Yes, Prime Minister

The original Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister is a classic. The writers Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn hit upon a formula that satirised the administration of government and made it funny with both gentle and cutting wit.

Some of it more nearer to the truth according to the politicians of the time.

The new series looks cheap because it's made for satellite channel UKTV not the BBC. I think the cast looked uncomfortable and did not feel right.

Henry Goodman maybe should had played the Prime Minister. His Sir Humphrey is more urbane, aloof and calmer compared to the wily, scheming and at times abrasive Nigel Hawthorne.

David Haig who plays Jim Hacker comes across as manic and unsympathetic whereas Paul Eddington in the Yes Prime Minister version was more in control and calculating especially with his dealings with Sir Humphrey.

Worse still, in the intervening years we have had 'The Thick of It' and Malcolm Tucker which reshaped the political comedy climate and made Yes, Prime Minister look like old hat with its neutered Sir Humphrey.

I always thought that I'd be moved to write my first review on IMDb because a movie/TV show was so amazing I'd have to share my feelings on it. Alas, twas not to be. I've just finished watching the 6 episodes of this reboot, I'm utterly disappointed and more than a little annoyed.

Other reviewers are right to mention that sometimes a person can like an original so much that any replication of it will never come close in their eyes. There may be a little of that coming into play with me, but I tried to keep an open mind when I started episode one having heard little else about this production other than it was being made, and who the PM would be. When I realised who was writing it I began to get excited, perhaps some of the magic of the original would find its way into this modern version, but then I noticed that this version was based on the play and not the original radio/TV show which I found curious. I've never seen any stage productions of Yes Minister/Prime Minister but assumed that if it was using something close to the original scripts and was going in a similar direction then it would surely come close to the high standard set in the 1980's. After seeing Gold's reboot of it I'm not as sure! The acting is laughable in all the wrong ways, the casting was all wrong; Zoe Telford does a poor job in her role, the modern Sir Appleby isn't convincing enough to play the role of Hackers nemesis, and the guy they cast for Bernard just looks terribly out of place. Haig does an OK job as Prime Minister I guess, but was still a source of annoyance for me. Overacting, poorly delivered lines, bad camera work, rehashed gags and the overall plot of the six episodes all came together to make for one hell of an insult to the original cast and fans.

I find it bizarre that the producers of the reboot didn't notice this, or even some of the programme directors at Gold. I can only assume that they may not have been as familiar with the original as they thought, that or they were trying to distance themselves from the original in an effort to modernise it for today's audience. If this was the case then I believe it was a huge error to take yesterdays characters and put them into today's world, it just didn't work, even giving the rehashed characters new identities may have made it more bearable for me. When the conditions are right a show can be timeless. Perfect casting, natural acting, quality writing and respect for its audience. The original Yes Minister show had all these things. The relationship between Jim Hacker and Humphry Abbleby was nothing less than genius, the two actors played so perfectly off each other it never gets old. In all of the episodes that were released I never once thought that any character that made an appearance, no matter how small, was out of place or unnecessary, they all brought something to the plot that made it that little bit funnier and more plausible. Each and every story in the original could be applied to today and still be relevant; the relationship between politicians and the civil service will never change, there's always some country somewhere in crisis, always under the table deals going on at national level, still the same old frictions within the EU.....The problem with the reboot is that they took the characters from the original but none of the quality, and seemed to spend more time trying to make Hackers character look like a buffoon than trying to be humorous overall. Hacker was never an idiot, he mightn't have been at Appleby's level intellectually, something which Appleby delighted in quite often, but an idiot he was not.

In short, if you are a fan of the original I wouldn't recommend this show, give the original another spin instead, something which I will be doing after posting this. If you've never seen the original then make sure you watch that first, watching this failed attempt first could ruin it for you.

I am neither a writer nor a programme maker, yet the failings of this relaunch are as obvious as a rotten kipper. I am astonished that writers of this calibre, allow this flaccid imitation to besmirch the memory of one of the greatest achievements of British television of the last 50 years

I really wanted to like this. I didn't expect it to be as immediately brilliant as the original series... but I did expect to be reminded of superb satire and exquisite parody. I was more reminded of catch phrase based sitcoms and early 1970's social exploitation 'jokes'.

The new characters (with the same names as the originals... why?) are not just lacking, they are bereft of any of the qualities of the original cast. Gone is the restrained diffidence, it is replaced with theatrical 'mugging'. Sir Humphrey's new incarnation has 100 times the facial expressions of the original, yet conveys 100th of the gravitas. 'Bernard' needs a deranged hairstyle to denote his inadequacy (we all know funny hair is good for a laugh)... and Hacker is hysterical instead of authentically bemused.

Will it improve when all concerned 'find their feet'? I really hope so... but there is a lot of ground to make up on this showing. I want to apologise for every criticism I have made over the years of American remakes of British programmes. I was wrong. We remake our programmes far worse than you do.

Totally dreadful attempt at the Yes Minister franchise.

Canned laughter which is totally miscued, vain attempts at punchlines, unfunny actors trying to force humour and failing miserably.

I loved the original 3 series with Paul Eddington. These are an absolute insult.

Watch only if they are the only thing you have on USB and the world is about to end.

There seems to be a complete lack of originality in TV currently, no new funny ideas, just vain attempts to rehash successes of the past.

Do not waste even your last minutes of life with this!!!

This show should never have been brought back.The original series was superb with wonderful performances from Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne supported by Derek Fowlds. this is just a farce with Henry Goodman miscast and completely ruined by David Haig playing exactly the same character he has made a living so doing since the thin blue line nearly 20 years ago. The man chronically overacts and makes the character look stupid and inept. At least in the original The writers got away with the Hacker character in the role of Prime Minister. There is no way on earth you can believe David Haig is the PM. Please let me remember the program for what it was.