jason masks maybe? And what is Cyber Monday?
   It’s OK: I do know what the original question is about, but there’ll be non-Americans on Vox asking the above.

The news that Journeyman fans did not want to hear has come: there will be no more after the 12 episodes that have been made. NBC has not asked for more, and the chances of the show’s return in 2008 are tiny.
   I wrote on the unofficial Journeyman Blog today:

This news sucks big time. This is a consistently well written show and what American networks do not realize is that it discourages us foreigners from getting suckered in to US-made series. As a result, I never slavishly followed the US into Lost, Heroes or many of those so-called “hits” after consistent disappointments surrounding premature cancellations or network tinkering. Journeyman managed to break that for me because it truly was excellent.
   I know NBC must look at its domestic market first, but I would have thought the prospect of strong international sales would be considered. In the US, 10 p.m. is probably a tad late, but you can totally have seen this airing at 8.30 p.m. in Britain, Australia or New Zealand. (It probably won’t now, because it’s been labelled a flop and programmers in other countries will be too scared or lazy to determine otherwise.)
   So thanks, NBC, for building an audience for an excellent show despite its lousy timeslot, and for being so daft that you don’t see that this does the network’s credibility some damage. After all, who gets the blame? Fox, for making it, or NBC, for not having the intelligence to see there were other factors at play with the poor ratings?
   The only consolation is that I only have to buy a single season’s worth of DVDs rather than the seven I plan to fork out for Mission: Impossible. Ah, remember those days when networks stuck with shows?

   An American (I assume) fan called Wes wrote on the official blog and makes an excellent point about Seinfeld:

NBC are you listening (or at least reading)? You have to give Journeyman a chance and give it time to find an audience. This could be a great show for years. It may have been mentioned here already, but several of the past "best TV shows ever" were almost canceled and took time to find an audience. Seinfeld sound familiar? How much money did it make for NBC? It's not just the about the money either. It takes time for word of mouth to spread the news and maybe a little luck for a TV show to jump up to the top 20 in weekly ratings. People will stop watching serial type shows all together if every time one doesn't instantly become a barn burner, you cancel it. And the networks wonder why viewership is down. Maybe you should take cue from HBO and Showtime. Make a good show (you have) and people will come, it just takes time.

   Even the writers’ strike could not save it. The ratings were actually beginning to head north after people stopped watching The Bachelor, but not enough to get NBC to see sense.
   I certainly won’t be in a hurry to start watching any other new American series of this ilk and have successfully stayed away from Heroes and The Nine after disappointments with The Pretender, John Doe and others. I watched maybe 10 episodes of Lost despite the addition of Elizabeth Mitchell, a Lucire interviewee. You just never know when they disappear. The Brits may do fewer shows, but at least they see them through to a natural conclusion more often. The British networks respect their viewers.
   The networks no longer remember how The Dick van Dyke Show was cancelled, was brought back, and lasted for years—and from memory, JAG went through the same thing. If the writing is as good as it is on Journeyman, a second season is all a show needs to become a long-running classic. Killing Journeyman is a way of covering up NBC’s own inadequacies of putting it into a too-late timeslot.
   I will watch the new Life on Mars when or if it starts, based on the goodwill of the British original, and because I know the secret behind Sam Tyler, so I won’t be as hurt if it’s pulled.