Sundance Now's Ten Percent is a pointless remake of French Netflix hit Call My Agent!

The Guardian

"I very much enjoyed Ten Percent, the pleasant English-language remake of the French hit Call My Agent!, but it did seem to be rather pointless," says Rebecca Nicholson. "Much of it is a straightforward remake of the French series, so fans will be familiar with storylines about two big-name stars being given the same role, for example, or another finding out she is considered too old for a leading Hollywood movie. It is not so much inspired by the original as it is borrowing its clothes, car and house." Nicholson adds: "Yet despite my misgivings, I somehow managed to plough through the entire series with gusto. I suspect that viewers who have not seen the French original may get more out of this, as the agents’ storylines, about secret daughters and reluctant love affairs and buyouts and sell-offs, have a heightened sense of melodrama that is rarely seen on British television."

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• Ten Percent is an unnecessary retread of Call My Agent!: "At a first glance, a remake for a British audience doesn’t seem like a bad idea. The British television and celebrity market is known the world over, and is ripe for exploration and satire," says Scott Bryan, adding: "But with Call My Agent! already being so resoundingly popular, it raises questions about who exactly this remake is for in the first place...It is so much of a faithful adaptation that you end up simply comparing and contrasting every plot point and detail with the original, rather than sitting back and getting absorbed by Ten Percent itself."
• The British cameos, including Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West, are broad enough to make this reimagining of the French hit worthwhile
• Sundance Now jumped at the chance to show Ten Percent after Netflix passed: That Netflix passed begs the question of whether Ten Percent is worth watching when the original Call My Agent! is already popular. “We jumped at the chance to make Sundance Now the U.S. home of the British remake,” said Shannon Cooper, vice president of programming for Sundance Now. “This is such a fun watch, whether you’ve seen the original or not.” 
• When Ten Percent writer John Morton began his adaptation , Call My Agent! was still a cult hit: “I was a huge fan, and my first thought was, ‘the bar is already so high, how do you not mess this up?’ Then the bar got higher," he says. As for the differences between the two versions, he says: "The French entertainment and creative world does not feel secondary or beholden to Hollywood, and in fact celebrates that it isn’t. But if you are British and in this industry, whatever you think about it, you feel that the mother ship, the big factories, are over there. To fold that into the show felt true.” As star Jack Davenport put it: “The French do everything stylishly and passionately and articulately. And our characters have to be hyper-articulate, professionally. But personally, they are as inarticulate as the average Brit. We are not a culture which is encouraged to say what we think or feel.”