My personal experience with the majority of my fellow Americans tells me that a show on which all the people "talk funny" will be rejected by enough of the viewers that it would be quickly canceled.
As an example, my ex-boyfriend's dad (an intelligent electrical engineer) refused to watch British shows because of the accent, animated shows (including Dilbert) because "That's for kids.", black and white shows ("Why would you, there are lots of color movies."), and hated wide screen movies because "With wide screen, I'm not using all of the screen. I paid for the TV and I want to use all of it."
Also, in this case, the UK version had less than 10 episodes per season, a US season usually has ~24 episodes. NBC was looking for a full-fledged replacement for "Friends", not a short-term, but brilliant, fill-in show. |
