0/5

Here come the bad reviews

Uh oh. Three US reviewers tell an Australian newspaper Kath and Kim did not amuse...

Harsh words today from three US critics on the US version of Kath and Kim, have been published in today’s Sunday Age. Whilst they don’t appear to be direct review quotes, they do indicate Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and The Times won’t be giving the show a thumbs up.

None of the three newspapers have yet published reviews online.

According to the Sunday Age, Variety’s Brian Lowry was brutally succinct. “If this was a major hit in Australia,” he said, “then something has been seriously lost in translation.”

The Hollywood Reporter’s Barry Garron told the Sunday Age: “I don’t think it’s going to be a hit right out of the box, and I’m not sure it will be a hit ever,” he said. “I don’t foresee it lasting the season. It won’t be the first (axed) — it’s not dreadful, but it hasn’t got staying power.”

Kath & Kim could be a success if large audiences for other comedy shows tune in. “But I don’t see that happening,” he said.

“We have a history of adapting overseas formats — some are big successes and others are downright failures. This is in between, but a little closer to the failure side.”

The NY Times’ Bill Carter was a big fan of the original Australian series, which ran in New York on a pay-TV channel, but feels the adaptation lacks laughs.

“Many of the elements it used are not there in the US show. It’s a really hard show to pull off. The characters are a little off-putting,” Carter said. “It’s basically not funny enough.”

The critics’ chief complaint is with the character of Kim, played by Selma Blair. “The (US) creators wanted this to be a broad version, a broad comedy. It’s much more about the strained mother/daughter relationship,” he said.

“The big difference is the Kim character is very shrill, unappealing. That’s a problem … (She’s) incredibly selfish and gets in the middle of her mother’s new relationship. She comes across as very one-note. She’s particularly, well, dumb.”

Garron said the characters, particularly Kim, are comparable to those in a sketch comedy or a skit.

“In a series you generally need one or two characters who are identifiable and likeable, to make you want to watch them week after week,” he noted.

“(Kim) seems to be fussing with everyone in the show. She doesn’t seem to be able to get along with any of them for more than 10 or 15 seconds. Which is a good character for a skit, because we all know people like that, but it’s such an exaggeration.”

TV Tonight understands insiders at NBC are privately “very worried” about the show, with some sources saying the re-shoots of the pilot were more disappointing than the original footage.

All three critics are likely to publish proper reviews of the show within days. It launches October 9 in the US and screens on Seven on October 12th.

Source: Sunday Age

16 Responses

  1. I don’t think the Australian humour is translatable to America, just like British humour.

    The office is a good example of this. The original had British humour… which wasn’t understood by Americans, so the tranformed it. The difference between that show and Kath and Kim is that one had a leg to stand on. Kath and Kim is purely about Australian humour, apart from that there is nothing to work with, which they didn’t take into consideration when the Americans took it up.

    It seems they’ve tried to take a show they believed to be about Trashy Australians and turned it into a Trashy Comedy. It just didn’t work.

  2. Wait till the Aussies review it, they have pretty much made their minds up already not to mention the internet peeps not giving it one single iota of a chance. We can be so arrogant sometimes… most of the time :/

  3. it’s worth pointing out that the first reviews. For both the us and uk versions of the office were horrendous. Ricky Gervais tells a great story about calling ben Silverman and saying something to the effect of “the worse the earlier reviews, the better the show will be”

    Just an observaton, I’d be very curious to see it, myself

  4. To me the only value these US conversions have are the stories about how they they messed them up are usually classic. Like the US version of Red Dwarf that if it had gone ahead two of it’s stars would have missed thier big breaks on Fraiser (Jane Leeves) and Becker (Terry Farrell) for a show that even it’s original creators will gladly tell you was destined to fail.

  5. Not surprised it’s been savaged by the critics it sounds dreadful and probably will be. Hopefully NBC will axe this turkey once the ratings bomb and put it out of it’s misery!

  6. “The big difference is the Kim character is very shrill, unappealing. That’s a problem … (She’s) incredibly selfish and gets in the middle of her mother’s new relationship. She comes across as very one-note. She’s particularly, well, dumb.”

    Uhhh, I’m sorry….. are they watching a different show? I do believe the characters in the Aussie version are exactly the same. The whole joke is that Kim is annoying, stupid and selfish, but you kinda enjoy watching it.

    My only gripe so far with the US version is that Selma Blair is too hot… the rest I can’t really comment on because I haven’t seen it.

    I also think it’s pretty rich of ‘John’ to assume that the actors haven’t watched the show. I highly doubt that.

  7. Of course something has been lost in translation! Making an American version of an Australian show will make it an AMERICAN show and American shows are completely different from Australian shows. The accents, the humour, the terms used. I don’t know what they expected.

    I don’t like the Aussie series AT ALL. I find it painfully annoying and unfunny but you can’t just go and try to recreate it in the US.

  8. Can we say we told you so?

    It’s not a case of, is there comedy lost in translation?

    It’s simply not been translated at all.

    I absolutely agree with the sketch character comment.

    From what I’ve seen particularly Kim and I forget the Kel’s name replacement but Selma and him do a terrible job as if they never once watched the original.

    Infact I’d suggest it’s a pretty accurate assumpiton they haven’t.

    The closest thing to the show, the closest, well apart from Cujo is Molly Shannon’s Kath.

    Who is absolutely different but also seems to have a closer understanding of the show than anyone else. See the glamour portraits on the wall and you can see she atleast knows how to get that vapid look in her face.

Leave a Reply