Right in general, but PBS is a strange sort of American TV network. They don’t put out many (or even any?) of their own comedies and dramas, and so don’t follow the season schedule of the old traditional networks. For example, PBS will show Foyle’s War or Miss Marple for however long the series goes, whether that’s 4 episodes or 14, and then just switch over to the next one they have lined up. They don’t care about any stinkin’ seasons.
And they used to do that with comedies too. Traditionally it’s been on Saturday nights, at least in my area. Above I mentioned People Like Us, which I loved, and saw on PBS several years ago. It’s only a handful of episodes, but that wasn’t a problem. They broadcast it anyway, in between other selections.
As TWDuke says, PBS is still offering up a good variety of British dramas and mysteries. When it comes to the comedies though, they’re just not trying anymore, for whatever reason. (That reason being money somehow, I’m sure.)
There are still lots of great antiquities they could be showing instead of the current chaff. For example I fondly remember the Dave Allen show from my 1970s childhood (broadcast on a UHF network out of Milwaukee, complete with bad reception). Why don’t they show that? Or God, how about Yes, Minister? Would it kill them to buy and broadcast a few episodes of Yes, Minister?
But no. PBS must have gotten a deal to show Are You Being Served? until the sun turns into a red giant — when hopefully, mercifully, all recordings of it will finally be destroyed.
Is BIL Onslow great or what? He wears the same “wifebeater” t shirt, and sleeveless sweater. He smokes and drinks-my kind of guy!
Is “Onslow” an upper class name in the UK?
Tonight, starting at 8pm there’s:
coupling
coupling
that mitchell & webb look (whatever that is)
BBC world news
coupling
coupling
that mitchell & webb look
a James bond movie
followed by a lot of decoracting shows that sound exactly like the ones on our stations.
Yeah, the BCC-A is doing a lot to show us a wide variety of great British shows.
I don’t know if it has anything to do with anything, but the current Lord Onslow was one of the hereditary peers who remained in the House of Lords after most of them were beheaded in 1999.
To me, everything about Sheridan’s character speaks to her continuing disconnect with reality. When will she glom onto the fact that her son is gay, or at least hanging around a rather recherche* “Brideshead Revisted” crowd, sometime at the expense of even ever coming home to see her? And whose connection to her, despite her continual acclimations of an “inborn refinement,” and a “spiritual” connection between the two of them, is to ask for money?
Recherche, as in:
Uncommon; rare.
Exquisite; choice.
Overrefined; forced.
Pretentious; overblown, especially 3. and 4.
But if you’re actually she saying his character (and his continued absence) shows she’s really only a “Bucket” after all is said and done, never mind.
Slightly off-topic, here (I didn’t start it!), but no one’s mentioned Chef, with Lenny Henry. How is that thought of in the UK? To me, it has a similar formulaic repetitiveness to KUA but when it aired here in the States on PBS, I’d watch it also.
I also got the impression Emmitt was gay and was surprised when I learned he had an ex-wife but then a lightbulb went off and I realized the two are not mutually exclusive at all.
I was very much surprised to learn in the last couple weeks or so that Elizabeth has a daughter, one who, accordinging to Hyacinth, has the perfect right to live with her boyfriend, “in sin and degradation, though she’s not one to judge.”
Don’t forget, he also loves television’s Open University.
I remember a great (well, I thought it was great then–I was about 14) Britcom on PBS here in the late 70s called No, Honestly. I really liked it. It aired with Benny Hill (about whom enough bad can never be said), The 2 Ronnies (that was funny) and Monty Python. Fawlty Towers came along later, with a drama called The Nanny, which I adored. Upstairs, Downstairs went on forever–never could get into that show.
The other day I stumbled across something called Torchwood–very odd: soap opera meets Coronation Street meets Dallas type thingy. It was meh. I like How Clean is Your House?
I wish they would replay the entire All Creatures series–I loved that show (and the books). The Irish RM was pretty good as well.
I thought Coupling (the two episodes I’ve managed to see) was very funny. I can’t keep track of the time slots and they seem to jump around (?). I ended up watching the British equivalent of the Academy awards the other night–that was interesting…
Sorry, you asked about Hyacinth Bucket. It is a one joke show; I got tired of it after about 4 episodes. Still, it is yards more intelligent than a comparable American sitcom (more byplay and witty dialogue), so there is that.
I wonder how much this is a product of the way programmes are presented in much larger contiguous sections, with a 30-minute slot having only one short advert break for a commercial channel, or a single 25 minutes of actual content for the BBC. Or, to put it another way, whether the gag-laugh-gag-laugh routine of American shows has been encouraged by the ability to break the shows down into shorter sections with a less continuous feel. (And maybe therefore the British structure suits PBS well?)
I don’t know how much credibility this list has, but I thought it was interesting as it ranks US and UK sitcoms together.
Icons I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners are absent, but a show that most living Americans have never seen (I would guess) tops the list. Of the UK shows, I’ve seen all of Fawlty Towers and episodes of Yes, [Prime] Minister and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, and nothing of the others.
Till Death Do Us Part and Steptoe and Son were turned into American hits, while Fawlty Towers and Reginald Perrin were turned into flops.
I think that Britcoms are just that—dependent upon British situations and well drawn characters. American sitcoms have gotten very lazy and dumbed down over the years into bratty kids delivering one liners and dumb adults doing stupid things, that is, obnoxious characters saying snarky things with very little plot to sustain them.
IMO, British comedy relies more heavily on wit than American does. I like that. The structure of the commercials might add to the effect, but overall I think it’s just laziness on the part of the writers (and also, to be fair, the risk averse nature of network TV). I think that MASH, Frasier, MTMm DVD show all can stand up to Britcoms, so it’s not like we never get it right or do it well…
