My Anglophilia Multiplies
34 is not the only place to read about British television.
On Demand cable has a full compliment of BBC America shows. Anna and I have started to watch Coupling, which includes someone from the probably-soon-to-be-defunct Teachers (another BBC knockoff, I think). NBC tried to bring Coupling to America and that was a spectactular failure. NBC actually seems very eager to bring British shows across the pond with varying degrees of success. The Office seems to have succeeded (although given NBC's ratings meltdown, maybe succeed is too strong a statement. Let's go with, is not crashing and burning). The rest, not so much.
I've also started picking up a show called Murder Prevention, which is sort of what passes for gritty on BBC. The show follows a police unit that tracks people who it believes are capable of murder, sets up a controlled operation (without telling the intended victim) where the hopeful killer springs his attack and then arrests said-killer. It's sort of like Medium (which is, incidentally also on NBC) meets cruel violence fantasies.
For what it's worth, we're also reading Eats, Shoots & Leaves, which American copy editors say is funny but irrelevant to writing for a U.S. newspaper, but which is a scream. That's surprising, given that the book is actually about punctuation. But that's the British for you.
On Demand cable has a full compliment of BBC America shows. Anna and I have started to watch Coupling, which includes someone from the probably-soon-to-be-defunct Teachers (another BBC knockoff, I think). NBC tried to bring Coupling to America and that was a spectactular failure. NBC actually seems very eager to bring British shows across the pond with varying degrees of success. The Office seems to have succeeded (although given NBC's ratings meltdown, maybe succeed is too strong a statement. Let's go with, is not crashing and burning). The rest, not so much.
I've also started picking up a show called Murder Prevention, which is sort of what passes for gritty on BBC. The show follows a police unit that tracks people who it believes are capable of murder, sets up a controlled operation (without telling the intended victim) where the hopeful killer springs his attack and then arrests said-killer. It's sort of like Medium (which is, incidentally also on NBC) meets cruel violence fantasies.
For what it's worth, we're also reading Eats, Shoots & Leaves, which American copy editors say is funny but irrelevant to writing for a U.S. newspaper, but which is a scream. That's surprising, given that the book is actually about punctuation. But that's the British for you.
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