User Reviews

I saw the original (UK) Coupling for the first time when it aired originally. I liked it so much, that I bought all four seasons on DVD as soon as they became available and have watched them over and over again ever since.

I can truly say that I am a big fan and that Coupling (UK, mind you!) is one of my favorite series of all time. Can't beat the humor and the odd characters.

Now I had the chance to watch the US remake. I had seen the low rating and negative comments before and did not expect much. But what I did expect were some new stories around the same, only "americanized", characters.

I was surprised to say the least to find out that they absolutely redid the series. The same stories and sometimes word for word the same script as the original. They even recreated "the bar" more or less like the original one.

WHY in god's name would they do that ??? It was perfect - and I really mean PERFECT - the way it was.

Who is that sad-sack trying to play Jeff ?? Or the Paris Hilton wannabe they cast as Jane for crying out loud ??

And most of all - why didn't Steven Moffat stop that from being made? Did he need money so desperately?

Compared to the original, it really would deserve a solid zero. On it's own, I give it a two, since Moffat's lines are still funny. And one extra point for the gorgeous Rena Sofer. By means of character no comparison to "Susan" Sarah Alexander, but she's eye-candy and a decent actress none the less.

Even if you are American and don't like Brit stuff - please watch the one and only Coupling and not this lukewarm remake.

Or the Melty Man cometh !!!

...to clarify - it WAS shot on a Hollywood sound stage, but there was no laugh track - it was indeed a live audience laughing as they pleased.

What was really peculiar is the fact that watching it in person there on the set, it seemed REALLY hilarious & fantastic...and i was sure it was going to become a HUGE hit, hell they gave it the Friend's time slot for god-sakes! But when i actually saw it on TV it looked awful...slow & uninviting. the errors: 1. they seemed to do LOTS of really close up shots - which tended to rob you of any 'feel' for the people or space & thus the situation. difficult to relate to em' as a result. That's about the best I've ever been able to come up with for an explanation of "what happened?" 2. cutting 15min. off was a bit like a dagger to the heart really.

3. casting was actually really great...except for one girl, cant recall which though - she just didn't seem to fit. But like i said...it was AMAZING in person - but it somehow totally flopped on-screen.

I completely blame the producers for this disastrous result. Someone decided to shoot it the way they did - and it utterly ruined it. Besides, many of the subtle humor absolutely required the full 45min to pull off properly.

The actors were actually really great people...and there were NO prompters of anykind (something i've NEVER seen outside of a daily comedy show live).the original Brit crew actually came by for a visit - that was a kick ;)

Six friends from differing connections find love, sex, and fun. Patrick Maitland (Colin Ferguson), Steve Taylor (Jay Harrington), Jane Honda (Lindsay Price), Jeff Clancy (Christopher Moynihan), Susan Freeman (Rena Sofer), and Sally Harper (Sonya Walger) are all around 30 and single.

NBC was banking on this as being the next Friends. The British version was a smash hit, and they had calculated this to be the same. The over-exposure killed this before it started. The backlash coming from the overwhelming advertising blitz was massive. The cast in the US version comes from good TV stock. Christopher Moynihan is the only one who is clearly inferior to the British counterpart. Richard Coyle created such an original character in the British show that it was probably too much to expect the same. The scripts and the big gags are all copied from the British show. This was cynically manufactured and cancelled after only 4 episodes.

I adore the original BBC Version. Here I am watching the Clone....squirming here. I know these words. I know this situation. OK...too soon to tell. Oh, no!

SAME EXACT SCRIPT! How ridiculous! How pathetic...

Sigh....the thing is - EVERYONE in America will think just how "funny" this is. I don't get it. It IS already funny...in the BRITISH VERSION!

Is this like Shakespeare in the Park?

Stick with the BBC Version. They did it RIGHT...the FIRST time!

Must everything be "Americanized"? Why didn't they just show the British version so those great actors could share in the glory?

Sigh....

