I've never watched either version of Coupling, so I can't comment on that. But am I right in that Moffat was heavily involved in the U.S. Coupling, and was therefore to an extent responsible for it?
But I'm willing to see how it turns out despite the whole Lucy Liu thing. I'm not going to write it off now as a failure, even though it's likely to flop -- more than likely due to the boycott by the large Sherlock fan population in the U.S. rather than by how good it really is. I know America tends to take a lot of good programmes and produce watered-down Americanised versions that are considered inferior to the original British version, but some of the remakes have achieved success.