That Time the USA Tried to Make a Red Dwarf Show 

Biggest failure was they made Lister a working joe to a hollywood pretty boy.

US Network: We love your show, we want to bring that same spirit and sense of humor to the US. US Network in production: We don't want that humor on our versions.

I seriously didn't get the obsession with "Americanizing" British shows. They are usually perfect the way they are. (The Office being the ONLY one that actually worked.)

I'm glad Craig Bierko was self aware that the remake was going to be a dud. Lister had that everyman charm, and Craig was too handsome for the part.

its interesting that the two lead actors are still called craig and chris

Next video: the American version of Fawlty Towers...

It's like the Dollar General version of Red Dwarf.

A similar thing happened with a film about true events secret British military operation during 2nd World War that was kept secret from America and obviously no Americans were involved in any way at all. The film cast naturally an American in the leading role who took on this entire 'exclusive secret British operation' to its completion, not only that after completion and back in the USA, was honoured in an American military parade.

They did the same thing to "are you being served?"

Anytime they try to IMPORT a UK show to the US - They always GUT the HEART and SOUL out of the show that made it special... The same thing happened with The IT Crowd...

Nice vid man. Subbed and looking forward to the second one

Not enough footage of the actual episode so we can judge

I actually watched this pilot thanks to a guy that ran a tv station and got his hands on a copy when it was new; as a major Red Dwarf fan, I wanted to pull an E.T. the Atari game on every copy and everyone involved except the one actor who carried over.

The real irony here is that "Red Dwarf" was already a British version of an American film: the 1974 sci-fi comedy "Dark Star" by John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon. So translating it back again really shouldn't have been as "problematic" as it was.

I am still amazed the office worked. I think because they quickly transitioned to a very different show and of course Steve Carell was a fantastic actor who played off an amazing ensemble cast.

“NOW…..something, something…”

OMG that theme is jarring.

Tiktoks working for you dude, noice vid aaaaaaand subbed

Back in the late 90's when I was doing the Doctor Who and Cult TV conventions, a friend of mine told me about these pilots. He gave me a couple of VHS tapes (oh, the horror!) with them on. I watched them... Once and never again, it's just too painful! I still have those cassettes for some reason. Perhaps I kept them in case I needed to give myself a kick in the tits, metaphorically that is! Absolute bloody tripe! Made worse so as Red Dwarf has been one of my favourite shows since the first episode in 1988. I watched it so often I could quote each episode, line by line, for the first six series. Sad? Yes, completely, but that show got me through some really tough times and I'll always be grateful for that. The Yanks ruin everything that's good about our shows, I'm so glad this never took off!

The US producers seemed to understand that Red Dwarf WAS funny, but not WHY it was funny. Also the UK cast were an incredible lucky find and could not be reproduced. Wondered why they didn't cast Mac McDonald in RDUSA, cap only in it for a minute and he was in Aliens!

Really the closest anyone came to replicating the Boys from the Dwarf was "Lexx".

The only people who could have judged RDUS objectively would be people who never saw the UK version. To the rest of us it's too much like they took a classic Beatles album like Revolver, changed the songs a bit, and redid it with different people.

I thought I imagined this American version until it popped up on youtube 😂 I thought maybe when I was a kid I saw maybe a directors cut or something but no, it's an American version I probably saw once

Ok. Rimmer being shorter makes him vulnerable than Dave Lister. So slightly more posh Lister having a pop at him seems less cool.

Sometimes there is just no improving on the original. The office was one of the exceptions. Both versions were excellent.

I remember watching a good percentage of this awesome show on a public broadcasting channel in the USA what always surprised me is nearly no edited out cursing no blurring for when characters flipped the bird hell it pretty much was what the home release DVDs, VHS tapes, or Blu-rays I made a thing to catch it whenever it was on sorta like another show that would air on the opposite nights Red Green Show both made a good part of my humor

The problem with US versions of UK shows is they almost always miss the point of the show and try to dumb them down.

It's interesting that the project began around the end of Series 5, as I must say the segment in Back to Reality where Lister watches the 'replacement' players and sees his other more macho, successful self get Kochanski, almost feels like the Red Dwarf makers envisioning their worst nightmare of what an Americanized Red Dwarf would be like. Which makes it odd that they went along with the project at all, and only seemed to realise their terrible mistake after. My main takeaways when I finally saw the pilot were that I had a bit of a guilty liking for the opening theme, Jane Leeves as Holly and Robert Llewellyn as Kryten were definitely the highlights. But the jokes just felt like crude and cheap digs rather than part of a charming dynamic. Rimmer ends up being a non-entity we barely know before he dies, and certainly lacks the pathos of Chris Barrie's version. It does just feel like the actors here are delivering their given lines rather than truly inhabiting their characters. The Making of itself, actually ends up being a far more interesting story than the pilot. Overall it feels like a relief it did fail and didn't make it to air. It does overall feel like it was always a doomed venture.

What about the 2 versions of Holly... they both had some great lines!

The American Red Dwarf pilot could have been better. Would be good if Terry Farrell guest starred in UK Red Dwarf.

