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Post by topcat on Jun 22, 2008 9:33:15 GMT -5
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Post by 94augrad on Jun 24, 2008 16:10:45 GMT -5
Hello everyone. I'm coming to this board as a new fan of Mandana Jones. I only recently stumbled upon Bad Girls and Mandana Jones via YouTube and was immediately taken with the show. I tried really hard to watch series 4-8, but couldn't do it. The story lines weren't there for me. How HBO will do with a remake of Bad Girls is anyone's guess. Since I've seen the original I will constantly be comparing, however, if they take the basic idea and change the character's there is a chance I won't compare as much.
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Post by topcat on Jun 25, 2008 9:32:03 GMT -5
Hi Augrad. I agree about series 4-8. Well, actually, I shouldn't comment beyond 5 because I didn't watch it. I gave up after the rubbish that was Bodybag hiding bodies from inspectors and Fenner dressing as a woman and murdering people. Ludicrous.
I think the best thing for an American version is to use the name but have a completely different style and characters. American prisons appear to be very different to British ones and so that will be reflected, I guess. I think the main problem will be if stories are copied word for word/scene for scene and characters are poor copies of the originals.
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Post by romanmachine on Jun 25, 2008 19:36:52 GMT -5
Hello everyone. I'm coming to this board as a new fan of Mandana Jones. I only recently stumbled upon Bad Girls and Mandana Jones via YouTube and was immediately taken with the show. I tried really hard to watch series 4-8, but couldn't do it. The story lines weren't there for me. How HBO will do with a remake of Bad Girls is anyone's guess. Since I've seen the original I will constantly be comparing, however, if they take the basic idea and change the character's there is a chance I won't compare as much. Hi augrad. Welcome to the board. Finally. You know, I never gave BG a chance past Series 3. This is mostly because Coolbyrne is the one who made it possible for me to watch the show at all! But even if she'd had any of the post-Mandana seasons, I don't think I would have watched them. My interest died when Nikki left. That's not to say I'd didn't like any of the other characters, but not enough to keep watching. I've read about some of the storylines and it doesn't sound like I'm missing much. I'm not sure what to think about the American remake. If I have the opportunity, I'll check it out, mostly to see what they've changed, but, right now, I can't imagine Bad Girls without Mandana Jones. I think the best thing for an American version is to use the name but have a completely different style and characters. American prisons appear to be very different to British ones and so that will be reflected, I guess. That was one of the first things I noticed, Top, and it took me a while to get used to it. Granted, I'm mostly going by what I've seen in movies and tv, but, compared to our prisons, British prisons look like dorms or barracks or something. I was very surprised to see real doors on the cells. Ours, as I'm sure you've seen, have bars. Not nearly as private. Prisoners here usually don't get to wear their personal clothes, either. Our prisons just seem a much more sterile environment when compared to what I saw on Bad Girls. So, I'm curious to see how the American version will recreate that same feeling of intimacy that I thought was present in the original series. I definitely agree with you about the characters. There should be no American Nikki Wade or Helen Stewart. I have a bad feeling that there will be, though.
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Post by 94augrad on Jun 25, 2008 23:38:17 GMT -5
My hometown is close to a maximum security prison and I have been inside it before with a friend who use to teach classes there. I have to say that it is a strange experience. There are different parts of the prison which range from open barracks to solitary rooms. The solitary rooms are mostly for those on death row or life. There are also cells which have 2-4 prisoners in them that have bars on them. From my understanding the barracks are for those prisoners who have earned the right to be around more prisoners in an open environment, but if they don't follow the rules they get put back into the cells.
Also, from my understanding the women's prisons aren't much different from the men's. It all comes down to rather you're in a maximum security prison, minimum security prison, or a jailhouse.
I would be curious as to what kind of security the U.S. version of Bad Girls will be. It appears that the original falls more into a minimum security setting. It's confusing because in the U.S. lifers are sent to maximum security prisons.
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Post by topcat on Jun 27, 2008 7:55:59 GMT -5
I'm no expert but my understanding of British prisons is that we have open prisons where prisoners can go and work on the outside etc. These are supposed to be for 'low threat' prisoners. However, Sudbury prison is an open prison and about 80 have escaped in recent years, never to be seen again, and some of those have committed murder Then there are your standard prisons (as per 1st series BG) where there are maximum security wings but there is still a mix of low risk and high risk offenders all in the same place. From what I have seen of American jails - as per tv and film - they seem far more restrictive and give a far deeper sense of a loss of freedom with the sliding bars on cells instead of doors and orange boiler suits. I agree RM that it is hard to imagine how they would recreate the intimacy that was in BG and made it the programme it was. I also agree about leaving the Nikki and Helen characters well alone and just going for something different with just the BG name.
