American thoughts on Brit TV

Hi,

I'm sorry about the layoff. I thought some of you might like a chance to read this,besides the above metioned.

First off,I almost feel like I have to apologize to you.I feel like you all might be thinking we all are all morons over here now a days. Trust me,we are not. There are lot of us who do not think the stuffy two-faced,bible belt,bible thumping types that run the goverment these days here. To get to the censorship question,I don't agree with it. It think it was stupid of Janet Jackson to have set the thing up at the Super Bowl two years ago(She knew what she was doing) but it didn't need the hysteria that came with it. A lot of things like that I think are done just for the contreversy and it irriates me. To me,why waste your time??? Why not spend your time trying to come up with something to entertain pepole?? Why do that??? Perhaps that's all you have the talent to come with in the first place(Ms Jackson,for the most part excluded).

As for your TV over there,I like it. I got interested in it watching the britcoms(Ie Are you Being Served,Fawlty,Keeping up appearances) and have never looked back,I suppose. One things stands out though,Your shows seasons' don't seem to last long enough. Maybe I just basing it on the old stuff,but all it seems like the shows have are 6-12 Episode seasons. I would at least let you guys have the 22 that we have here or maybe 18. You guys deserve a lot more. To me with 22,you go to know the characters a lot more. The expection here,being Tony Soprano and all we needed was ten weeks to get to know him. Anyway,to me you get viewers attatched more with longer season,but that's just me.

I love the con announcers that you all had,I think it could work here on a cable network.It could also work I think for the NEW CV(??) Network,the combo of the WB and UPN. I love the fan following that your soaps have. I kaughed wihen eastenders producers were worried about only pulling down 8 million viewers.There are soaps here right now that would kill for that!!!
Anyway that's a start,I'm just one yank,though.

Later,

Pole

PS-Oh,I'd cut down on the documentries and add more entertainment across the board. I'm glad you all like US stuff and keep up the interested.But if I were execs over there,Id start more home grown programs.

Yeh, i agree we brits have a better sense of humour when it comes to tv but there are some US shows that are funny. The Simpsons is one of the best examples of cool humour in the US. There is also Futurama, which was made from the creator of Le Simpsons

Less episodes per series/season.

Quality not quantity

Thanks very much for sharing your views on British TV, Polethebear. I have to say that I, too, enjoy Keeping Up Appearances - some of those episodes were fantastic. Have you ever seen Open All Hours, Only Fools and Horses, Dad's Army or Yes Minister/Prime Minister? If not, then I'd suggest having a look at them some day as they are considered to be among the best British sitcoms ever made.

Although I like British sitcoms, I also like American ones. I love watching Seinfeld, Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Golden Girls, Home Improvement etc. There's just something about US sitcoms that I like and it is difficult to describe. I think they are much better produced than the British sitcoms and the jokes tend to be a bit more risque than here.

To answer your question about the number of episodes per season/series (that's another interesting difference - I gather Americans refer to a year's run of a programme as a 'season', whereas in Britain, we refer to that as a 'series'. I believe you refer to the whole run of a programme over a number of years as a 'series'. Am I right?) the reason is that there is nowhere near the amount of money involved in British TV as there is in American. The broadcasters just cannot afford to make 22 episodes per year, hence why we only get between 6 and 12.

Not just that but the vast majority of Sitcoms are written by just one or two writers; compared to the team writing style as used in the US which makes it possible to have much longer runs.

Why do you call them seasons? Is it something to do with the series lasting longer?

I say Season and not Series and SKY say saeson to,

As for the number of episodes made a year The British TV broadcasters just cannot afford to make 22 episodes per year, hence why we only get between 6 and 12. So make less shows and more episodes a year we could axe some of the lesser shows and do more episodes of the better one like Dr Who,My Hero,My Family.

My Family is the only british sitcom written in american style with a panel of writters.

Bringing in other writters on british shows would completely kill them stone dead, Id throw a rock at anyone who suggested it

That's 'The CW Network' - C for CBS (owner of UPN) and W for Warner Brothers. They turned down the idea of calling it 'The WC Network' very early on apparently

American Shows use teams of writters, so they get enough episodes to syndicate for an entire season schedule, plus they have larger budgets.

UK Shows are normally written by a single person or a small group of 2-3. Also alot of our shows are not one-off episodes, and so a story arc could last a full 6 episodes and if it was longer, it would be easy to loose track of the on-going plot.

I would love to have more episodes of Waking the Dead, Sea of Souls, Judge John Deed, but the quality would go down, so its a tough balance.

UK Channels have more one-off documentaries, or dramas, which make the schedules more dynamic, where as the US Networks are planned months ahead, and are pretty rigid, with changes mid season being rare, such as pulling a show if it has low ratings.

Hello Pole. I bet you have a better name than that. Do tell.

Season lengths in the US can be a mixed blessing. In the case of plot-derived shows like Lost, it makes the programme sluggish and lazy, and the viewer has to wait endlessley for the middle and end of the story.

In the case of other shows like Star Trek it works a treat. Mostly because as a developing story it can just keep going.

The main other thing to remember is that the US Networks only exist as networks for 3-4 hours per night, compared to the 20-24 hour UK networks. Everything is put into primetime as this is all that counts for NBC,CBS,ABC & FOX.