The TV landscape in America is full of remakes of previous shows - '87th
Precinct', 'The New Addams Family', 'The Fugitive' - and most of them have to be
relegated to alternate TV dimensions. Exceptions would include the remake of
'The Prisoner' with Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellan, which was a continuation of
the original scenario - but the shadowy powers running "the Village" had
regrouped and set up shop elsewhere.
Sometimes it's the original - or in the case of Sherlock Holmes, the
original and several remakes - that gets transferred. This happened with a
one-shot drama called "The Strange World of Horace Ford", which was an episode
of 'The Twilight Zone'. That version (starring Pat Hingle) is better known and
seen more often than its predecessor which starred Art Carney. Therefore, it
stays in Earth Prime-Time. As for the Great Detective, Jeremy Brett is the
accepted portrayal of Holmes even though Ronald Howard, Douglas Wilmer, Peter
Cushing and others came before him.
But when a show is remade in other countries, then the foreign versions get
to share the same tele-planet. What helps of course is that even though they
might share the same plotlines (especially those in the 'Law & Order'
franchise), the characters have been changed enough to make them different from
the originals... starting with their names.
(One exception - the American version of 'Being Human'. Even though it was
now set in Boston rather than Bristol and the characters had different names -
Sally instead of Annie, for example - it was still about a vampire, a werewolf,
and a ghost all living together. The ghost was still the female, the vampire
still had the same kind of occupation, etc. It was too specifically similar to
the original - and superior - British version, so it had to go.)
But no matter how many variations on 'The Office' and 'Ugly Betty' spring
up around the world, they're all different enough, or their situations and
character types are all so generic, that Earth Prime-Time can survive having
them share the same global stage.
None of that is anything new for long-time visitors to this blog. It's been brought up several times in the past here at
Inner Toob, but it never hurts to have refreshers for those just joining the
program already in progress. And since those two shows are the most often
cited, I thought it might be nice if you got to see some other examples.
And thanks to this list you can:
Enjoy! (And yeah, I know at least one of the video links has already
expired. Sorry about that, Chief.)
BCnU!
1 comment:
Brett was a very masterly Holmes. The Granada series with Jeremy Brett is one of the best adaptations of Sherlock Holmes ever.
Have you read the book "Bending the Willow: Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes" by David Stuart Davies. This book is a must read for fans of the Granada adaptation and/or Jeremy Brett.
Cheers!
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