The American Office: terrible

You still need to see The Office, just make sure it's the British version. As a prominent blogger averaging almost a dozen visitors a day, I was recently fortunate enough to see a sneak preview of the pilot of the American version (which should air sometime in March I believe). Don't waste your time with it.

1) Steve Carell is just plain bad as David Brent (or the American equivalent; they changed all the names and I don't remember them). He's reduced Brent, an egotistical, attention-seeking, approval-craving, oblivious "entertainer" into stupid, stupid, and stupid.
2) Gareth is a big nerd.
3) No Keith.
4) Tim needs to be British. There are no American people with any sense of subtelty.
5) Tim is only supposed to play pranks on Gareth, not Brent.
6) The British version, at only two six-episode seasons with an extra-long Christmas special to provide closure, will be impossible to duplicate in terms of the perfection of the story. If the show becomes successful (not likely), then the overarching story will drag like your average crap sitcom plot with on-again-off-again relationships and whatnot. Hell, in one season they'll have made it farther than the entire run of the British sitcom.
7) I chuckled a couple times but didn't really laugh once.

That's all I can think of now, but I'm sure there's more. The pilot is basically a remake of the first episode of the British series and afterwards it will move in its own direction, so I'm holding out some slim hope that the show can develop distinctive characters and really blossom in its own right. But whatever you do, don't judge the British version by its American counterpart if you haven't seen the British version yet. SEE THE BRITISH VERSION.

Thank God American TV isn't totally dead.