Gordon Ramsay is the host of both that's why it's a good point of comparison - American TV is violent and usually emasculation-porn, the UK version of the show is often very gentle and doesn't feature extremely loud musical cues to tell the audience when to gasp and when to salivate. The media set and follow trends.

Just to pick up the point about the office - the office US is really good, but the office is UK is an order of magnitude deeper. The US version hits it's stride long after they ran out of UK-material.

They do serve as analogues of the countries they're set in, but ultimately the office UK is much more of character study of Brent and is generally really uniquely shot and directed. Michael Scott is funny, Brent is truly tragic.

Also one thing that really annoys me about US television, is that they clearly assume their audience is too stupid to get many gags, i.e. the office UK is full of clever little gags that don't really make you laugh but really sell the format and location of the show, even if you don't notice them.

To prove "British" can be shit too -> Afterlife is rubbish.