I have seen this series ... once. And that's all I needed. It is such a poor remake of the proper "Britcom" Coupling in the UK. The actors seem fake, just reading their lines from a tele-prompter. The sets are right off of a Hollywood sound stage. And the whole idea to take the script word for word from the UK version, and change some words so that it would make sense here in the USA, was the final blow. I am happy to see it off the air, and I hope that the NBC person, or persons were sacked right after. Let's hope they learned their lesson. If you want to see it properly done, buy Coupling on DVD which has series 1 and 2 out now, and series 3 should be out soon. And not to worry, they are in the process of filming series 4!

this is something I don't get. Why is it necessary to make a bad American copy of something that was/is great. If Americans don't want to see it in the original version, then so what! They miss something great, so what! really, really sad

I looked hard, but didn't find the negative star to rate this.

And why doing something you know during the making-off, that it won't work out the same. You cannot transfer the brilliant humour of the original series.

But the explanation will probably be simple and plain; the money. They always try to make some extra cash.

I was pretty dubious when I heard that there was going to be a US remake of Coupling, but I figured, "Oh, what the heck? How bad could it be?" I should know better to say that in the country that invented Fox News and "The Simple Life."

It wasn't just that the sets were kinda cheesy. It wasn't just that they copied the script word-for-word. No, it was that the actors were totally unconvincing. Truly awful. {sigh}

Spoken English English is in iambic pentameter. Spoken American English is in iambic quadrameter. English English scripts spoken by Americans don't sound right because the tones are wrong. That'd have been easy to find out if anyone had listened to it. But this brings us back around to the question of why on earth they used the same script. If you wanted to hear the original script, why not just license the original show and save yourself all that money?

I cannot believe that they didn't screen-test this somehow. The sounds of people in the test audiences eating their own left feet out of desperation would have given them a hint that something was wrong.

Sheeeeesh

The BBC version should never ever be remade, it is perfect except for series 3 which loses a main character. Enjoy the original and forget the remake

Sometimes British sitcoms translate well. Examples are "All In The Family", "Sanford & Son" and "Three's Company" among others. But this was BEYOND HORRIBLE! The only worst remake was the ones they tried with "Fawlty Towers"!

Americanized remake of the popular British TV series "Coupling". I saw all 4 episodes that were aired. It was well done with a very attractive cast...but the show was never given a chance to find its own identity. If I recall correctly the four shows aired were EXACT copies of the ones from the British TV series! I mean--what was the reasoning behind that? I could see them adapting British episodes and making them more "American" (so to speak)...but what is the point of doing a word for word remake of the British episodes? Also, by comparison, this show suffered. It did have a good-looking cast and they were all good--but they didn't have enough time to jell together as an ensemble. Even with "Friends" it took an entire season before the cast really worked well together. So I DID like what I saw but it seems they made some really bad decisions in reusing the exact same scripts. So--we'll never really know if this could have worked. Too bad.

I absolutely loved every episode of Coupling UK(except for parts of the 4th season where Jeff wasn't in the plot anymore) and read all the negative reviews for the US adaptation. I downloaded all of them and let me tell you that the US version is TERRIBLE. The casting is much worse and the only thing worth laughing at is how horrible the US version is. I still think the UK version is incredible but could only get past two episodes before i deleted all of them. don't even bother. I can't think of one good adaptation of character. Jane is not supposed to be completely ditzy like she is in the American version. Jeff is much deeper in the British version. Even the Israeli girl in "The Woman with Two Breasts" is cast better in the UK version as the one in "A Foreign Affair" in the US version comes off as a slutty girl who speaks so fast you can't even attempt to figure out what she had in mind before the translation comes up. It is clear that they were trying to get from the 30 minute UK episode to the US 22 minute standard. Characters aren't developed at all!!!!

The version from the UK is much much better. I liked the US version, but the roles were miscast for the gals. Right cast but wrong roles. Rene should have played Jane. Sonya should have played Susan, and Lindsay play Sally.

I'm gonna be honest....I haven't even watched this! I'm so absolutely appalled that they would "remake" coupling with the same name, characters, etc. I mean come on!!!! Get freaking creative. This "remake" did NOT need to be done. The original British version is amazing and should be kept as it was. The "US version" of Coupling is Friends. Friends was LOOSELY based on Coupling and that's what someone who calls them self a writer should do. Not take someone's full idea, cast American actors and call it their own!!! These writers shouldn't be allowed to work in the industry. Get creative, do your job, and make your own show!!!!

