Sweetie, dahling, I think it’s a horrible idea to try to remake Absolutely Fabulous as an American, ready-for-primetime TV show. Haven’t we tried this before, with middling results? (Yes we have, a couple of times, notes the Variety article announcing Fox’s plans to Americanize AbFab. The closest we came was Cybill. Or maybe Laura Kightlinger’s hilarious The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman, but that was on cable, where no one saw it, unfortunately.) The problem is, no American broadcast network is likely to present us with the comic adventures of two drug-addled has-been fashionistas without trying to make them likable and sympathetic. Which will, in turn, ruin the comedy. The only hope here is that one of the producers here is Mitch Hurwitz, of Arrested Development fame. At least the guy behind Lucille Bluth knows a thing or two about how to make boozy aging harridans funny.
Can it actually be done? Could the Yank version of AbFab be another Office and not another Coupling? Vote in the attached poll, and share your feelings below. And then fetch Mummy her pills, won’t you, sweetie, dahling?
Fox? Fox! F-’ey! Fox. NO. Nnnnnno. Bad! Bad network! You better behave or I’ll get out the vacuum.
This is the suckiest idea since suck came to sucktown.
Considering the 5th series of the original was a pale imitator of the originals, this promises be a disaster.
Unless, of course, the moon, sun, Gods and all that’s unholy align.
AB FAB is now a TV classic and every time America has attempted to replicate it, the project fails miserably. Face it, Saunders and Lumley were priceless and no one can touch their golden seal on comedy. It’s sad that American producers have run out of something vital to the art world: CREATIVITY. Instead of repeating themselves, why don’t they do something NEW and inventive…like other countries do. You don’t see them trying to replicate SEINFELD every year! The Entertainment Industry in America needs a resurgence of talent, not a plethora of pathetic reality show harridans and whores. You give Tyra Banks and Kimora television shows and all you can say is the compass is now set on a course for hell.
If Mitch Hurwitz is producing, and Jessica Walter is one of the stars, I’ll give it a “maybe”. TV has changed, though, since AbFab, and I don’t know if it’s a comedy style that would work here. It’s not AbFab if you change the style.
Now that nearly everyone with cable or a dish has access to BBC America, why do American producers still feel the need to copy British shows. We don’t need this classic or Life on Mars. We don’t need a State of Play remake either, watch the originals.
This one is going to be a tough sell, in part because Patsy and Eddie and the whole group are such British characters, and partly because the American version will presumably lack Jennifer Saunders’ brilliance. The Office on NBC is great, but for every one of those, there’s at least two British adaptations that don’t work (such as Coupling and Men Behaving Badly).
Are the original characters crossing the pond, or will there be new copycat characters? If it’s the latter, the show will most likely tank.
Bad, bad idea. The only way it could possibly work is to put it on HBO or Showtime (maaaaybe FX) where characters are allowed to be as unsympathetic as they need to be.
Jennifer Saunders is a genius and it was her scripts along with the amazing cast chemistry that made Ab Fab one of the best shows ever. She created, wrote AND starred in this show and it simply won’t be the same without her at the helm.
They had some horrible show on, I think ABC, with Jean Smart and Mary McDonnell a few years back which was supposed to be an American version – the drunk mom and pal did not go over well and it was canceled pretty quickly as I remember.
PS, for the Anglophiles/Little Britain lovers, Little Britain USA is awesome! It’s almost as good as the original, thanks to a lot of the older characters showing up in the US and some great new characters they’ve come up with. The first two episodes have ended with naked body suits, and I think that’s a trend that should continue. Hilarious!
NO!!!
According to the Variety article, Jennifer Saunders is involved with the project as an executive producer, so perhaps there is a possiblity that the remake could work?
I am American and I love British comedys. I hate to say it but most americans dont have the sense of humor or intelligence to get british humor. That’s why these shows don’t translate across the pond. And america’s The Office sucks.
We’ve been here before. This will never work on network tv.