Yes, Prime Minister

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.

Other reviews have said it all nearly. This remake of a great classic show is a waste of TV time and it a total let down. The comedy - what little there is - is very poor. That's partly down to the very dire writing and the rehashing of material that simply is out of date. The actors in it are wasted. They have poor material and although at times maybe trying their best, they peacefully fight a lost cause.

I loved the original and was willing to view any new series with the notion that it must stand on its own also and not just be judged on its previous history and calibre of shows. On its own sadly, it really fails - clearly without a doubt - in a lot of ways. Other reviews have covered the reasons why and in detail. I cannot disagree in any way, shape or form.

...And that's a shame. At the start of once hope - there was only bitter disappointment in its wake.

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.

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.