I've read all the reviews so far for this show, and they're all bad. I couldn't agree more. This American-ized version sucks. If you want a really good show, though, check out the original (it's different, the characters are funnier and don't look like supermodels - thank god - and besides, the American one was 'edited' as I understood it).

Watch the original on BBCAmerica, it's hilarious. Don't waste your time, however, with this version.

So.... The American remake of Coupling is not good, even if you've never seen the original. Granted in that case it might be a 3 or 4 star result, so a bit better. I read somewhere a British person asking why us Americans need to remake good (sometimes bad, Footballers Wives etc.) British programs, since after all they can perfectly understand and watch shows like The Simpsons and Friends without it being reworked and redone. The reason of course is simple actually. The problem isn't that we can't understand Coupling, or The Office. The problem is that the shows are too short to work on American television. Networks here need shows that are 22 episodes to make enough money on. They just don't see the point of a 6 episode season. Utter rubbish isn't it? I've always loved that some of my favourite shows end before they turn crap, but in America it makes less sense to us. Run it into the ground... I get this since one of my roommates loves British sitcoms, but he HATES how short they are. To him he thinks if its good they should just keep making more and more of it. Granted the other reason is also fairly simple. No new ideas. Need a new sitcom for your fall lineup? Well whats easier then taking a concept already made and proved successful, and just Americanize it and making it longer... Yeah our TV here is fairly lazy... remakes or reality. Every so often a remake does well, can even be better. The Office is fantastic with Steve Carell, just as good as the original. Granted that is due to some superior casting. Coupling though... Didn't work, and was miscast. Perhaps good actors in other roles ( I adore Colin Ferguson on Eureka) but in this hopeless.

Every time American TV execs decide to redo a British show, they turn it into unwatchable rubbish, and this is no exception. While The Office escaped this fate, possibly due to Ricky Grevais'sinfluence, Coupling has met the same fate as Men Behaving Badly, Top Gear and Shameless.

A lot of reviewers here have wasted time comparing this show to it's British original or to other contemporary American sitcoms. Why? This show failed for one reason: it was about 6 people so obsessed with sex that they all belonged in an asylum.

We know sex sells, and we understand that lots of people with no sense of humor like to laugh at bathroom jokes and naughty innuendo. But the US version of "Coupling" features more sex than a pornographic movie. When characters aren't having sex or talking about sex they're fantasizing about sex, asking about sex, or simply saying the word 'sex.' (Sex) They're so sex busy having sex that they sex forget to be sex funny in the least...

As a result only four episodes ever aired... this was filth put forth by a network out of ideas, shooting for the lowest-common denominator and missing even that. 'Coupling' brought out the offended prude in everyone. I saw one episode of the British version: it was raunchy, dirty AND hilarious...everything the American version was supposed to be; we didn't miss by inches, we missed by a mile.

Consider yourself lucky that you didn't have to see this ridiculous failure. Nothing redeeming here...

GRADE: F

(Sex)

OK, I read most of the reviews here and it seems that a large majority of the reviewers are totally against this show. The main reason being the fact that Coupling was a remake of a successful British show. Then, I read that some of the episodes were not aired originally in the US. I just wonder if all those people who wrote so many horrible things about the American version of Coupling had actually been able to watch all of the episodes. 'Cause I did, and I just laughed a lot!! I think it was really funny. The actors and their acting were great as well as the dialogs and situations.

Americanized copies are usually bad and/or poor, but there are a few exceptions and I think this sitcom is one of them. I haven't seen the original British Coupling (yet) so when I found Coupling US by accident I just watched it without any preconception in my mind –and I really enjoyed it. I suppose the British show must be fun, too (looking forward to it!).

My advice: don't be biased and give this show a chance. It deserves it and you won't regret!!!

Having been a longtime fan of "Coupling" (the original and better Brit version), I rolled my eyes when I'd heard NBC announce they setup an American version of this show for their fall lineup. The actors/actresses are awful, none of whom can make their lines sound believeable. They all sound as if they're reading straight from the script. Just as "Men Behaving Badly" was a smash hit in Britain, but failed miserabley here, I predict "Coupling" USA will pretty much follow the same path. Boo. Get digital cable and watch the Brit "Coupling" instead. Season 1 is available on DVD (around $25) and well worth the money. Skip the hideous American version.

