Excellent British shows vs. their terrible American counterparts

Yes, America dictates culture around the world. I know.

Why is it then, that the British invent so many awesome shows, which are then co-opted and bastardized by us, America, the kings of culture? Let's talk about a few examples: Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, Top Gear, and Skins.

Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares (UK) gives us an intense fascinating look at fledgling restaurants around the Great Britain (and one British-owned restaurant in Spain). It follows Gordon Ramsey, a successful, hard-nosed, no bullshit chef who clearly possesses both great culinary skills and a fair amount of business acumen. He goes into a restaurant, gives it an evaluation, yells at the chef and the staff, helps them fix the menu, fixes the personnel-based issues, creates a marketing plan to drum up business, enacts said plan, then checks in at a later unspecified date to see how the restaurant is doing. This is all punctuated by Gordon getting flustered, quick interludes of staff confessionals, and Gordon's voice over saying how worried he is. It's a bit formulaic, but it's relatively cheap to produce, engaging, and it appears that the restaurants genuinely do benefit from the expert guidance. I thoroughly enjoy it.

Kitchen Nightmares (US) on the other hand, is a terrible show. For one, Ramsey's gotten either a lot wealthier or a lot more famous. But now whenever anyone mentions him on camera, they have to refer to him as Chef Ramsey. That's pretty douche-y. Secondly, because Americans are inherently much stupider than our British counterparts, we need a narrator (not Gordon) to tell us what is going on throughout the show. ("It's forty-five minutes into service and the kitchen is unable to cope with the new menu.") Also, as a condition of being on the show, we're basically guaranteed to see whatever restaurant it is get totally remade overnight by "Chef Ramsey's Team". Frankly this is unacceptable. Very infrequently did Gordon change the decor in the UK version, and when a change was made, it was the restaurant staff--and Ramsey--doing the work themselves. There also seems to be no interest in getting the restaurant to pull together as a cohesive unit, as compared to the UK version. If I had to sum up the American Kitchen Nightmares in a sentence it would be: Gordon Ramsey goes into a restaurant, tells them they suck, they disagree, he makes a new menu, they balk, he forces the issue, the restaurant gets totally redone overnight, the announcer announces the "grand relaunch", the restaurant flounders, Gordon yells, the owner yells, they try again and it gets better, Gordon calls the project a success and walks away. Similar to the UK version but with some key differences. Key stylistic differences that make the show terrible.

I'll be brief on the other two. Top Gear UK (heretoforth known simply as Top Gear) is a hilarious show where there are the three goofy (yet clever) older presenters who do ridiculous shenanigans in cars and also happen to do a very good job reviewing these amazingly expensive and rare supercars. They're also excellent drivers. It's a beautifully done show, from the score, to the cinematography to how they portray the vehicles.

From the five minutes I watched of Top Gear US, it's a fat guy who tries to be funny and fails, and a skinny guy who is utterly humorless. Not only that but the segment I saw was almost a direct rip-off of the real Top Gear, just much more poorly done. It was way too contrived, too choreographed, too obviously fake. Not only that but the car they were in was a Dodge Viper. Yes, it's a $90,000 car, but this was the premier episode and that's what they're leading with? I wouldn't exactly call it a supercar. It just doesn't have the appeal of Bugatti Veyron or a Konigsegg anything. I had no choice, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to turn it off. The fact that Top Gear US plays on the History Channel probably doesn't help.

Skins US isn't even out yet but it's going to be terrible. I'm not even going to go into it. Just click on over to We Knew the MTV Version of Skins was Going to Suck, but not this Much (courtesy of Gawker).