I heard that American television is talking about remaking the cult sitcom Spaced and got nervous. Very nervous. Spaced, by and starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, was one of my favourite sitcoms when it went out at the turn of the century on C4. Like Pegg's later movies Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz it was the perfect blend of knowing spoof and dumb gags. If the Simpsons had featured real people and been set in a rented house in north London it might have been something like Spaced.

So how on earth can this be adapted for American TV? Over the years Americans have attempted to adapt our great comedies with very little success. Legend has it that when they made a pilot of Fawlty Towers some executive said "I love it, but let's lose that crazy guy called Basil and concentrate on his wife." A remake of Men Behaving Badly didn't fare too well because of the law that says you can't have ugly people on American telly and making the leads look cool took away the spotty, jug-eared charm of Martin Clunes and Neil Morrissey.

Which makes you wonder who they would cast as the leads in Spaced. They could do a lot worse than Michael Cera from Superbad as comic book fanboy Tim, but he's probably too young and with his movie career taking off too expensive. And who could they cast as aspiring writer Daisy? How about America Ferrera, aka Ugly Betty?

Apart from All In The Family, the US version of Till Death Us Do Part, which was so long ago it must have been filmed with steam-driven cameras, there is just one adaptation that gives me hope. As usual, the answer is The Office. Ricky Gervais's sitcom has not just been a success itself over there, the American version starring Steve Carell and set in Scranton, Pennsylvania instead of Slough has hit paydirt and bagged awards too. Even when they ran out of original Gervais scripts they kept going with great success. If the US version of Spaced can follow this template then maybe, just maybe, the sky is the limit.

As long as some bright-spark exec doesn't say "I love it, but let's lose that crazy couple called Tim and Daisy and concentrate on the landlady."