imamazed
Wednesday 18th April 2007 6:33am
116 posts
Part of the problem in this country is that since competitive tendering for contracts was brought into this country in the mainstream during the 1980's, everything goes to the lower bids and companies seem to have that mindset now and want to do everything on the cheap. So why should the entertainment business be any different?
You only have to look at the writing credits for programmes over here to note that it's usally written by one person or maybe a partnership, whereas as in the US they have a whole team of writers.
Of course not everything that gets commissioned can be a hit and they might lose money on numerous programmes but it only takes a few big hits, both here and going global (whether in its original form or a remake) for those to balance out the ones that don't quite make it.
I'm sure if Fools and Horses were being made today and it wasn't a hit from the first series (as the actual one wasn't from the start) then that would be it and there wouldn't have been a second series.
I also think that they then tend to go with the safe option and the established names and while there is obvious logic to this, would The Green Green Grass, (the Boycie spin off from Fools and Horse) have been made if it was by a new writer?
I'm not saying that it shouldn't have been made but I didn't think it was particularly strong but it could get better, but will it be given the chance to?