What's Alan Watching?: This is why he also hates us (and Jeff Zucker, too)

Saturday, July 14, 2007

This is why he also hates us (and Jeff Zucker, too)

From the press tour blog: Steven Moffat slags off Jeff Zucker.

8 comments:

Alan Sepinwall said...: Also: Steve Van Zandt's non-answer about the "Sopranos" finale; 5:10 PM, July 14, 2007
Donlee Brussel said...: I miss the BBC version of Coupling and wish they could've at least gotten a Christmas special to finish it right.

Whatever happened to Richard Coyle anyway? Guy was a mad genius those first 3 seasons.; 8:21 PM, July 14, 2007
dark tyler said...: Never seen "Coupling", but Moffat's episodes for "Dr. Who" (which I've burned through in less than ten days) and the three episodes of "Jekyll" I've seen so far, are enough to show that the guy is a fantastic writer.

Too bad he's not planning on working in american television, because I'd really love to see more stuff from him.; 4:15 AM, July 15, 2007
Jason said...: Moffat's a bit of a prickly pear -- he wrote TeeVee.org a nasty note when we speculated about Coyle's departure from Coupling.

But his "Doctor Who" episodes are aces and "Jekyll" is pretty good too. And of course, the first three years of "Coupling" are about the funniest comedy episodes I have ever seen.

Wherever U.S. "Coupling" went off the rails, it wasn't because it had bad source material.; 4:19 PM, July 15, 2007
Alan Sepinwall said...: I would argue that too much devotion to the source material was the biggest problem. The episodes that aired that were adapted from Moffat's scripts were godawful, for a number of reasons (29 minutes of carefully-constructed farce doesn't work when cut down to 22, the original scripts were written to the strengths of the Brit actors), while the one episode that aired that was a wholly original script (something about the expectations that come with picking up the dinner check) was not bad at all.

The one "Office" episode based directly on a British script was also pretty lousy; the difference is that the "Office" had time to stick around long enough to show that its original material was very funny.; 4:24 PM, July 15, 2007
Anonymous said...: I haven't had BBCA for all that long; isn't it unusual for a show, even a limited series like Jekyll, to show up within 2 months of the start of its run over there, and only a week after its end -- possibly "as soon as is allowed under contract", although I did indeed just make that up?; 4:50 PM, July 15, 2007
Alan Sepinwall said...: Garth Ancier, who's the new head of BBC America, said they're trying to speed up the pace at which product comes from BBC UK to here. This is the first example of that.; 5:01 PM, July 15, 2007
dark tyler said...: You should be thankful that Sci Fi has "Doctor Who" for the USA instead of BBC America. I'm sure that Garth Ancier would somehow find a way to cancel it.

Argh.; 5:45 PM, July 15, 2007