The Year In Television: Remakes

This is the first in a multi-part series, The Year in Television 2011.

If you had to identify the single biggest trend this past year on American television, you might well say remakes!

The year brought a number of transplanted and recycled TV projects. and while some were unsuccessful (the less remembered of MTV's Skins the better), a decent number have turned into solid ratings performers. No doubt this trend will continue in 2012.

Here's a look at this year's TV show transplants and reincarnations, the greatest successes and the biggest disasters!

2011 TV Remakes That Worked

In January, Showtime debuted its version of Shameless, moved from Manchester to Chicago, and it showed viewers what a remake can accomplish when the series’ creator gets involved and has had the time to reflect on his work.

Shameless took plenty of inspiration from the original series’ first season but, with the benefit of hindsight, many characters were more fleshed out. Sheila Jackson wasn’t just a kooky shut-in with a breathy voice, in this version we saw her agoraphobia as a result of being married to a repressive man who belonged to a religious, misogynistic group, a development that also changed how viewers viewed the sexuality of Sheila's daughter, Karen.

In the original Shameless, gay teen Ian didn't get much screen time, and it took a few seasons before the writers found a personality for his boss/boyfriend, Kash. In the Showtime version, not only was Ian's story more prominent, viewers got a better understanding of Kash, and one of the original series' most popular characters, Mickey, became a part of the story years before his UK counterpart made his first appearance.

Meanwhile, Syfy debuted its version of the popular supernatural drama Being Human, and demonstrated that longer seasons with more episodes didn’t have to be a liability. The original Being Human had plenty of territory to cover with three lives and three kinds of supernatural entities, each with their own mythology. In going from seven to thirteen episodes, Syfy gave fans more of the characters’ histories, more about what it means to be a vampire, a ghost or a werewolf, and more of what made the original so compelling.

Syfy’s Being Human wouldn’t have worked if it missed one key element of the original, a great cast with some impressive chemistry. Stepping into characters associated with Russell Tovey, Aidan Turner and Lenora Crichlow is a daunting task, but their American counterparts Sam Huntington, Sam Witwer and Meaghan Rath all captured what made the original characters so compelling, while adding their unique touches.

MTV took a very different approach in adapting 80's comedy Teen Wolf for the small screen, replacing the laughs with the elements of supernatural drama – cliffhangers, complicated backstories, and plenty of intense glances.

On paper it didn’t sound like it would work ... a remake that kept only the most superficial elements of the original. Sure, Buffy the Vamipre Slayer made a similar transition from comedy to drama, but Teen Wolf also ditched most of the story of the original, turning Scott into a young man suddenly caught in the middle of the battle between the lycanthrope Hale clan and the werewolf-hunter Argent family. It's been a while since there's been a TV show where werewolves didn't share screen time with vampires, and Teen Wolf became a show we had to watch every week.

In translating Australian comedy Wilfred for American audiences, FX delivered a comedy that succeeded by making plenty of changes, keeping only the core concept. Both versions followed a man who sees a guy in a dog suit where everyone else sees ... a dog. However, in the original the protagonist was an everyman trying to handle his new girlfriend’s protective pet. Wilfred was a menacing force who suggested that he buried Sarah’s other boyfriends in the back yard.

FX’s version of Wilfred gave us Elijah Wood as Ryan, a severely depressed man who meets the guy in a dog suit after a failed suicide attempt. Instead of sabotaging Ryan’s romantic life, Wilfred puts Ryan in uncomfortable situations that explored the habits that fueled his depression. In keeping the core concept and putting it in a very different situation, Wilfred became one of 2011’s most memorable additions.

When remakes aren't successful, they are often disasters so spectacular it makes one wary about the very idea of remakes, but 2011 gave us four solid examples of how a remake can add a new interpretation of the original material. Let's hope future attempts to create new shows out of past hits take the lessons these four shows have to offer.