Recently, my wife and I discovered that our local PBS station is showing a BBC police drama on Saturday nights called New Tricks. It’s a good show and we’ve been enjoying it.
But it made me realise how little programming from other countries we get here in America. Mostly it’s the Britcoms. And as much as I enjoy the Britcoms, I’m wondering what else is out there that I’m missing. Reading the thread about “Life on Mars” has me even more curious. We don’t even get BBC America in our house. Aside from the occasional British drama (like “Cracker”) or Canadian show that leaks across the boarder, I can’t think of anything.
So, Dopers in other countries, what’s good? What do you watch that’s not American programming or British Sitcoms? It doesn’t even have to be english language. I’d just like to know what’s out there, and what’s good.
Well, I’m a Yank, too, but I understand that American networks are going to experiment with telenovelas, i.e. limited run, soap opera-ish series aimed at both Anglo and Hispanic audiences.
A French, German or Indian police drama or sitcom might be interesting, I admit. There’s currently a sitcom in India set in a calling center where a large part of the humor derives from the staff having to deal with rude and/or stupid Yanks and Brits on the phone.
Well, there is the new Dr Who. Classic sci-fi by any standards. To be honest, I prefer good US TV. When it’s good, it’s great (and usually therefore, canned after one series). Most English drama series bore me. Life on Mars is an exception but I can live the rest of my life without seeing Dickens, Jane Austen or Elizabeth 1st on TV ever again.
You should certainly check out MI5 (Spooks in the UK), and Hustle (if only to cheer up ronincyberpunk who keeps posting things like this. I understand that Bleak House is on PBS at the moment, too – there’s a thread about it hereabouts.
I also heartily recommend Doctor Who if you have the SciFi channel.
I’ve heard of MI-5. I’m going to have to check out “Hustle”. Never heard of that one. Fortunately MI-5 is out on DVD.
GorillaMan, most of those threads are about Britcoms, which we already get in abundance. And all of those threads are about British TV. I hear there are other countries out there. Even if there’s no chance of me ever seeing it, I’m curious as to what’s out there. What counts as quality television in the rest of the world.
Brazilian TV is big on “Novellas” (Brazilian soap operas). They are very well done, and are filmed well. I hear that suitably dubbed, they might be coming to American TV. of course, i hope so-they usually feature gorgeous, scantily-clad young women-in styles unknown to American TV.
As for other countries: does Scandinavia produce anything interesting? Dutch TV is simply awful!; but the French do some interesting stuff
You know, maybe it’s just a bad sample size, but whenever I turn on hotel room TVs in other countries the only native programming I can find is game shows, news, and talk shows. (And it seems I only find talk shows in Spanish speaking countries.) All the fictional programming seems to be American - there’s always Star Trek and the X-Files.
We have sitcoms but honestly I can’t think of anything remarkable right now. On the other hand German police dramas seem to be popular exports. Probably the record holder is Derrick (1974-1998, 281 episodes) which was broadcast in 102 countries. The protagonist, Inspector Derrick and his assistant investigate murders in Munich.
Another important program is Tatort (“Crime scene”). It features a number (currently 15) of teams that investigate murders in different cities. In Germany there is a system of public state broadcasting corporations. These produce the episodes with “their” teams. This way you have many smaller series from different regions and with different protagonists under one label. Because there are few episodes per team and year, the production values are usually higher than for other series.
Polizeiruf 110 (named after the police emergency number) is a rare example of a surviving program from East Germany. Of course that doesn’t make a real difference today, but in old reruns the socialist setting adds an interesting aspect.
A more homorous program is Der Bulle von Tölz with an officer in rural Bavaria . Actually it is on right now.
Of course those are only some examples, there are many other series with different premises.
The worldwide TV scene is pretty depressing. Lost and Desparate Housewives are the big hits in most countries. The other big shows are local translations of Big Brother, American Idol, American Idol variants, etc. Not much money to pay for good dramas, but reality shows are cheap.
Since the Olympics are still on this week, I heartily recommend Mexican sports broadcasting. The Mexican networks use the same satellite feeds as the U.S. networks. But while U.S. reporters spend most of their time talking at each other, the Mexican networks will actually cover the sporting events.
Current staples in our household are music quiz shows - there’s a couple in Oz at the moment which are brilliant. One is Spicks and Specks , the other is RocKwiz . We also enjoy Beyond Tomorrow which is a sciencey new-innovation type show. It contains small segments from Mythbusters , and we often watch that too.
I also like Neighbours too (my husband doesn’t, but graciously puts up with it), an Australian soap set in Melbourne. It’s really the most trashy program I watch, but it’s my guilty pleasure!
I’m not sure what the name of the channel is on my Comcast lineup, but on channel 24, I’ve seen several episodes of Water Rats, an Australian crime drama centered on the water. Also, on Sunday nights on this channel, I’ve seen a German crime drama called “Scene of the Crime”. Of course, there are subtitles for this show. Once I got accustomed to the subtitles, it was very easy to follow the story.
I started a thread on this very topic not too long ago. There weren’t many replies, but there were some interesting suggestions.
With all the hundreds of cable and satellite channels out there, I think it would be pretty cool to have one that picks the very best TV from around the world – maybe a Finnish sitcom followed by some Argentinian slapstick followed by a Korean soap opera followed by some hard-hitting German investigative reporting, then a South African talk show host to round the evening off.
It’s very easy to buy music and books and movies from around the world, and to read all sorts of international newspapers and magazines all over the world. But it’s virtually impossible to find non Anglo (or Spanish) TV in most of the US, at least that I’ve seen. (Yes, there are channels that broadcast in Chinese and Korean and even Polish in Chicago, but none of these have English subtitles that I’ve seen.)
SmackFu you may be horrified to know that the original **Big Brother ** concept is British. The guy who came up with it is incredibly rich, since he sold it to most of Europe, the USA, Africa and Australia. Britain also has Celebrity Big Brother, which, this year featured Denis Rodman, amongst others, last year it featured Bridget Nielsen and her former mother-in-law, Jackie Stallone. Amazing what people will do when they think their home audience won’t see them!
**Survivor ** and Idol, were also originally British concepts.
I usually like things with Adam Hart-Davis, especially his “What the Romans did for us” series.
**Braniac: Science Abuse ** is usually quite entertaining too.
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