Yes, Prime Minister

It is very popular among reviewers to scoff and mock comebacks, sequels and remakes. The reviewer will often proudly proclaim how much better the original was, and how "they don't make them as they used to". This attitude is, no doubt, often just a form of posturing and an attempt to show sophistication and discernment in taste, without actually forming an independent opinion.

I, on the other hand, have no problem going on record saying that, for example, the Star Wars prequels were surely not bad. Objectively they're not much different to the original trilogy, and if one likes that sort of thing the prequels are just more of the same!

With that said: as a huge fan of the original Yes, Minister/Prime Minister-series, I was very excited to hear that they were launching a new series in 2013. As long as Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn were at the helm, what could possibly go wrong? Well, wrong it went.

What we have here is a very pale "reboot" of the original. Firstly, the production itself feels very cheap. Granted, this shouldn't matter if the performance and writing is good enough. Sadly, the actors (sole exception being David Haig) are not up to snuff, and the story lines are just recycling many of the gags and jokes from the old series.

This, then, is indeed a reboot in the truest sense of the word: they've simply updated the political situations to ones that are more familiar with 2013's audience.

I find this is completely uncalled for. While some of the political crises the original Jim Hacker, Sir Humphrey and Bernard were facing in the 80s are just for the history books today, the actual SATIRE in the original series is timeless! Avoid wasting your time on this, and just get a good DVD-box of the original.

Back in the eighties the original series was a masterpiece but this if you imagine a few years after The Mona Lisa was painted and everyone praised it Da Vinci says it needs improving and draws a moustache on it people would think that he was mad, well Anthony Jay has done the equivalent. This is dreadful he did a stage version which was even worse.

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!!!

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.

Rumour has it that the BBC turned this show down, probably the best decision their commissioning team has ever made. The whole thing is a mess, badly written jokes badly (over)acted.

The remake has its roots in a stage farce and it sadly shows.

GOLD made two mistakes with this show, one commissioning it in the first place then the massive error of scheduling it just ahead of far superior original, which makes this look like a relic from the 70's.

There is room for a good, new political satire, especially with The Thick Of It possibly coming to an end, but badly remaking a classic is not the way to go.

My advice, if you feel the need to watch this don't. wait until the show is over and watch the subtle acting of Eddington, Hawthorne and Fowlds, and stop the sadly late former two spinning in their graves...