Coupling (U.S. TV series)

Last updated
Coupling
Also known asCoupling U.S.
Genre Sitcom
Based on Coupling by Steven Moffat
Developed by Phoef Sutton
Written by
Directed by Andrew D. Weyman
Starring
Opening theme "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps"
Composer(s) Ralph Schuckett
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 10 (6 unaired) (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)
Producer(s)
  • Michael E. Stokes
  • Liz Astrof
  • Paul Corrigan
  • Brad Walsh
  • Robert Peacock
Editor(s)
  • Joe Bella
  • Danny White
Camera setup Multi-camera
Running time 30 minutes
Production company(s) Reveille Productions
Mauretania Productions
NBC Studios
Universal Television
Release
Original network NBC
Original release September 25 (2003-09-25) – October 23, 2003 (2003-10-23)
Chronology
Related shows Coupling (UK)
Joking Apart

Coupling is a 2003 American remake of the British television sitcom of the same title, which aired on NBC.

United States federal republic in North America

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.

United Kingdom Country in Europe

The United Kingdom, officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but more commonly known as the UK or Britain, is a sovereign country lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state‍—‌the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.

A sitcom, clipping for situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use new characters in each sketch, and stand-up comedy, where a comedian tells jokes and stories to an audience. Sitcoms originated in radio, but today are found mostly on television as one of its dominant narrative forms. This form can also include mockumentaries.

Contents

Production

By 2003, three series of Coupling had been broadcast on BBC Two, all written by the show's creator, Steven Moffat. The show was loosely based on the beginnings of Moffat's real-life relationship with Sue Vertue. [1]

BBC Two second television channel operated by the BBC

BBC Two is the second flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tends to broadcast more "highbrow" programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television licence, and is therefore free of commercial advertising. It is a comparatively well-funded public-service network, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most public-service networks worldwide.

Steven Moffat Scottish television writer and producer

Steven William Moffat is a Scottish television writer and producer, best known for his work as showrunner, writer and executive producer of British television series Doctor Who and Sherlock.

Sue Vertue English television producer

Susan Nicola Vertue is an English television producer, mainly of comedy shows, including Mr. Bean and Coupling. She is the daughter of producer Beryl Vertue.

NBC commissioned a remake of the show for the American market, reportedly as a replacement for Friends , which was nearing the end of its run. [2] Moffat and original producers from Hartswood Films, Sue and Beryl Vertue, served as executive producers on the NBC adaptation, alongside Phoef Sutton and Ben Silverman. [3]

Friends is an American television sitcom, created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994, to May 6, 2004, lasting ten seasons. With an ensemble cast starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, the show revolves around six friends in their 20s and 30s who live in Manhattan, New York City. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television. The original executive producers were Kevin S. Bright, Kauffman, and Crane.

Hartswood Films is a British television production company. They have also produced dramas such as Jekyll as well as documentaries, and the 1990s ITV/BBC sitcom Men Behaving Badly.

Beryl Frances Vertue is an English television producer, media executive, and former agent. She is founder and chairwoman of the independent television production company Hartswood Films.

Unlike most adaptations, the NBC adaptation would reuse Moffat's original scripts, although these were adapted by Sutton and were shortened to comply with the reduced running time (NBC has multiple advertisement breaks compared to the original broadcaster, BBC Two, which has none). [4] Other writers, such as Danny Zuker and Paul Corrigan worked on episodes later in the series.

Danny Zuker American television producer

Daniel "Danny" Zuker is an American television writer and producer.

The original unaired pilot starred Breckin Meyer as Jeff, Melissa George as Susan and Emily Rutherfurd as Sally. NBC then fired the writers and replaced Meyer, George and Rutherford with Christopher Moynihan, Rena Sofer and Sonya Walger, respectively. [5] [6] George later commented that she "dodged a bullet" by being replaced before the show aired. [7]

A television pilot is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its creation, the pilot is meant to be the testing ground to gauge whether a series will be successful; it is therefore a test episode for the intended television series, an early step in the series development, much like pilot studies serve as precursors to the start of larger activity. In the case of a successful television series, the pilot is commonly the very first episode that is aired of the particular series under its own name; the episode that gets the series "off the ground". A "back door pilot" is an episode of an existing successful series, featuring future tie-in characters of an up-and-coming television series or film. Its purpose is to introduce the characters to an audience before the creators decide on whether or not they intend to pursue a spin-off series with those characters.

Breckin Meyer American actor

Breckin Erin Meyer is an American actor, voice actor, writer, producer and drummer known for his roles in films such as Clueless, Road Trip, Rat Race and Garfield: The Movie.

