I love this British shit and I move move to England!

Cafe Society
61

You’re broadly right- basically it’s September through about May- it coincides pretty closely with the generic school year, although I don’t know if that has anything to do with the scheduling.

Basically there are a fair number of weeks where new episodes aren’t shown- pretty much any week with a holiday, special event of some kind, etc… So in practice, even though there are 22 episodes, they actually take more than six months to actually broadcast them.

This sort of thing used to be nearly ironclad- new shows started within a fairly narrow window in the fall, and ran straight through with the few exceptions until late spring. In recent years, with cable competition, they’ve started varying it a lot; some shows will do maybe 10-11 episodes, then have a mid-year hiatus in the winter, and pick back up in say… April and run through June or July. Others will do a smaller-scale version of that and take breaks of 3-6 weeks between new episodes, and end up finishing later than the traditional time.

In addition, US television has very fixed times- shows typically have a single weekly time slot- this may vary between seasons, but very rarely varies within a season (and is usually a sign the show is not doing well). For example, “Friends” started at 8:30 pm Thursdays in its first season, which was right after “Seinfeld”, and moved to 7 pm Thursdays for the remainder of its broadcast run.

Which brings us to the next difference - US tv scheduling is a sort of game that is played between networks based on who, what and when TV shows are watched. They tried to basically engineer things such that people didn’t want to change the channel- having “Friends” at 7 and “Seinfeld”/“Frasier”/“Will and Grace” at 8, and “ER” at 9, with lesser comedies in the gaps meant that for a certain young adult demographic, NBC on Thursday nights was a destination at the time- people talked “around the water cooler” about those shows, so people made a point to watch them, and ended up watching stuff like “Just Shoot Me” or “Veronica’s Closet” through inertia.

Meanwhile, shows like “Firefly” or “Futurama” were in time slots that weren’t conducive to long-term success, and ended up cancelled on their original networks, only to be revived on other networks or in other formats.

62

Note for non-Americans reading this, when you mention a show starting at 7pm, that’s perhaps unique to the Central time zone. We’re talking mostly about prime time programming here and in most of the US, that starts at 8pm and runs until 11pm. In the Central time zone only (I think), it runs from 7pm until 10pm.

63

I liked New Tricks and just binged three seasons of Red Rock, an Irish cop drama/soap. The cool thing about Red Rock is that the episodes are just 20 minutes long. The first season was 80 episodes and went along quickly.

64

Prime time for Central and Mountain time are 7 pm, while Eastern/Pacific are 8 pm.

65

We binge on British series. Downton Abbey, Vera, Doctor Who, Death In Paradise (when it was on), Midsomer Murders, Inspector Morse, Endeavour, Inspector Lewis, Poirot, Foyle’s War, Lark Rise To Candleford, Last Tango In Halifax… The list goes on. I have Coupling and Father Ted on DVD. I might convince SWMBO to binge on them again.

But The Prisoner? The whole DVD set, just sitting on the shelf? I can’t get her to let us binge on that. :frowning:

66

Great recommendation, I’ve enjoyed the clips I’ve listen to on YouTube. I can’t use CDs at work, but turns out it’s also on Audible which I can. Great way to spend some credits I had laying around!

67

If the OP liked Shaun of the Dead I’d point him to Sick Note.

68

Toast of London is a pretty bizarre comedy (It Crowd fans might like seeing Matt Berry in it).

69

Not a lot of documentary series have been mentioned so far, which is a pity. Going way back, my favorites are still Civilisation (with an “s”), The Ascent of Man, and Connections. Most everything you’d ever want to know about the history of art, culture, science, and invention.

The Prisoner was stripped on CHCH at the start of this year (in the 1:00 PM slot). I hadn’t seen it in at least 30 years, and it holds up really well.

70

It’s all about the money. TV is first and foremost a business. They’re not doing this for free.

The way that US network tv has traditionally been funded (very broadly and loosely, advertisers buying time on specific tv shows and/or specific time slots in blocks, in advance, with rates based on the expected number of viewers) lends itself to consistency in schedules and not 6 weeks of something that may never be seen again. From what I understand, British TV (even commercial British tv) gets funded very differently.
As you observed, shows will tend to air their “biggest” episodes in November, February, and May and use the weeks before to build interest. (again, entirely due to the way that money worked.) But the remainder is probably better suited for a different thread.

71

I, uh, think you mean “anthology” here. :wink:

For the record, at least some of the stories were also featured on the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It’s interesting to compare the two. (My favorite is “Lamb to the Slaughter.”) They’re pretty much all available on the Internet (e.g., YouTube, Daily Motion).

72

Probably worth an overview of what British TV is now and how it was originally funded.

