How Everything Everywhere Star's Comedy Show With 95% RT Score Adapts Its Australian Original For American Audiences Explained By Creators

American audiences have not always appreciated the attempts to remake Australian comedies, but a new show featuring the Academy Award-nominated star of Everything Everywhere All at Once is currently wowing critics and viewers alike. While Australian-produced children’s entertainment icons like The Wiggles and Bluey have enjoyed considerable success in the US market, attempts to remake some of the nation’s more popular television comedies have often fallen short of expectations.

In 2008, NBC had previously attempted to remake one of Australia’s best-known sitcoms, Kath & Kim, a satirical look at an off-beat mother and daughter duo from suburbia. Starring SNL veteran Molly Shannon and Selma Blair as the remake's titular characters, the US version of Kath & Kim was lambasted by critics, with some even quipping that the show was bad enough to justify the cessation of trade relations with the country. Moreover, despite originally being picked up for a full 22-episode season, only 17 episodes were produced before its eventual cancellation.

The Creators of Stephanie Hsu’s New Australian Adaptation Explain Their Approach

Nahnatchka Khan & Sally Bradford McKenna Appear To Have Struck A Delicate Balance

Everything Everywhere All at Once’s Stephanie Hsu is the latest actor to attempt leading the remake of a classic Australian comedy series, though seemingly with much greater success than that of 2008’s Kath & Kim US remake. Recently premiering on Peacock on December 19, Laid is based on the 2011 Australian television show of the same name. Following the exploits of a 30-something woman who comes to learn that her exes are dying in the same order she has slept with them, Hsu’s adaptation currently boasts an impressive 96% fresh rating on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

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Speaking with Screen Rant in celebration of Laid’s recent streaming release, the US show’s creators Nahnatchka Khan and Sally Bradford McKenna discussed their approach to adapting the original show for American audiences. Acknowledging that while they “appreciated the awkward humor of the Australian version,” the creators explained their version would also provide Hsu’s character with a sense of entitlement and corresponding lack of awareness. Suggesting these changes made Hsu’s role more relevant, the pair also allowed their version to go in a different direction while still honoring the original. Check out their comments below:

Khan: Yeah. I mean, we really appreciated the awkward humor of the Australian version, which they did incredibly well. But I think taking that, bringing that into our show, but also then giving Ruby this sense of entitlement and lack of awareness of who she is and her place in the world felt very relevant to us, and felt very modern and current — McKenna: And American. [Chuckles] Khan: And American! Yeah, listen, we don't really know. So, I think that was a really fun challenge, in terms of updating it and making it feel modern. McKenna: We loved the premise, just from the beginning, just hearing what the show was about. We were like, "Yes, we're doing this." The original is so good, I think we kept everything we loved about it. We did start kind of letting our version go a different way, but there's so much of the original series, especially in the pilot. It's such a great pilot, and I feel like we kind of stuck very closely to it there.

Our Take On Laid’s Changes To The Australian Original

Adapting Australian & Other International Shows Can Still Pay Off

Despite some notable failures, not all US adaptations of Australian comedies are bound to fail, and the positive response to Laid’s recent release suggests Khan and McKenna’s new show is set to fair much better than some of its fellow international adaptations. As such, the pair’s attempt to make the original show more relevant for American audiences appears to have struck just the right balance between allowing their version to find its footing and remaining faithful to the spirit of Laid’s source material.