Skip to main content

Ever Wonder What the Hell Went Wrong with NBC's "Coupling"?

I loved the UK Coupling. Still do. Everything about the series, from co-creator Steven Moffat (who's been popping up with more than a few Doctor Who writing credits to his name lately), was absolutely brilliant, from the hysterical and taut writing to the memorable characters. I own the DVDs and have watched them repeatedly.

So what exactly went wrong with the US adaptation of Coupling, which aired on NBC back in 2003 and never became the Friends-sized hit Jeff Zucker and NBC hoped it would?

TV Week's James Hibberd has the story, from Moffat's own mouth. It's only a paragraph but it's blunt and to the point.

My favorite bit: "If you really want a job to work, don’t get Jeff Zucker’s team to come help you because they’re not funny."

Touché, Steven, touché.

Comments

TxGowan said…
I too really love the original and wanted this to work so badly but instead it was just bad. Leaden, I think would be the proper term.

It's not surprising that the network munged it up, though. Isn't that always the case? "Do less story arcs and more standalone episodes", "How about a funny sidekick?", "They should have a baby this season!"....all probable notes from the network that eventually sunk a show.
Anonymous said…
More than anything one other thing I think what truly killed the Americanization of Coupling was that the only changes in the first six episodes where to Americanize the language used and and the cast.

From the reports at the time the original scripts, which never made it to air, where supposed to be truly funny. Some of the original scripts likely should have been scheduled earlier in the run.

Two other contributing factors where NBC calling this the new Friends and that the original Friends was still on the air.

As How I Met Your Mother is proving now the general Friends formula can be duplicated however you are going to have a difficult time gettting the same sized hit again, even if your show is truly brilliant.

When Coupling came to NBC people were not ready to accept a new group of friends into their tv viewing schedule.

Lastly, the Gen X audience that may Friends a hit was not the young 20-something just starting out are their own anymore. They were more like Chandler and Monica at the end opf Friends, buying a house and looking to start a family. There were a lot fewer 20-somethings then to make the huge audience that Friends appealed to.

The entertainment market has truly changed now so it will be incredible difficultfor another show like Friends to ever happen.
Vance said…
I saw a later ep that never aired and wasn't a direct copy of the original (which to this day is one of my all time favorite shows), and it was a lot funnier. At first I blamed the actors for comedic timing but they were actually pretty good in the original episode (I think it was 7 or 8). Either way, since I hate Jeff Zucker too, I won't stop Steven.
Anonymous said…
Ouch!

Popular posts from this blog

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

In Defense of Downton Abbey (Or, Don't Believe Everything You Read)

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Which means, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute, that in order to judge something, one ought to experience it first hand. One can't know how the pudding has turned out until one actually tastes it. I was asked last week--while I was on vacation with my wife--for an interview by a journalist from The Daily Mail, who got in touch to talk to me about PBS' upcoming launch of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey , which stars Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Elizabeth McGovern, and a host of others. (It launches on Sunday evening as part of PBS' Masterpiece Classic ; my advance review of the first season can be read here , while my interview with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and stars Dan Stevens and Hugh Bonneville can be read here .) Normally, I would have refused, just based on the fact that I was traveling and wasn't working, but I love Downton Abbey and am so enchanted with the proj