Author Archives: Christine

Your final ratings update of the semester: Britain’s Got Talent crushed The Voice this weekend.

I came into the semester not having had very much experience with British television, and it seemed that experience was what I needed to grow in my appreciation of television from our friends across the pond. The more I watched … Continue reading →

This course was a great foray into understanding and enjoying British television, but in many ways, I thought it was even more interesting as a cultural study. TV, as the main populist form of entertainment in most countries, as it … Continue reading →

Guess what, ratings are now falling for The Voice, and some are saying it’s because the judges are too nice. They just can’t make up their minds. Also, Channel 4 has ordered a full series of Ricky Gervais’s Derek.

Here’s another comparison of UK and US TV, this one sparked by the Homeland finale. (Warning: If you haven’t watched Homeland yet and don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read this)

The main distinguishing factor of British television for me was its unique scheduling practices. Shows aren’t on at the same time every day, and with the short-run seasons sometimes appearing with breaks of multiple years, you can never really expect … Continue reading →

A My Family star says the BBC told her they cancelled the sitcom because they had too many middle-class sitcoms (like Outnumbered and Miranda) and needed more working-class ones. And the BBC has announced some new drama commissions; In the … Continue reading →

Faye Woods asked a student to talk to some peers about their reactions to British comedy, and here is his response: “I asked around and this seems to be the general consensus as to the British response to Brit comedy: -That it … Continue reading →

I’m not sure who Jack Cooper is (i.e. if he works in the industry or is a critic), but he has a blog post lamenting that US sitcoms are better than UK sitcoms today, and he thinks importing the writers’ … Continue reading →

Since everyone else has posted a little something about each of the shows we watched this week, I wanted to provide some of my own thoughts, both in agreement and differing from those comments already made. First, the episode of … Continue reading →

I don’t know if you guys have been following the News Corp. hacking scandal (I don’t recall bringing it up much in class), but the potential implications for British TV have just gotten huge. Short version of the hacking part: … Continue reading →

The BBC has received complaints about the depiction of violence in one of its procedural series, and just based on the print description, it sounds like nothing more than what you’d ordinarily see on US TV.

Broadcast reports that ITV is making a big push into scripted comedy, especially of the mass, pre-watershed sort. ITV’s director of entertainment and comedy says: “We dropped out of the comedy game and it feels like there has been incompleteness … Continue reading →

The Bafta award nominations for TV are out, and you’ll be familiar with some of the nominees. Among the shows getting love are This is England ’88, Misfits, The Crimson Petal and the White, Our War, Mrs. Brown’s Boys, Rev, … Continue reading →

I should caveat my title by saying, though, that I don’t think I could watch more than a few episodes of it. Maybe the one-season, short run nature of it is actually perfect. Because all that singing would get old, … Continue reading →