U.S. ‘Office’ winning over Brits

Home of original embracing adaptation

By STEVE CLARKE

'The Office'

LONDON -- U.S. remakes of U.K. shows are rarely, if ever, imported back to Blighty, but three seasons in, NBC's Emmy Award-winning reworking of "The Office" is winning converts across the Pond.

It is difficult to overestimate the impact of the original program that began life in the U.K. seven years ago as a cult hit and went on to foment a comic revolution while making stars out of Ricky Gervais and Mackenzie Crook.

Alas, Gervais and co-creator Stephen Merchant mothballed "The Office" following just two six-part series and a feature-length Christmas special. But thankfully for "Office" aficionados, episodes of the U.S. show (starring Steve Carell in the Gervais role) number more than three score and counting.

It is this sheer volume of segs that has helped make the show a must-buy for British niche webs.

"The U.S. version of 'The Office'

doesn't do stellar numbers for us, but it does have volume, which is great for a channel like ITV2," says the network's controller, Zai Bennett.

Aired originally in Blighty by rival BBC3, also aimed at those hard-to-reach 16- to 34-year-olds, ITV2 bought the "The Office" a year ago because it was determined to make the channel a destination for comedy.

Nurturing domestic laffers is not only expensive but also extremely risky and time consuming. It therefore made sense for ITV2 to acquire "The Office" to pair alongside another recent U.S. import, "Entourage," as two halves of a single branded comedy hour.

"'The Office' is, like so many U.S. comedies, tremendously well written," says Bennett. "Steve Carell is a good, bankable face -- and, of course, 'The Office' is a known property in the U.K. that audiences are already familiar with."

Currently transmitting season three, ITV2 has the fourth run in the pipeline for its fall schedule.

"'The Office' helped give ITV a starter pack of high-quality comedy that didn't cost the Earth," adds ITV head of acquisitions Jay Kandola. "In many ways, it's a completely different show to the original British comedy and has evolved into something that works totally on its own terms."

So could this become the start of a trend as U.S. producers prepare to unleash their own version of other British comedies?

"We'll have to look at each show on its own merits," Bennett reckons. "But once a show takes off in the U.S., it then becomes much more attractive to us because you've got a guaranteed supply."