I've never seen a US remake that was 2% as good as the UK original, but the idea of remaking Red Dwarf in the US is so incredibly stupid that it can only be explained by the flood of bad drugs in the early 90s entertainment industry.

Bierko is a great actor and Hinton is a wonderful talent. The USA pilot was never going to match the original any day of the week.

So they were setting this in an alternate universe? Shame they did a bad job of it, it could have been interesting.

just discovered this was a thing that existed and its quite funny to me how pathetic it is as a piece of media in general i also never liked the woman holly as much as the original one so it feels kind of wrong for the usa one to make them a woman from the start (ignoring the shit casting of everyone else in general lol)

Making Lister a suave charmer misses tge whole point, because it ruins all the humor that stemmed from the contrast between Lister and overzelaous, uptight Rimmer.

I'm glad I did not know about this in 92 or I would have watched it. Seeing it now is bad enough..

amen

Yes, I think the US versions are crap. Yet for some reason, I find myself coming back and rewatching them now and again. Guess it's just mere curiosity to how they were handled compared to the UK series. Plus the Dwarfing USA documentary on the Series 5 DVD when they mention Jane Leeves was how I first became hooked on Frasier. Definitely prefer Jane as Daphne than as Holly. Terry Farrell was okay as Cat in the 2nd Pilot, but definitely prefer her as Jadzia Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

The worst one I’ve heard is America was thinking of doing a crap version of only fools and horses

Futurama.

I don't think the us has ever understood British humour they just don't get it

they made a US Red Dwarf? why in the fuck would they even bother

I thought there was only ONE good joke in the first pilot. Holly (Jane Leeves) was whining about her lot, and then a shock wave runs through her system and she has this lovely little aroused look, then says "Actually, that one felt kinda good!" One. Good. Joke. That's pathetic. And then for the second pilot, they replaced Hinton Battle as the Cat with Terry Farrell, who was ... interesting. I didn't buy either of them as a cat, and Farrell made me think somewhat of Scrappy-Doo - only actually funny. In the end, it was another attempt by the US adapting a quintessential British show that fell flat on its ass. And that is why we never got an American AbFab series, and thank all the spirits for THAT!

American humor and Brit humor doesn't translate directly. Terrible idea

American producers, starting around I guess the late 80s or early 90s, really lost the ability to understand what made British sitcoms funny. They kept trying to turn them into American sitcoms, which is a format in which they just don’t work. The conversion seem to work a little better in decades before that. The office is the one recent exception I can think of that everyone can probably think of, but even that was quite a different show.

The remake was congested. Lost all of the UK flavor that made the original great. Tried to introduce everyone at once. But the biggest flaw, in my opinion, was the casting. None of it worked.

I don't hate this cast, but you can feel the stumble when redone UK lines try to merge with new jokes. Much as I love Lewyllen, it was a mistake bringing him over. He's a constant reminder of the original. Maybe if it went to series, it could have become its own thing, but this pilot was a mess.

who thought this was a good idea ?

Honestly think Red Dwarf has sucked since series 6. That would have been the perfect place to end it.

Not that good: unmitigated disaster!

I don't feel the colour of the characters is really important, and I think it is a little racist to raise this point. They are not historical characters, and their skin colour does not matter. The reason Danny got the job is because he was amazing in the audition. I think whoever would be best for the part can play the characters. 🤨

The american Red Dwarf series failed for many reasons. One reason was, they couldn't grasp the idea of English comedy.

Too much treble, it hurts my ears. Why is this a new trend all of the sudden? Who do I blame? Simon? Or is it the holding the mic thing? Edit, oh it was 3 years old video, not 3 days, but I'll leave it here. Maybe RU-vid thinks it's a new trend then.

You know I hate it when Americans bring over British creators and the Americans treat them like crap.... You know the people WHO KNOW HOW IT WORKS.

So lister is white washed but no comment on captain hollister being a black woman?

It seems that it was about as successful as the American's version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

If they remade it today it would be woke.

Typical American remake. They followed their idea of what's needed in a programme, and killed off what made the programme. It's not the first time, or probably the last. TBH, the American version if you can see it is really funny. It's like a really bad remake of your favourite show and your laughing at how bad they converted it it to their idea. Apparently the make up ladies fancied the American Lister. Here's a link in bad quality video to the show that I spent about a minute finding 🤣 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8mlnntKi2no.html

It's delivery of the joke and the accents. British accents make things sound more intelligent and so it's funnier.

not an incredibly funny show like Fawlty Towers and Black Adder or even Fools and horses but fun to watch and I have a fondness for my time spent watching it. The american version looks atrocious

Wtf? Where's the whimsical humor?

Am I the only one who thinksthis wasn't all that bad?

"whitewashed" don't be stupid.

Can you whitewash a character who was written as white?

Neither was the original British one.

The American version of Coupling was also awful. They made 10 episodes. Only 4 aired. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupling_(American_TV_series)

The Brits copy USA shows. "The Golden Girls" became "Brighton Belles" and sank like a stone. And the UK version of "Married... With Children" was a dud.