I'm afraid of Americans

[trinityofone]

Trailer for ABC's Life on Mars remake

...

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

There goes my strategy of remaining cautiously optimistic! Reality: 1, Optimism: 0

Also, I think it's worth noting that I finally hit my limit with American Voice Over Guy. I miss the calm, soothing voices of the BBC. I can be ex-pat now?

Picture it:

Some Guy in a Pub, 5 Years From Now: So what finally drove you away? Was it political?
Me: Nope. They remade Life on Mars.

Comments

[stillane.livejournal.com]

Oh god. I... oh. World of no.

The horrible thing is, I'm rather fond of both principle actors. If they were just in anything other than this, I'd be thrilled. I was even cautiously not-stompyboots about this, but... Wow. That's so very not Sam, and that's so very not Gene, and this world is not supposed to be fun yet. It's supposed to be incredibly disorienting and vaguely traumatic for at least a while, and then we come to the realization that it's really rather awesome to kick some ass. And then the creepy girl shows up to traumatize us some more. There should be a much more finely honed WTF?andwoe-to-whee! ratio, is what I'm saying. *sigh*

The thing I've been wondering all along, though, is this: does the concept really translate to an American audience? Not the whole time travel vs. coma aspect, so much, but the basic idea of Sam's displacement in this time frame. A lot of it depends on the audience going right along with Sam in feeling like we've taken a step back into wild and lawless territory, and I think it takes a lot more to convince your average American audience of that. We kind of like our good guys to skirt along the edges of the rules, anyway. You'd have to approach it differently, maybe. I just don't think network TV would let anyone push it far enough to get the same impact, if that makes any sense.

Oh well. *is sorrowful*

[trobadora]

The thing I've been wondering all along, though, is this: does the concept really translate to an American audience?

Oh, that's an excellent point. Why why why did they have to do this?!