Shark Bytes

MATH by miles
Not understanding the Brit humour is a fair enough reason for some though. It's more subtle and clever than the likes of the vastly inferior TC. It's not that I'm against American comedies either. Love M*A*S*H, Seinfeld and many others from the states...but the Brits do have a way!

I tried watching it, but somehow I couldn't. I could be charitable and say I don't get brit humor, but the thing is that the episodes were the early ones that got taken oven by Three's Company line for line, and I just couldn't laugh or even chuckle at the same lines that I can watch endlessly when Ritter, DeWitt and Somers perform them. There's no energy in MATH, and it seems the the characters always DO have sex on the brain. Amazing how TC played for a misunderstanding the same lines MATH, to me anyway, plays straight. I wouldn't go so far as calling MATH touchy-feely or perverted as someone else did a while back, but somehow MATH is definitely dirtier. Anyway, six epis of MATH were enough, I won't bother any more. I agree totally with the people that said the show reverse-jumped when ABC took it over.

I always hated three's company, terrible terrible show. How shocked I was to see this marvelous gem of a show. The humor is much funnier, there's real sexual tension, and a realism of the characters not waiting for the frigging audience to laugh at their "jokes" as in most american sitcoms. As much as I love John Ritter, he couldn't help the dummied down writing. If you watch both Man and Three's pilots, you'll notice a few smarmy sex jokes in Three's but the audience reaction laughing mostly at the 90% script they stole from the original. Fifth season of Man bit the dust though.

Touchy-feely smarmy Brit perversion, only cleaned itself up and became funny when the Americans had their go at it. Goes to show thgat in script vs. casting, casting is EVERYTHING.

Day one. Some American Anglophiles, like the previous reviewer, laud British shows so much that it is quite a let down to see the actual show. I like many British shows but it does them a disservice to pretend all British shows are superior and faultless--as if British sh*t doesn't stink. These Anglophiles, I believe, hurt the chances of American success by their over-the-top comments. People start to roll their eyes when they hear them rather than listen.
This show, for example, is rather weak with its mediocre acting, carboard cutout characters and stereotypical plots. The worst (out of six) Britcoms I have seen. (not that I like the American re-make either.)

Man about the House was, by far, a superior show to its painfully inferior copy Threes Company. Witty and intelligent by comparison to the broad, juvenile pratfalls, boobie jokes and homophobia of Threes Co. This was and still is a gem, it would be great to see if it aged well, as I have not seen it in over 20 years. American tv panders to the LOWEST common denominator. And I am an American who prefers British comedy.

It UNJUMPED only when it jumped across the pond. Sorry, but the American version is superior in every way:

-- Brits have too much dialogue
-- The sexual tension between the roommates is too strong to be as funny as in the Yankee version. Moderation, moderation!
-- The pacing is too slow
-- Too many references to the "real" world: Yanks' charming unreality is what makes it a kind of art.
-- Not as much physical humour. Granted, that's not an absolute requirement to be funny, but the Harold Lloyd moments in Three's Company are a HUGE plus.

Never jumped - of course we all want them to get together at the end but I think if they had it would have qualified as jumping the shark

Great show, FAR superior to the American remake ( Three's Company ), only JTS when it morphed into "Robin's Nest".

The show never jumped. It was a true classic and is still fondly remembered, even if it is only for Robins flares !!!!! The shark jumping came with the appallingly bland Robins Nest.

This show never jumped. It's one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. Between Richard O'Sullivan, Brian Murphy, and Yootha Joyce, you have sitcom heaven, my friend. I love "Three's Company" to death, but partially because I grew up with it and partially because of the absurdity that it had such a success off of one joke. Still, it was funny as heck... but I can think of several qualifiers as the moment when "Three's" jumped, jumped back, and then jumped again. The only time "Man About The House" jumped was when it went off of the air and became hard as balls to find available in NTSC format for American fans.

I was SOOO disappointed when this series finally came to the US in syndication in the mid-80s. I liked Three's Company so much that I could not wait to see the British take on the same living situation (a "gay" guy living with 2 girls in a platonic living situation). However, it became obvious that the American writers just borrowed the British scripts. Almost every joke and punchline was the same. I hope the writers for Three's Company weren't paid millions of dollars for this obvious plagiarism.

I loved this show, but I was a little disappointed with the last series. Chrissy suddenly going out with Robin's brother sent things downhill a little for me. Not just because it wasn't the nice neat happy ending we had wanted, but because the way that everyone involved acted about it was just odd - what Chrissy liked about the brother, etc...