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Post by 94augrad on Jun 27, 2008 9:00:41 GMT -5
Thanks Topcat for the info about British prisons. With that in mind I also agree with RM that it would be hard to recreate the intimacy that was in BG. The American version would have to have totally new characters and story lines to make it work. (Please leave the Helen and Nikki characters alone.)
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Post by jilly2000 on Jun 27, 2008 11:45:24 GMT -5
No Nikki and Helen in the Yankee version? Whatever will the the fans who have hijacked Splodgy discuss? And what happens to those poor posters who are allowed to hang out there to indulge in their fawning and brownnosing.
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Post by topcat on Jun 28, 2008 1:37:13 GMT -5
And what happens to those poor posters who are allowed to hang out there to indulge in their fawning and brownnosing. Well it would appear that they have set up a rival messageboard 'with no disrespect' to Splodgy How interesting.
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Post by jilly2000 on Jun 29, 2008 6:09:14 GMT -5
Well it would appear that they have set up a rival messageboard 'with no disrespect' to Splodgy How interesting. Ouch. What irony. The slamming of the shrew. lol
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Post by topcat on Jul 2, 2008 3:43:10 GMT -5
Well, a long held query has finally been answered by Eileen Gallagher in a new interview:
AE: With the Nikki and Helen story line, you had to make adjustments as you went along, based on the actresses and their contracts and various other issues. Is it your plan to follow the story line as it turned out, or is there leeway in that?
EG: Well, there's leeway. You're right, the reason we wrote out Helen and Nikki was that the actress who played Helen, Simone Lahbib, wanted to do other things, as actresses do. And we don't have the same system in America — you tend to have the budget to sign actors on for seven years. In the U.K., we don't have that ability. In the U.S. version, there'd be the opportunity of keeping the characters longer and keeping them in and not writing them out, if we're lucky enough that it goes that long.
I think you know that when Simone decided to leave, we were really keen that for the first time in television, a lesbian love story would end happily. The history of lesbian love stories in movies and television is that they end in tragedy because they're punished for being lesbians, and we wanted to end our story happily.
We did discuss keeping Nikki on and have Helen in the background, and we just couldn't find a way that would be believable and happy. The only alternative was that we have them going off in the sunset together. It was a good run of 39 hours. But absolutely we don't have to do that the same way again.
No mention of Mandana's thought's on this - whether she was involved in the discussions or just told she'd got to go.
Also, a myth is finally put to bed:
AE: I believe Alan Ball once said that it used to require courage for actors to portray gay characters, and now it reveals a distinct lack of courage if they're not willing to portray gay characters. It seems to me your show and Simone and Mandana [Jones'] portrayals may have helped make that statement true.
EG: That's very interesting and a great compliment to us and to the actresses who played those characters. Bad Girls came on the air in 1999 and it was on at peak time, 9 o'clock, on what was the biggest channel, ITV.
It's interesting. I always think that broadcasters are much more behind the curve than the audience. Broadcasters are more nervous about the audience's reaction, and we got the most fantastic audience reaction to Bad Girls from day one. And to be fair, ITV didn't try to tone it down at all. They thought it was very brave. They were probably nervous about the reaction, but they never tried to tone it down.
Shed tried to suggest, at the time, that Nikki and Helen were sidelined/had less screen time because the channel didn't like it.
Here's an interesting bit:
AE: Speaking of the fans, you create very big characters in general, and certainly with Nikki and Helen you created iconic characters. Are you concerned about the comparisons when you bring those characters directly over to American TV?
EG: I think that's always the tough task. I think for fans who have loved Nikki and Helen, it will be a little tense, wondering how they'll appear in the American version. … It will take just a little bit of adjustment and a bit of making yourself readjust to the new actresses, but I think before a very short time, people will accept that this is the new Helen and Nikki
I think the problem with all this, for me, is that Shed - obviously - think it's all about their writing skills and not really about the enormous chemistry of those 2 actresses. They think history will repeat itself. That type of chemistry is so rare in any acting partnership that I just can't see lightening striking twice.