Melissa George Australian-American actress

Melissa Suzanne George is an Australian actress and entrepreneur. A former national rollerskating champion and model, George began her acting career playing Angel Parrish on the Australian soap opera Home and Away (1993–96). After moving to the United States, George made her big-screen debut in 1998 in the neo-noir/science fiction film Dark City. She later appeared in Steven Soderbergh's The Limey (1999), David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001), Sugar & Spice (2001), and Down with Love (2003).

Thirteen episodes were commissioned. However, due to poor critical reception, NBC announced the show's cancellation on October 31, after only four episodes had been broadcast. The final three planned episodes were not filmed, with the remaining six episodes unbroadcast. [3]

Reception

It failed to perform in the ratings and was canceled before the November sweeps, with six episodes remaining unaired despite heavy publicity by the network. [3] It was immediately panned as a poor imitation of the original UK series by viewers and critics. BBC America even ran commercials noting that they would play the original British versions on their station just after the American equivalent episodes on NBC aired, so that viewers could see instantly just how superior the original was. Miscasting and stilted delivery of a nearly identical script were believed to be the reasons for the failure, though creator Moffat blamed the show's failure on NBC's intervention during the creative and production processes. In 2007, he said: "The network f--ked it up because they intervened endlessly." [8]

The American adaptation came at a time when NBC was having success with remakes of BBC shows, such as The Weakest Link and Dog Eat Dog . NBC would find success in 2005 with a remake of another BBC series, The Office, which aired for nine seasons.

Because of what was deemed to be indecent content, two affiliates of NBC refused to air the program; KSL-TV (Channel 5) in Salt Lake City, and WNDU-TV (Channel 16) in South Bend, Indiana. Both stations were owned by religious organizations, as KSL is owned by the Bonneville International division of the LDS Church, while WNDU was at the time owned by a subsidiary of The University of Notre Dame. In those markets, WB affiliate KUWB (Channel 30) and a UPN digital subchannel of CBS affiliate WSBT-TV (Channel 22), respectively, aired the series after their network's primetime lineups.

Jeff Zucker, former President and CEO of NBCUniversal, later said of Coupling that it "just sucked". [9]

Cast

Episodes

No. Title Directed by Written by Original airdate Prod.
code
1"The Right One" Andrew D. Weyman Steven Moffat (original UK episode: "Flushed")September 25, 2003 (2003-09-25)101
2"Size Matters"Andrew D. WeymanSteven Moffat (original UK episode: "Size Matters")October 2, 2003 (2003-10-02)102
3"Sex, Death & Nudity"Andrew D. WeymanSteven Moffat (original UK episode: "Sex, Death & Nudity")October 9, 2003 (2003-10-09)103
4"Check/Mate"Andrew D. Weyman Danny Zuker October 23, 2003 (2003-10-23)106
5"Present Tense"Andrew D. WeymanPaul Corrigan & Brad WalshUNAIRED104
6"A Foreign Affair"Andrew D. WeymanTeleplay by: Phoef Sutton & Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat (original UK episode: "The Girl with Two Breasts")		UNAIRED105
7"Object Lessons"Andrew D. WeymanLiz AstrofUNAIRED105
8"Holiday"Andrew D. WeymanPaul Corrigan & Brad WalshUNAIRED110
9"Dressed"Andrew D. WeymanTeleplay by: Phoef Sutton & Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat (original UK episode: "Dressed")		UNAIRED108
10"Nipple Effect"Andrew D. Weyman J.J. Philbin UNAIRED107

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References

  1. ↑ Sternbergh, Adam (2003-09-07). "Selling Your Sex Life". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
  2. ↑ BIANCULLI, David (17 January 2003). "WITH THIS SIX, YOU GET SEX Brit gang back for fun & frolic". Daily News. New York. p. 126.
  3. 1 2 3 Griffin 2008 , p. 51
  4. ↑ Griffin 2008 , p. 53
  5. ↑ "Coupling: Season 1, Episode 0 Original Pilot (2003)".
  6. ↑ "Coupling (2003– ) Full Cast & Crew".
  7. ↑ "The Light from the TV Shows: A Chat with Melissa George (Cinemax's "Hunted")". Bullz-Eye. Retrieved 19 October 2012.
  8. ↑ Sodano, Todd Michael (2008). "All the Pieces Matter: A Critical Analysis of HBO's "The Wire"". proQuest/Syracuse University. ISBN   0549998896.
  9. ↑ Crupi, Anthony (June 14, 2011). "Mormon Station Refuses NBC's 'The Playboy Club': Second time church-owned affiliate dumps a series". Adweek . Archived from the original on October 15, 2011. Retrieved October 15, 2011.

Bibliography

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