To say that some of us are snobs for viewing Coupling US as utter rubbish compared to the brilliant Coupling UK, is to say something completely unfounded and untrue. It is true that a large portion of the original script was used in the pilot of Coupling US, but the fact that the less-than-mediocre entrance of the US version was excruciatingly unfunny had more to do with the setting, the actors and the idea than the actual script. Please - for viewers who have seen the US version and not the British Coupling - take note: You can have the funniest lines in the world, but if they are delivered by an actor who has no grasp of the character the lines were intended for, has no comedic depth and is a mere imitation - not even a shadow - of the original character, those very same lines that you once found hilarious can suddenly be rendered lame and unoriginal. A sitcom is not only successful because of the funny lines produced during the show, but also by how successful the actors are at conveying those lines. And the actors themselves need to have some likability too. Sadly the US version falls short in every possible way. Many people have commented on how the actor playing Jeff has really disappointed fans by turning such a side-splittingly funny character into a teeth-grindingly inferior joke. But it doesn't end there - almost the entire cast is misplaced and unsuited for the characters they are portraying. Perhaps the British actors have outdone themselves to such a degree that they cannot be re-cast to the satisfaction of Coupling fans. But then, why should they have to be? The original was truly the best and I see no reason why it should have been remade. Edited perhaps, to fit into US time slots, but to be remade entirely is completely unnecessary and an all-round bad idea. The proof is in the pudding - if you don't believe me just have a look at how much this version of Coupling scored on the user rating.

Another thing that gripes me is the misconception by people who have only watched the US version, that this show is a cheap imitation of Friends. I can't stress enough how absolutely misguided this perception is! The original Coupling has three things in common with Friends - there are six central characters, three of them are women and three are men, and the show revolves around relationships. That's about where it ends. In Coupling, sex is discussed much more openly and at times, at length. If this puts you off, then read the tagline of the original Coupling - "It's better than foreplay". This show is about sex and if that offends or bores you, then don't expect to enjoy this very much sex-orientated sitcom. Friends would be more to your tastes then, obviously.

The argument that the Coupling characters are imitations of the Friends characters is also untrue. If you watch the original Coupling you'll notice that the characters are very well rounded off. I'm not saying the Friends characters weren't, but to say that Jeff is like Joey, Jane like Phoebe, etc. is nonsense. The characters in Coupling have more depth than the US pilot would have you believe. As writer Steven Moffat mentioned in an interview, his characters are people of extremes. Jeff and Sally are both, for example, extremely paranoid people. Jeff worries over every problem he might encounter, stresses over it, names it, numbers it, and ultimately falls victim to it with hilarious results. Sally is paranoid about her beauty, her age, her weight, her relationship status, what she wants in a man, how she wants to world to see her man, etc. Then you get Patrick and Jane, both extremely confident people. Patrick is a pioneer of supreme confidence, he has had many sexual encounters, he rarely if ever dwells on the possibility that things may go wrong and he is always pursuing his next sexual conquest. Jane, who is a self proclaimed bi-sexual and bi-vegetarian, is also a very confident person. She's sexually confident and romantically in a world of her own. A world where she imagines that she holds the key to the heart of a certain pizza delivery guy even though she has never met him. A world where she is only threatened by the concept of having to compete with God for a man's love. Then there is Steve and Susan, perhaps the most normal of the lot. They're trying to build a relationship in between the hilarious events and people that make part of their life and we have fun watching them do so.

In short, these characters are well developed. Not only that but their personalities drive the show. The situations they find themselves in are because of the type of people they are. For instance Jeff only finds himself in a situation where he pretends to have a wooden leg in order to date a hot woman, because his terrible communication skills allowed him to say, in a moment of panic, that he had is leg amputated. Similarly Patrick's confident, sex-driven character helped along the first break-up between Susan and Steve, thanks to his cupboard of love.