Having said that, I remember reading interviews with the Shed team about the musical, before it happened. They claimed that would all be about Nikki and Helen and it would be 'a love story of West Side Story proportions'. Clearly, it didn't end up that way. From reports, it seemed that the story was quite minimal. I wouldn't be suprised if a similar thing happens in the US version - they'll big it up and it just won't be there to the same degree as they suggest.
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Post by jilly2000 on Jul 2, 2008 10:43:32 GMT -5
The fact that Mandana was hardly mentioned by Ms Gallagher speaks volumes to me.
From Mandana's two interviews one can surmise one thing. She got a raw deal from Shed. They almost tried to bully her into signing for the 4th series without the benefit of the script or may I suggest pay raise. Mandana felt cornered but she stood her ground. They also tried to bully her IMO in wearing a pant-suit for the Mission Impossible premiere which she was right in not following their instructions. So they reduced her screen time drastically in the 3rd series as payback.
WRT to the screen chemistry between N/H in the yankee version? I agree with you TC. Ain't gonna happen.
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Post by coolbyrne on Jul 2, 2008 15:04:23 GMT -5
I think SHED has always been too in love with their success to be objective, because if they could step back for a moment, I think they'd see there was a wonderful collection of events and reasons the show (particularly in the early years) was a success.
First and foremost is the chemistry, of course. While they may be able to get two actresses who "click", they're making it sound as if the roles are just little slots that you can drop in anyone to make work. Whether you're a Mandana supporter or a Simone supporter, we all know that's simply not true. To casually say "I think before a very short time, people will accept that this is the new Helen and Nikki" is not only oblivious to the difficulty in finding chemistry, but also offensive not only to the fans who have invested so much time and commitment to the show/characters, but I would think offensive to the actors as well. For all intents and purposes, EG has relegated their work as replaceable.
The other thing that is often overlooked is the TV landscape at the time Bad Girls first aired. It was 1999 and long before "The L Word" or "Will and Grace" or really any significant representation of gays on TV. ("Queer as Folk" started the same year and before that, only Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" got any attention outside the gay community.) So to have two women building into a sexual relationship on TV was- while not unheard of- certainly out of the ordinary. That's not the case nearly 10 years on. (There are still certain problems with gays depicted in the media, but that's a separate issue.) I don't think there will be the same nervous reaction when it airs in the States. It's a case of "been there, seen that".
Finally, while I don't discount the writing, particularly in the first season or two, I agree with the opinion that the loss of Chris Tchaikovsky was a massive blow to the creative process and the show lost its heart and focus. It's not just a question of re-tooling the scripts for an American audience; it's not going to be that easy. I don't think SHED thinks anything of it. Of course, there is a different writing crew- I think- for the US version, so maybe they'll be able to keep focus. But I don't have any faith in SHED's ability. One only has to look at the money pit of the musical to see they can't be left to their own devices.
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Post by topcat on Jul 3, 2008 7:11:44 GMT -5
The fact that Mandana was hardly mentioned by Ms Gallagher speaks volumes to me. Must admit that I was a little suprised that, in general, the article seemed a little lacking in credit. Simone was only mentioned in relation to wanting to leave and messing up their plans. Neither of them were praised beyond a response to a question about the courage needed to play gay roles " ...a great compliment to us and to the actresses who played those characters." which, again, Gallagher took praise for SHED and de personalised by referring to them as 'the actresses". I think the issue here is that they found that chemistry purely by luck rather than judgement. Mandana said in her series 3 interview that she auditioned with other potential Helen's but never read with Simone. They were 'thrown together'. Either Brian Park is a genius in foreseeing chemistry before seeing the performers together (clearly impossible) or it was an amazing fluke. The fact that they struck gold without trying seems to have lulled them into a false sense of security about re casting those roles and the impact new actresses will have. Interestingly, despite claims to the contrary after series 3 when fans did the 'rant at Shed', Gallagher concedes in this interview that they did let things slip and become too campy and revolve too much around the officers and things outside the prison. However, wasn't that exactly what the musical was - campy and all about Bodybag and Fenner???
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Post by justafan on Jul 4, 2008 23:34:32 GMT -5
I've always felt that everybody at Shed Productions had far too high an opinion of themselves. They were extremely lucky to have two actresses with such amazing chemistry portray N and H. I've just recommended on another topic a Croatian movie I watched today titled "Fine Dead Girls" that featured two actresses with the same kind of chemistry. One of them is a deadringer for MJ. Really! Here's a link to a review of this film with a picture included. www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?sec=film&article=415
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