My wife and I were reminiscing about TV shows we’ve watched in the past and among those were three British shows that had been on PBS. One was “Waiting for God” set in a senior living facility run by an Admin wanting to maximize profit. Aired in the early '90s.
Found it on YouTube, but part of the image had been cut off and audio was very low quality.
Added BritBox to my Amazon Prime and watched 5 episodes last night. Quality was good as was the audio. Next up we’ll be looking for “Keeping Up Appearances” and “Are You Being Served”.
I see there’s also a current production with Rob Lowe as an American police officer transplanted to England.
I don’t have BritBox, but any recommendation for it versus for AcornTV? Both offer many UK shows. I used to get many of them from BBC America but they’ve devolved like all cable channels seem to do.
We’ve been watching lots of mysteries. The older Poirot shows are classic, but their newer fare is entertaining as well. If you haven’t already seen Shetland this show alone would be worth the price of subscription in my view. They have all five seasons of a good Australian show - Doctor Blake Mysteries
I got it for the comedy shows and love it for that. QI is my favorite by far, but I also watch Mock the Week, 8 out of 10 Cats, and Would I Lie to You?
I’m able to watch a lot of those comedy shows on YouTube. And some are even legit. I watched the first seven series of Taskmaster and they were posted by the show itself.
My parents love AcornTV but they sort of ran out of stuff to watch, so they dropped it for BritBox. Not in disgust or anything…they just dropped AcornTV temporarily to see if they could run out of stuff on BritBox, and will eventually switch back to AcornTV for a bit
I’m a huge fan of British TV and found a ton of stuff to recommend for them on BritBox. Seems like a great channel!
Thanks. I have the HBO, Showtime and Starz premium channels on my cable system but really there’s almost nothing compelling on any of them (especially so long as nothing new is being produced) so I’m considering dropping all three and just getting another streaming service.
I see BritBox has the entire run of “All Creatures Great and Small”. I don’t have the service myself but Pluto.TV is getting a British channel soon, maybe there’ll be some overlap.
$6.99 a month as a Prime add on or as a stand alone. Seven day free trial, cancel anytime. And of course I can watch on my phone and tablets. My LG TV has Amazon built in, so easy to initiate.
Someone up thread mentioned Acorn TV. Found this:
" Which is better BritBox or Acorn TV?
The most visible difference between the two services is price: At $4.99 a month, Acorn TV is 29% cheaper than BritBox which charges customers $6.99 per a single month of subscription. Marple, BritBox has a much larger and higher growing inventory of new shows, thanks to generous support of BBC and ITV."
This is what I would have said. I love “Would I Lie to You,” which I have only discovered since subscribing to BritBox a couple of months ago. But for me the real value is the availability of every existing Classic Doctor Who, including the animated reconstructions.
My wife likes it for the various mysteries and cop shows, old and new. She’s currently working her way through “A Touch of Frost.”
I have both BritBox and Acorn via Roku. There is stuff on both services that doesn’t make via Prime til days after being dropped. I’m a huge Roku fan. BritBox has older stuff and not much new. I’ve been watching the Rob Lowe show “Wild Bill.” It’s o.k. I like Q.I. 8 out of 10 Cats is stupid but I cannot stand Jimmy Carr. My preference is for Acorn. Lots of mysteries and police procedurals (my faves). I THINK at least the first season of Line of Duty is on BritBox and if so, I highly recommend it. It is so freaking good. All 5 seasons are on Acorn. If you are a British tv fan, you really need both.
I’ve been watching 8 Out Of Ten Cats Does Countdown (and The Big Fat Quiz) on YouTube. I think Jimmy Carr is funny, although his laugh is an acquired taste. (BTW, I wonder why Countdown was never successfully brought to the US? It seems like an interesting game show concept.)
Check out As Time Goes By, a very heartwarming and endearing – and quite funny – sitcom from the early 90’s with Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer. I’m not a sitcom fan but I love it so much I bought the entire series on DVD. You have to watch the first two or three episodes if you want the series to make sense though.
Where I live, that is regularly on the local PBS station, along with Keeping Up Appearances. (At one point, PBS was the only place we could see UK shows in the US. And then BBC America started, and it showed British programs, even game shows and things like Homefront in the Garden, or Kitchen Nightmares. Sadly, in recent years, it’s given up almost all pretense of being a place for British programs.)
