I’m looking for British shows that were popular in the U.S. They wre generally found on PBS when I was younger, things like Doctor Who and Fawlty Towers. Now many are found on BBC America and other channels. Im talking about shows that we’re hits, so to speak, here, like Keeping Up Appeaances and As Time Goes By. Help me identify them.
BBC America? That’s mostly Star Trek: The Next Generation and American movies.
Doctor Who and Fawlty Towers (flowery twats sign in my head) certainly.
All Creatures Great and Small
The Avengers
Monty Python!
Upstairs, Downstairs
My mom was glued to the tv for this one.
That’s true, but for a time they would play British shows on Saturday evenings. And, of course, the Doctor Who and Torchwood marathons.
I think that there were several introduced through Masterpiece Theater, but I wouldn’t know the titles for years after because the TV listings would show only the Masterpiece Theater title.
There have been tons. Look up all the series that have been on Masterpiece Theatre– everything from I, Claudius to Upstairs, Downstairs. Then there’s Absolutely Fabulous. Also, look up everything that has been on Mystery. Like the MP shows, most have been BBC there there have been shows by Thames Television, among other studios. My list isn’t anything close to exhaustive.
Additionally, there is a huge list of US shows that are adaptations of UK shows: All in the Family; Three’s Company; Sanford and Son; Ghosts; Call Me Kat. There have been three attempts to remake Fawlty Towers for the US; all flopped, and two to make Absolutely Fabulous; both failed to capture the tenor of the original well, and the one that succeeded as a show known by its own identity. A rare show to go the other direction was Law & Order.
does benny hill count?
Only if being chased by a bevvy of half-naked beauties.
Yes one of the more puzzling and disappointing channel evolutions.
Downton Abbey, All Creatures Great and Small, Inspector Morse, Lewis.
Red Dwarf. A pilot episode of a US version was made that was truly awful. I think Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy appeared in the US too.
I think Broadchurch was popular and introduced a lot of people to Olivia Coleman. I believe there is a US version though I didn’t see the point of watching it since the original was so good. I also watch a lot of UK police procedurals so I may not be the best judge. Doc Martin is another one that is pretty well known though maybe not mainstream.
For some stuff on PBS, especially Masterpiece, the shows are co-productions of PBS, Masterpiece or a channel like WGBH.
As a kid I used to occasionally watch “Are You Being Served?” on PBS. I don’t remember much about it, and don’t remember it being an especially funny British show (especially compared to Monty Python, which I was also aware of). I think I mostly watched it because one of the characters was an attractive young woman with a British accent, which even as a kid I had a thing for (I blame Diana Rigg on the Avengers for that 
).
I know it was inspired by Steven Moffatt’s courtship and subsequent marriage to Sue Vertue, but Coupling always felt like the British version of Friends, to me.
Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes series’ were on Masterpiece.
The most recent version of Morse, Endeavour has been popular. My mom likes Call the Midwife.
Hustle ran on AMC for several years, with the channel co-producing two seasons.
Besides PBS, there were British shows syndicated to independent (often UHF) low budget channels. The Saint, My Partner the Ghost (Randall and Hopkirk (deceased) in the UK.) and The Avengers are the ones that come to mind. Benny Hill was another one that usually aired on the low rent channels that eventually became the land of infomercials.
The British comedy The Young Ones found an American audience on MTV circa 1986-88.
EDIT: Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner also has/had an audience in the U.S., but I don’t know how it was normally broadcast (e.g. was it also a PBS program?).