That's the beauty of the original Coupling. The characters, the lines, the actors, the setting - it all just clicked beautifully into place. To try and remake this in a different setting with the same lines was a terrible idea to begin with. And to compare it with Friends even more so, considering that the original Coupling was vastly superior in terms of situation comedy and in terms of character likability.

Just bad. Once you've seen the English version this comes across as a slap in the face to the creators. The actors are really not up to it, nothing can compare to the English cast, the chemistry just doesn't seem to be right here. And nobody else can really do Geoff the way he's supposed to be. I wasn't able to enjoy the U.S. version, it all just seemed wrong. As I have already stated the chemistry is just wrong. The cast don't really seem that comfortable with what they're doing. Since I love the original British version so much, I was expecting this to keep up the same level of quality, but it doesn't even come close. I'm not at all surprised that it was cancelled.

For those of you unfamiliar with Coupling (it means you've been living under a rock) it is a show from the great isle of Britain which is basically Friends... who have sex.

The show is wildly popular in Britain and made a splash on BBC America, and thanks to DVD the show has been reaching a broader audience. And with anything successful in Britain, America feels that they can take it and remake it better.

So in the same vain as Three's Company, Faulty Towers, and American idol, Coupling has been shipped to America, given a generic wrapper and dropped into the laps of the unsuspecting American couch potato. With the success and intelligent writing of the British version the American version is bound to be a success... right?

WRONG.

Bollocks is what I say dog bollocks to be more precise. From the first moment of casting, by the way the casting director should be shot, I knew this show as doomed for failure. Now I know they want to differentiate themselves from the original, but part of the appeal of the original show is who was cast in it. Each character in the British version was cast in such a precise way that half of the success of the show is based on the actor who performs their part. And since episode one was practically a word for word re- shooting of the original British version (minus 15 minutes since British programs run 45 minutes instead of 30) the miscasting took jokes that could and should have been funny, and made them, not, so funny.

To make matters worse a laugh track is used to elicit laughter in areas that are, not, funny. Granted, a few times I was forced to laugh, I won't deny it, but not as much as I did when I saw the original.

So the cast, Jay Harrington plays "Steve", Steve is supposed to be a bit of a dork, a nice guy, but not all that clever as portrayed by Jack Davenport (recently seen in Pirates of the Caribbean). Jay Harrington is not dorky, not clever, and to be honest not that interesting. Part of the reason why Steve's lines work is because of how Davenport delivers them, I realize its a pilot but Harrington has a lot to make up for.

Jane, Steve's "ex"-girlfriend is played by Lindsay Price, a petite, attractive, squeaky voiced girl, who would make a great Susan, but is no Gina Bellman. Again part of what makes Jane great is Bellman's performance, Jane is one of my favorite characters and I can't see Price pull it off. Again, she would have made a great Susan, but not Jane.

Speaking of Susan, Rena Sofer from General Hospital fame plays the role originally performed by Sarah Alexander. Alexander makes the role what it is, Sofer would have been a better Jane then sally, its evident the producers tried to use Sofer's appeal to make the show work, well it didn't, she was very uncomfortable in the role, Susan, a woman who enjoys sex but is embarrassed by it at the same time. I honestly don't think anything would embarrass Sofer.

Christopher Moynihan plays Jeff, Jeff makes the British version what it is, Jeff is the pivotal role involved with the success of the show, cast a bad Jeff and the show will fail, well let me tell you, boy did they ever cast a wrong Jeff. Richard Coyle, who plays the original is fantastic, he's funny, and goofy and just so "Jeff", Moynihan is everything Jeff isn't, and most of all he isn't funny. Originally Breckin Meyer (of Clueless fame) was cast as Jeff, had he remained the show might have been more successful.

Sonya Walger plays Sally, the self-obsessed neurotic best friend of Susan. I have to admit, Sally's my least favorite character, played by Kate Isitt in the original. Not to say that Isitt is a bad actress, she just plays the character so well, I'm annoyed. The ironic aspect of this is Walger, last seen in The Mind of the Married Man on HBO, is English, has an English accent, but for some asinine reason, they had her adopt an American accent, and a bad one a that. Walger's performance of Sally was practically unnoticeable, as I believe that most of her lines were cut to a lot for the 15 minutes needed to be cut.

