"The Office" (2005) More at IMDb Pro »TV series 2005-????

The original Office was the surprise hit of 2001, when it hit BBC 2 it was the only thing anyone was talking about for months to follow. It was hysterically funny and brilliantly conceived.

When I heard there was going to be a remake, I thought I'd better give it a look, because the original run had deliberately been kept short and I definitely did want to see more.

As they say, Always leave them wanting more.

This version has all the same gags as the original Office, but they've been watered down. One of the funniest aspects of the characters of David Brent, Gareth Kenan et al was their political incorrectness, especially David who didn't even realise what a bigot he was being. It seems that somebody has decided that it needed to be toned down for the American remake, and toned down it was. Most of the jokes have lost much of their impact.

The same thing goes for the swearing. The language of the original was extremely blue, as the workplace depicted in the show was massively male-dominated, and as anyone who knows who has happened to work in such an environment will know, manners just seem to completely evaporate in such an environment. Again, this has been toned and again this has hurt the show.

There was new material here but I didn't think it was all that funny.

But the biggest disappointment is that the actors sound like actors. The original sounded like a real documentary because of the style used, with the actors stumbling over their lines and uming and erring a lot as people in real life tend to do. The remake just seems too real.

There is still some good humour here, but it feels like it's been diluted and watered down, like the same amount of material has been made to stretch over more episodes. It's like Caffeine-free The Office.