I have been watching quite a bit of BBC America. I must say, I LOVE IT! There is something cool about watching shows in the UK from my couch in Connecticut. They have these interesting follies before a show starts…something to the tune of: If you are having a hard time understanding what is being said in these programmes you can adjust the closed captioning on your t.v. from home."
Then there is a display of a remote and the correct buttons to push for closed captioning…
They nit pick at American stereotypes all the time, it is so funny. They also have Anglophenia British gossip from an American Prospective.
Incidentally, I think Torchwood is going to be really good!
On to what I am watching now - Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares - for those who don’t knwo this is a show with Gordon Ramsey, a Brit who does the Hells Kitchen schtick on American Prime time. Anyway, this is a British show where he goes into failing restaurants, pubs and the like and reinvents them to make them more profitable and better all around eateries. I have not seen one yet that I didn’t like. What a cool concept.
The entire show is full of “beeps” because Gordon says ‘fuck’ close to 500 times an episode. Gotta Love it.
Anyone else like BBC America? Or Brits - what is your favorite show?
Anyway, I just looked at the BBC America schedules for the next few days and I’m shocked that somebody is paying to import so much afternoon lifestyle filler - not that they are all bad programmes eg Cash in the Attic and suchlike are endlessly interesting to sad old me.
There are only two programmes on that schedule that I watch religiously though, Doctor Who and MI5 (which is called Spooks here), and both are heartily recommended. I’m a bit worried about MI5 though, it’s in an hour long slot here, and seems to be the same there, and I’m wondering how badly butchered it will have to be to accommodate the adverts.
Otherwise, I’ve heard good things about Jekyll, and I know the writer Steven Moffat is really talented. Coupling is also by the same chap, but I’ve never watched that.
Ramsey will be hosting an American version of Kitchen Nightmares on Fox starting in the fall. Since that article, they’ve changed the day – the show will premier on Wednesday, September 19 at 9:00 pm. Although I’ve never seen the British version (sadly I don’t have BBC America), this is my #1 pick out of the new fall shows.
Over at the Television without Pity website, they use “Gordon Ramsay’s Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter” to count the number of times he says ‘fuck’ in each episode of Hell’s Kitchen. This season’s record is 65.
I’ve seen it, and it’s not totally awful, but it’s not as good as it should have been. The second season that is currently filming has apparently taken on board some of the lessons of the first one.
It is a good concept, but the execution is patchy. Saying that though it is decent enough, the good episodes are spread throughout the run, and the last double-parter is really good, but there are misjudgements about character development and consistency. And almost all of the smut seems tacked-on for no good reason.
When it comes down to shoe-horning bad language, innuendo and pan-sexual encounter* into an otherwise perfectly good Doctor Who for adults/X-Files in Wales show in order to trumpet the shows Adult Nature, and the execution of which is totally ham-fisted. And there’s no muff, and only a little arse.
for the record, I’m totally in favour of bad language, innuendo, and pan-sexual encountering.
I’ve been watching BBCamerica for several years. Some of the shows are truly fine. (And any network that has some truly fine shows is better than most networks.)
Last night’s Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares featured a Liverpool restaurant mostly run by women. Their makeup, hair & dress seemed quite overdone. In fact, it reminded me of the wild women on Footballers’ Wives–another guilty pleasure. Ramsey arranged a “local celebrity” night to promote the reborn restaurant. At least one cast member of FW showed up–since it’s apparently shot nearby. What a fine way to learn about culture in the UK!
(And I’ll watch Torchwood, although I’ve heard that season 1 isn’t that good. Even a little bit of Captain Jack is better than none.)
The only episode I managed to catch, I bleeping loved.
Ramsey was helping this restaurant that had every reason to be a sucess; Next to a golf course, been in the place for decades and had capacity for large groups. But the food had gotten so bad over the years that even the golfers wouldn’t eat there.
Also the restaurant had been painted a horrid brownish purple that had turned it into an eye-sore for a lot of locals.
The two new owners had come from the pub scene and had no idea how to run a restaurant.
It was fascinating watching Ramsey turn the place around. I especially liked the follow up when he came back some weeks later and the palce had been able to maintain the good momentum he had started. And then he basically told the owners they still should get rid of the head chef because he looked like a slob.
I saw last nights as well, and those women were WAY over dressed. Little miss prissy walk away from mean chefy can take a flying you know what!
But he did turn the place around, quite nicely. What I like about the show is that it shows his Britishness and Humanity and I like it when people show their inner self…
I really think that the BBC’s marketers have pulled a fast one on the corporation’s British competitors, with BBC America. Many of its shows are not actually BBC programmes - Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, Footballer’s Wives, So Graham Norton, quite a few shows like Location, Location, Location and How Clean is Your House?… none of these were ever shown by the BBC in Britain. It’s like NBC had a channel called NBC Europe on which they showed House, Lost and CSI.
I suppose it shows that the BBC brand is the only one that means anything outside Britain. How many people outside the country have even heard of ITV? You know, the Benny Hill, Brideshead Revisited, Avengers etc. channel?
But how can you understand Gordon if they bleep all the swears? I watch this show on BBC Canada, and it’s not censored at all. Isn’t BBC America a cable channel, and not obliged to follow the FCC rules for language/nudity, etc.?
They don’t bleep ALL the swearing, just the F word. Everything else is left intact, including Ramsey’s remarks about chefs’ masculine endowments, Graham Norton’s smutty jokes, “twat” as an epithet, and other stuff that wouldn’t get through on networks or even basic cable. BBC America is upper-tier cable, so they can and do get away with a lot.
I don’t really care where the shows come from–I really like How Clean is Your House and Cash in the Attic (and the one with the blue and red teams let loose in a boot sale and they keep whatever profit they make at auction-can’t remember name). Even if these shows weren’t designed for UK audiences, the Britishness of them is inescapable.
I have watched some Ramsay–it’s ok. I’m sick of food shows, though-they seem reptitive to me (like the home makeover shows).
I watched some weird Brit soap opera (Oakwood? Northwood?) when I was in the hospital–a few teen girls, one in the club, one ostracized for something her brother did. It was fascinating. Not because I’m into daytime dramas (can’t stand them), but because it was like watching an entirely foreign culture but not needing subtitles. Some of it made no sense at all, but in a fun way. I feel that way about most of Brit TV. I even like the ads.
Oh, they are British shows. I was just saying that they’re not all BBC shows (although Cash in the Attic is BBC). It is a hobby horse of mine that the other British TV companies get no recognition abroad. Everybody seems to think British TV = BBC.
BBC America is one of my favorite cable channels and Kitchen Nightmares is one of my favorite shows on the channel. I also like some of the “lifestyle” shows like Cash in the Attic and Changing Rooms, although I think these shows are no longer being made. (There are American versions of both of these, but somehow I don’t like the American versions as much as the UK ones.) And Graham Norton is hilarious.
I just wish they’d show more episodes of The Kumars at No. 42 and less of the soaps, like Footballers’ Wives, which I don’t like.
