Collider is running a review of the pilot script of McSpaced, the egregious American remake of the British classic. I opened the page expecting to see the thing get torn a new one only to find… it’s an almost word for word lift from the original pilot.
Says Collider reviewer (and CHUD message boarder) Matt Goldberg:
Everything you’ve seen in the British original is there in the American version, sometimes word-for-word. There are even attempts to mimic the original down to Wright’s direction like when Barr notes jump cuts and sound FX. I can’t really tell if Barr has a genuine respect for the series (although Pegg, Stevenson, and Wright are credited as the creators of the original on the cover sheet) or if he’s just doing the easiest adaptation possible, making only minor tweaks so it isn’t straight-up plagarism. Think the pilot episode of the American version of “The Office” but without the blessing of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.
Things don’t stay plagiarized for long, though. On page 23* it runs out of original episode to ape and then it steals the finger gun fight from the show, except that it places it in a… cream puff shop? Ugh. Anyway, you want your half hour sitcom script to be 23 pages or lss,
I feel like Goldberg might be a little bit easy on the script. For instance, he never once calls into question the legitimacy of writer and producer Adam Barr’s heritage. Where as I would have spent a good five paragraphs figuring out which animal impregnated his mother, Goldberg mostly just gives us the facts. Here’s a fact, Matt: Everybody involved in this show should be brought up on morals charges!
Head over to Collider to read the whole thing. But fuck this show – instead, enjoy the Spaced Region 1 DVDs coming out this summer. In the meantime, enjoy this clip of the original finger gun fight in all its brilliant glory.
* I think the rule is that sitcom scripts go 2 pages per minute, as opposed to movie scripts, which are 1 page per minute. I think.