Colin Ferguson plays the well endowed "stud" Patrick, and I have to say, Ferguson is probably the only cast member correctly cast. While he has yet to pull of the obtuse confidence of the original Ben Miles, he shows some promise. There's nothing I can really say about Ferguson except if they recast the show, please keep him.

So will the American version of Coupling even catch a glimpse of the success the original did? I would have to say with its current cast, no. Considering the original's appeal was the mix of witty dialogue and brilliant acting, something the American version lacks, its a testament at exactly how important the right casting director is. The American version was well written, but the characters just lacked any kind of appeal, it just made me long for more of the original.

Speaking of the original, why Hollywood didn't just pump money into the original and produce more of those instead of this mess is beyond me, evidently Hollywood feels that the average American cannot bear a British accent, but then again, how did the original become so popular?

Many people say that the American version of "Coupling" bombed because they were comparing it to the UK version. In reality, the Yank version didn't stand a chance. The actors chosen were decent enough, but they just cannot recreate the dysfunction in the same way. I mean, how can you have someone else play Jeff Murdock?? Or Jane, for that matter? Not to mention the fact that they would stick to the original script word for word at some times, and then add their own material in other areas (presumeably to reach the American audience). Soooooo bad, so very, very bad. Buy Seasons 1 and 2 of the British "Coupling" instead, and you'll understand the difference.

Someone already gave an excellent breakdown of the American cast and how they are inferior to the original. It is not that American remakes can't be done ... "Three's Company" was basically a remake of a British show, and when I caught it on air, I was not impressed ... the American version was better. Perhaps perhaps perhaps it was just because it didn't translate well. Still, it shows that just because you remake a show doesn't mean it is necessarily bad. On the other hand, maybe the key is that the show was translated to American tastes, just as "Coupling" itself took "Seinfeld" and "Friends" and translated it into a form the British could recognize. If so, this remake is a bad translation.

It might be unfair to base this on one episode, but the problems do seem too basic to ignore. First off, the show was much more forced than the original, and had an annoying laugh track that just made it worse. The original is peopled with characters fascinated with sex but still in some sense sympathetic and human. The remake seems to be peopled with sitcom actors. All too stylish. The original was often hilarious but often restrained as well ... the remake, perhaps showing its American style, was less restrained. And, the original took place in Britian, but wasn't so "British" that was bothersome ... in fact, its British touches gave it some flavor. This takes place in Chicago, but the show has to put a sign in the bar with "Chicago" in it, since w/o that you'd have little reason to know these people lived there. Perhaps, the locale will be taken advantage of in the future, let's see.

The original was influenced by the properness of the British symbolized by Steve, who forever seems to be uncomfortable. The fact is that this is easily translated to America ... the fact is that many men here are uncomfortable with sex, fascinated and mesmerized by it, but deep down uncomfortable and unsure of themselves. It is human nature and if handled properly, could be the basis of a great comedy. The problem is that American sitcoms have gotten in a rut in which sex is so easily handled and tossed about, so that a more restrained show (especially one following the madcap "Will and Grace") would be deemed too much of a risk.

I will tell you what a risk is ... a nearly verbatim remake of a great show, one which many viewers could access for themselves, that is quite inferior to the original, but is so overhyped that expectations are rather high.

-j

PS In the original, Steve and Jane dated for years, but here, it was changed to one year. Perhaps, this is a symbol of the cheapening of the show ... in an American sitcom, one could not be together THAT long. Also, the original had a joke comparing their relationship to a husband driven to homicide ... the remake used a "Titanic" joke. Not quite the same image!

The American version of this sitcom is quite poor compared with the original UK version, the lines maybe almost the same but the content changes if the actors aren't able to keep up with the characters they represent. Sally and Jeff have such strong personalities and when I watched them played in the American version they seemed fragile and empty, even the jokes lacked spontaneity, so they stopped being funny...

Where these actors forced to do the show?? They seem to be acting at gunpoint.

What a bad idea to remake this sitcom, it should have been left alone. "when you remake it you brake it"

Overall I was extremely disappointed with this performance and frankly I found it quite sad after seeing the original one.