US IT Crowd and Series 5 going ahead?

[Bob The Skutter]

Graham Linehan has confirmed that NBC are working on an American version of IT Crowd, this time it's going to be reworked rather than an exact copy like last time, and if it's not he's pulling out of it or not letting them use the name.

From Graham Linehan

They're working on one at the moment. I'm waiting to see the first script. I have encouraged them to do their own thing and not try to slavishly copy the original. As long as there's no hugging, no learning, and big setpiece moments, I'll be happy. I don't even care if they don't do it in front of an audience. Whatever works for them.But if the show moves too far away from what I consider to be the IT Crowd 'brand', I'll be asking them to change the title.

Also Series 4 ended with record high ratings for the show and series 5 has already been confirmed.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Hmmmm. One to reserve judgement on. The Office (US) shows that UK comedy shows can be successfully remade. And the IT Crowd is so inherently ridiculous that it's not location-specific in the way that, say, Father Ted was.

Good news about S5 for the UK. More Reynolm please! Matt Berry rocks.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^I've just looked up the US pilot and it is an exact copy of the first UK ep. Can see it working if they didn't exactly copy it like Graham Linehan said, and as he said on Twitter "They're not deleting the original, and you could end up with 2 great shows instead of 1"

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ Wasn't the first episode of the US Office a remake of the first UK one, then they went on to write their own original episodes? If so, then this is seemingly following a good template.

 

[TheGodBen]

Also Series 4 ended with record high ratings for the show and series 5 has already been confirmed.

It's great to hear that there will be a series 5, I think that series 4 had two duds (episodes 3 & 6), but episodes 4 & 5 were classics, so there's clearly still life left in the show.

^I've just looked up the US pilot and it is an exact copy of the first UK ep.

The amazing thing is that it's an exact copy yet lacks almost all the humour of the original. The only funny thing in it is Moss, and that's because he's still played by Richard Ayoade. I'm not sure which was worse, this or Red Dwarf USA.

 

[flipjack]

^I've just looked up the US pilot and it is an exact copy of the first UK ep. Can see it working if they didn't exactly copy it like Graham Linehan said, and as he said on Twitter "They're not deleting the original, and you could end up with 2 great shows instead of 1"

That's from 2007. This is supposed to be a new attempt. Joel McHale already has a hit sitcom.