Lost in translation

The pointless photo is completely pointless today. Not even a shred of hidden meaning. I do like drawing tulips, though, because of their nice strong lines. Gives a person lots of scope to play with shape and shading.

When a person actually has time to do that, which lately... not so much.

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This is going to sound kind of silly since I just said I haven't even had time to doodle, but I'm going to say it anyway. Besides, there's time and then there's time.

When I've had an hour or two to spare these last few weekends, I've found myself watching QI on... well, you know. The home of all things in plagiarised video. Not my first choice, really, but until they manage to come up with a Region 1 DVD package it'll have to do.

I'm expecting the Region 1 DVDs at about the same time as the pigs start flying, unfortunately.

It's a shame, really, because it's a fantastic show. Not very well known on this side of the pond (which would figure, since it's never been shown here as far as I know), but it should be. It's informative, it's ridiculous, and it's incredibly entertaining.

And it would never have worked in North America.

Imagine someone going to an American network and suggesting a game show that consisted largely of a few obscure facts that the resident celebrities would be expected to talk into completely unexpected (and occasionally very odd) directions. That's it. A few questions, a lot of talking, and some personalities.

Boring, right? Where are the flashy effects and the million dollar prizes? Where are the suckers contestants that the audience at home can empathise with or at least make fun of? This thing is supposed to exist solely on talking heads? It'll never fly.

Yep. That's what comes of underestimating your audience. Or, maybe, your audience underestimating what they should be getting from you.

I'm not going to make the clichéd claim that British audiences are more intelligent than North American ones, because I honestly don't think that it's true. I also don't believe that the American entertainment scene doesn't have the interesting personalities necessary to carry a show like QI, although I do think it's true that England as a whole is quicker to embrace eccentric characters than we'll ever be.

So why is it that I'm constantly disappointed in British show ideas that jump the ocean and are recostumed as All-American?

It could be because I'm Canadian, I suppose.

It could also be that I'm an admitted Anglophile.

I think it's more because I find the changes that are made to be fairly puzzling, however.

It's like the American networks are so afraid that their target audiences won't get it that any subtleties end up pounded into submission in favour of predictability.

Sometimes it's not even just the subtleties that get mangled in translation. Does anyone out there remember Amanda's? It would surprise me if you did. Amanda's was an attempt at an American version of Fawlty Towers in which Basil Fawlty was more or less removed. Gotta love that logic. Americans might find the main character too nasty or too hard to take, so we'd better make him (her, in the case of Amanda's) more audience-friendly. In other words, in order for Fawlty Towers (which, by the way, has many absolutely rabid fans in North America, although I can't say I'm one of them) to work in the United States, they thought they needed to completely get rid of the whole point of the show.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

It also makes me wonder if show ideas that travel the opposite direction get so badly screwed over.

Now, of course not everything that's borrowed by Americans from British television translates so awfully. I hear that many of the "reality" shows make it over with very few changes, although I don't go in for that particular genre so I couldn't actually say. I have to admit as well that I've never seen the American version of The Office, which I understand is very good. So obviously not every show is doomed the moment it's noticed by an American network.

So here it is. For any of my two fans who are actually familiar with QI (and yes, I'd probably faint from the shock of finding out that you are), do you think that, with a competent production staff and sympathetic network, it would even have a chance at American success? Or would we be stuck with another Drew Carey beating the Whose Line Is It Anyway? franchise into the ground (erm, not a fan. Sorry to anyone who was)?

Ah well. Either way it's not likely to happen. I guess I'll just have to content myself with enjoying the hell out of the pirated videos while they're still around. Oh, and encouraging you to go check them out as well.

But you didn't hear that from me.