TV is flooded with Anglophone versions of hit overseas shows, with the UK take on Call My Agent! the latest example. Here, we examine the good, the bad and the clunky
It is a truth universally acknowledged that American TV executives love to plunder British television for their material, hence the remakes of Shameless, Skins, Till Death Us Do Part (as All in the Family) and Broadchurch (Gracepoint). But they all had one thing in common: they sucked. True, many people preferred the American retool of The Office – and not just because it didn’t star Ricky Gervais – but it is the exception that proves the rule.
What is less widely acknowledged is that British and American asset-strippers remake foreign-language TV shows so that viewers in our monoglot polities don’t have to watch stuff with subtitles. The latest example is Ten Percent, a remake of the French comedy drama Dix Pour Cent, curiously broadcast on Netflix under the title Call My Agent!.
