Reggie Perrin: The remake

[Lofty]

A classic brought up to date or a pointless, inferior remake?

10 minutes was more than enough for me. It's unfunny, obvious, misses the point of the original and has an insultingly obtrusive laughter track that as far as laughter tracks go, manages to set a new standards for inanity.

Garbage.

 

[dkw]

if it had just been a new show with no links to the original perin it might be ok, some of the bits had me laughing (not many though). but it aint a patch on the original and that in itself means it will die a death. bring back men behaving badly i say...

 

[Liam]

Laughter track aside, the show tonight improved as it went along and was worth sticking with. It could prove to be a slow burner. I will watch again next week.

 

[Mike O]

I lasted for as long as the 9.30 ad break in the midst of Grand Designs.

Now, where's my Guardian?

 

[loz]

I hated the idea of a modernised remake of it but swore I would watch it to give it a chance. I then forgot about it and missedquite a bit of it. I tuned in just as he was about to do his PUMICE presentation and I hated it. The ridiculous canned laughter alone was enough to make me want to turn it off.

 

[geezer]

A classic brought up to date or a pointless, inferior remake?10 minutes was more than enough for me. It's unfunny, obvious, misses the point of the original and has an insultingly obtrusive laughter track that as far as laughter tracks go, manages to set a new standards for inanity.

Garbage.

You didn't get where you are today without recognising garbage when you saw it.

 

[andy]

I actually thought it was okay in places, but then I like Martin Clunes. I liked the train scenes and the way they bought it uptodate.

It doesnt touch the original of course, and never going to be a classic, but I have seen a lot worse it is harmless Friday night sitcom.

 

[bonetti]

I thought it was poor - to me Martin Clunes is the problem - he has no edge and the programme has to work around him

 

[Nibs]

Watched most of it and there were a few genuinely funny lines but Leonard Rossiter was and always will be Reggie Perrin and there's no getting away from that. And that Canned laughter makes it very difficult to watch without getting irritated.

Martin Clunes is okay, but he's a bit safe these days and should stick to playing doctors or funeral directors or doing documenteries on elephants..................

Decent comedy? How about The Inbetweeners on a Thursday night? For me it's the funniest thing on TV by miles but probably proves what a juvenille sense of humour I will always have.

 

[ethicalstrategy]

Try watching the original series again. It doesn't stand the test of time very well. Rossiter is a legend but it's a bit like watching Steptoe and Son now - it just isn't all that funny.

What is interesting about the remake is that David Nobbs is involved.

I watched and will probably watch again, but overall I didn't think it was particularly good.

 

[yorkleyblue]

Well I set a recording for it and spent Friday evening in the hot tub - turns out we had a power cut 15 minutes into Perrin, but it came back on 2 minutes later - this is relevant. When I eventually got to watch the first 15 minute section I was severely underwhelmed - the laughter track, the lazy writing, the cliche-grabbing, the stereotypes, Clunes himself and the fact that, despite Nobbs being involved, the remake has totally missed thepoint of Reggie Perrin in the original. He, and it, wasn't greatly funny in and of itself, but Perrin was a man teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and eventually going over. The humour was in the desperation.

The remake's humour appears to be in, um, err, well, I'm not sure really. A secretary impersonating a not very funny "character" from Little Britain, a boss with nothing going for him except he was in something mildly but un-memorably, funny a few months ago, a couple of stereo-typical "geeky" lads and a women's group FFS!

I didn't watch the second recorded section.

I do agree with Nibs though - The Inbetweeners has some funny lines. What really cracks me up at the moment is Reno 911, but that might just be me!

 

[Lofty]

Try watching the original series again. It doesn't stand the test of time very well. Rossiter is a legend but it's a bit like watching Steptoe and Son now - it just isn't all that funny.What is interesting about the remake is that David Nobbs is involved.

I watched and will probably watch again, but overall I didn't think it was particularly good.

I haven't watched the original for some time, but I do accept that it might well have dated. After all, it was very much of it's time. How could it not be? I Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. Programmes like Hancock's Half Hour, not to everyone's taste perhaps, are to me timeless comedies. There were a whole load of comedies back in the '60s and '70s that political correctness dictates would not stand a chance of getting made nowadays.

But back to Reggie Perrin. Apart from news and football, I watch very little TV, but made an exception for this one. And like loz, I honestly tried to keep an open mind. Laughter track aside, there was an air of subdued desperation about the little I saw. Not as in the original, a verge of a nervous breakdown desperation, but a desperate attempt to drag it into the 21st Century, typified by the train scene. All the more disappointing because David Nobbs was involved? Look at his page on IMDB for an explanation of the origin of that desperation:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0633468/

I think the clue is in how little he's done since 1996. And that was the Legacy of Reginald Perrin. To quote a famous series from the early '80s:

Gissa job. Go on gissa job.