Last week I gave you something a bit different. It was a little photographic taste of a walk I took in Hampstead Heath. It was about getting out, being in nature, and enjoying what the outside has to offer. This week, we head back inside and flop ourselves down in front of what is many people’s favourite mode of entertainment…the television.
Every Sunday morning for the past couple months I’ve had a routine. I get up, make a pot of tea, and download Doctor Who onto iPlayer on my computer (I don’t own a television). For the next 46 or so minutes I spend an enjoyable time sipping tea and watching Peter Capaldi play The Doctor with a level of brilliance that rivals David Tennant. (That should ignite the usual debate over who is the best Doctor….off you go; debate away in the comment section, please!) This is the way I’ve spent my Sunday mornings since the new series of Doctor Who debuted back in August. I can’t think of a much better way to start off a day dedicated to writing than to be inspired by the great Steven Moffat and friends.
There is a bit of a debate that I’ve encountered since moving London. It’s the debate over which is better, British or American television? Being an American you probably expect me to come down on the side of American television. I was raised on American television and cinema. It’s all I really knew until later in life, unless you want to count the random viewing of The Benny Hill Show which I never quite understood. Surely I would choose American television over those crazy Brits. And maybe, if Benny Hill was the only thing I ever experienced, I would. However, somewhere along the way, A & E Television (that used to stand for Arts and Entertainment….which they show neither of anymore) started showing MI5 and I was immediately converted. I loved that show. It was thrilling, yet understated.
Now, before my fellow American readers get up in arms and start listing the all the wonderful programming that America has to offer in comparison to the UK, don’t bother…I can already do that. I have watched and loved the likes of Breaking Bad, Homeland, Big Bang Theory, and CSI. I even just recently started watching Mad Men. My initial intention was to watch Mad Men for the sake of research but now I am enjoying it thoroughly. I also know that Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead are quite popular and, supposedly, superior. So I’m not saying that the U.S. doesn’t have some quality television, I just find myself preferring what British television has to offer.
Before I go any further, let’s be clear. In this context, when I talk about television programming, I’m talking about scripted, fictional drama and comedy. I’m not speaking about so-called “reality television” which, quite frankly, is shit on both sides of the pond. Thank you so much to this genre for making me know the names of people whose lives I don’t care about and who have no other talents to offer the world except to have a lifestyle so pitiful and/or outrageous that some producer felt it should be filmed and commercialised. I apologise to anyone I may offend by this, but it’s a sad reflection on society that these shows are still popular after all these years. And, as an American, I’m truly embarrassed when I hear that one of my Brit friends is watching The Kardashians (and even more disturbed that my iPad spell check has that name its dictionary) only because I fear they will be set as an example of all Americans or our lifestyle. But that discussion could take up an entirely new blog post….
Now, here’s what may surprise you…when I have this conversation with people here in London, it seems the many of them prefer American television. They immediately name the shows I’ve already mentioned and proclaim that the writing and story development is so much better on American television than over here. These points are seemingly valid and backed up by Mark Lawson from The Guardian[i] who believes that American television has a couple of things that British television has lacked: originality and “courage of characterisation.” He cites characters such as Don Drapper and Walter White from Mad Men and Breaking Bad, respectively, as characters that “are fundamentally amoral, though in other ways attractive, people.” Lawson believes that British television execs shy away from unlikable protagonists although I’d love to point out that the protagonist in Luther isn’t particularly moral and teeters on the likability scale.
My question, then, becomes why are Americans, like myself, who grew up on and have access to the full array American television, spending so much time hunting down British television shows? Why were the channels I tended to watch in the year before moving to London BBC America and PBS (a wonderful depository for British television in the U.S., by the way)? Why was my Netflix queue and Amazon Prime Watch List littered with shows like Luther, Downton Abbey, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Whitechapel, The Fall, and Spaced? Why did the Series 4 debut episode of Downton Abbey garner 10.2 million viewers on PBS? Why does Sherlock (PBS) have approximately 4 million viewers per episode and Doctor Who (BBC America) 5 million per episode?[ii]
The chief executive of PACT (Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television), John McVay, gives a possible reason in a The Telegraphii article discussing the influx of British television shows flowing into the United States, “There is now a rush towards quality TV, driven by the young, highly educated, middle-class American viewer who were sick of the formulaic rubbish they were being served.” That same article also points out that with Netflix and Amazon streaming applications, Americans now have access to a larger variety of British shows where, before, we had to almost stumble upon them on PBS or A & E. My personal opinion, and maybe the reason why I started gravitating towards British shows, is that what I was watching on American television had started to grow stale. So many series that I had started out enjoying became boring and the storylines recycled after a couple of seasons.
I don’t really know if it’s a matter of which side of the Atlantic is producing better television. When you filter out the drivel that is “reality television,” they are both creating some truly entertaining programmes. In the end, I can only speak for myself. There are television programmes from the U.S. that I adore but I haven’t really missed them because there are shows over here that have captured my interest. While I do admit a bit of happiness when I found I could watch new episodes of Big Bang Theory and Homeland on 4OD, I’m just as happy to watch Doctor Who (did I mention that Peter Capaldi is bloody brilliant?!), The Missing (a new programme that just began last week) and am thrilled that The Fall starts its second season in a couple of weeks.
On My Mind 