I think originally it was the BBC which was the main network, and around mid 50s, I think ITV, a commercial channel was added. The BBC is funded by a license fee, but it must be paid to watch any channels. It cannot advertise because it is funded by a license. ITV is funded by advertising, but doesn’t have a huge advertising competitor like CBS/NBC in the US. ITV was a selection of different regions each with their own news, and programmes, which is why you’ll see idents from things like Thames TV. The different ITV areas were privatised or franchised (can’t remember if they were publically owned) in the 80s which made some of these old regions merge or lose the franchise.

BBC 2 was added in the late 60s to show sports and more niche programming, it’s there the likes of alternative comedy developed and non mainstream programmes.

Typically until the mid 80s there was no TV on before 10am on any channel. It would do schools till 12, educational programming, then kids for a few hours, then switch off all afternoon. Coming back around 4pm, it would run till around 11:30 and close down for the evenings.

In the mid 80s they started opening this up, with breakfast shows up at 6am. Various things could fill the mid afternoon spot, and they could show anything all night, opening up to US shows (the places where I’d watch things like Crime Story at 2am).

Channel 4 was added early 80s as an alternative to ITV for a commercial channel, it would be subsidised from the license fee and have advertising but would have a remit of alternative programming. This is why a lot of really good comedy came from Channel 4, for about 20 years until it discovered the cash cow which was Big Brother and lost a lot of its heart. It also held a lot of the US programmes, and you’d see Cheers and such on it.

Later they added Channel 5, with a remit of, well, who cares? Half the country couldn’t get it, and it was crap for those who did. Full of soft porn initially, it got a bit more liked when it found NCIS and CSI but it’s basically Tory TV now full of laugh at the poor people programming.

Sky/BSB was added on satellite and cable late 80s, and it opened up to tens to hundreds of channels, which mostly showed american shows. The cheaper of these appeared on Freeview later, which you could watch on terrestrial for a license. So we have 50 odd channels for free nowadays.

Other interesting things: The BBC has barely produce any decent comedy for 20 years, most of the more recentl good stuff has been Channel 4, which isn’t doing that much compared to the glory days. ITV passed onto cheap dramas and dropped any comedy at all sometime around 1991. So most of the time if you say you love British comedy it will be pre 2000, if past that, it will be Channel 4 only.

73

Since we’re mentioning panel shows - something the British do magnificently - we must throw in the amazing Only Connect. It blows me away how many average British citizens can solve these complex puzzles in just minutes. I’ve watched a good handful of episodes on YouTube, and I think I’ve only been able to answer the puzzle about three times. And I have a huge crush on Victoria Coren Mitchell.

Similarly, I have no idea how Rachel Riley can figure out the number puzzles on Countdown and 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown. I mean, I can make a start figuring out the anagrams, but I have no idea how to even begin with the numbers. Guess that’s why I’m not an Oxford-trained mathematician like she is.

Watching too many British panel shows is dangerous, though - you start whining about why Dara Ó Briain or Lee Mack or Sarah Millican never come to your town! Ó Briain cancelled a 2020 North American tour that had him coming to New York; I would have seriously contemplated flying up there just to see him.

74

Longish discussion here: Please recommend a show like Great British Baking Show

The general theme was: (a) British, and (b) anodyne, gentle to watch.

75

When I first started coming to Canada (2006), I watched the excellent detective series A Touch of Frost on public broadcasting. It starred David Jason, who was also in the classic (and very non-PC) comedy Only Fools and Horses.

Here’s a clip from it. The lads are on their way to a costume party when their van breaks down:

76

I’m glad you said something. We have Britbox and there are so many different shows I want to check out and only so many hours available for viewing. Being a fan of all things Doyle, I will have to move this to the top of the list, just as soon as finished with The Bletchley Circle

77

I loved Foyles war , except the last season which was preachy. The star also seemed to be phoning it in.

On Acorn there is Brokenwood Mysteries, which is Kiwi not Brit, but has the same flavor.

I wish they would release QI on USA DVDs. This regional thing is crap.

Yes, they take a whole season to solve a murder, which is a trifle more realistic than a hour. I want to move there.

Acorn is better, all of Midsomer is there.

78

Rachel Riley is awesome. Sometimes she will admit that the numbers round is particularly difficult and then say to Jimmy Carr, “I could only think of three ways of solving this one.” I’ve been trying to figure out how to get better at solving these types of problems. I heard her say that it helps to have the 75 times table memorized.

79

Yes Minister/Prime Minister has some of the sharpest political writing ever. The highlight clips on Youtube remain very watchable too.

80

And if she doesn’t want to binge on The Prisoner, there’s no chance she’ll watch the boxed sets of Thunderbirds and Sting Ray. :frowning: