I've been watching some shows from the BBC and it put how big the Earth is into perspective. Seeing fictional events and drama transpire in London feels foreign to me. But while watching American TV these things would be happening in LA or New York and feel more natural for me as a viewer. Interesting take on my perspective.

We have a large multi-country group here, does anyone else suffer from this while watching shows produced in other countries?

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-"Young" James

"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like." -Steven Hawking

I've been watching some shows from the BBC and it put how big the Earth is into perspective. Seeing fictional events and drama transpire in London feels foreign to me. But while watching American TV these things would be happening in LA or New York and feel more natural for me as a viewer. Interesting take on my perspective.

We have a large multi-country group here, does anyone else suffer from this while watching shows produced in other countries?

I've been watching Doctor WHO for decades, now, so London feels natural to me... (Visited there in 1999.)

Check out Red Dwarf, and Are You Being Served, OH and Eastenders... OH and Absolutely Fabulous!!! (Red Dwarf is Sci-Fi Comedy, AYBS and AbFab are Comedies.) BBC used to air these shows on PBS through Lionheart Television back in the 80's.


TL

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TimeLord04
Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
Join Calm Chaos

I grew up on a mix of TV shows, from here in Canada, from the US, from Europe, etc., so it seems quite natural to me to watch a show from far away. It sort of adds to the drama, to see cops chasing bad guys in New Delhi or in New York.

Having said that, certain made-in-Canada shows have a particular appeal to me. I guess this comes from watching a genre that usually comes from the US or the UK take place in towns I know.

Does anybody outside of Canada get an old comedy series called Corner Gas? That, to me, is a totally Canadian production, and I would be interested in hearing what others think of it.

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I've always loved public tv, and quite a bit of that is from the BBC.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Waldorf Salad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6pN-fDh4DU

Like Time Lord, I also grew up with weekly does of Doctor Who. Plus I have an intense fascination with history. Starting in second grade when I focused on Greek mythology I became familiar with the Greek islands. World War II movies painted the European landscape in my mind. The study of the History of English, meeting and becoming friends with one of the Czar's grand daughters, spending time in an adobe hut with my great grandfather and leading his mules as we plowed a field, working at a Renaissance Faire speaking forsoothly and building my own plate armor, all these things have made me a global citizen. BBC programming is as common to me as most American programming. However, I still have problems with Baliwood.

Not exactly responding to your question, I have to say I find it odd that the only channel on my cable that carries the American-produced Star Trek TNG is BBC America... and that is one of the few shows I watch on that channel. Dr. Who, of course, and the occasional movie. No interest at all in Top Gear or Graham Norton or Kitchen Nightmares. Let's see what's on soon:

Troy
Silence of the lambs
[repeat]
Top gear
Cash in the attic
x2
Kitchen nightmares
x2
Dr. Who
x2
ST:TNG
x8
The Fifth Element

Which brings us to this time tomorrow night.

The later few of ST are ones I like, but they're on at the same time as some NCISes I also like.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Thats weird.
BBC shows are shown regulary here.
Britcom:)
BBC Horizon.
David Attenborough.
Emmerdal Farm for 40 years;)
Many more....

Hey as long as it's interesting, I might watch it, heck I watch Anime(subbed in English), whose audio is in Japanese and sometime the credits are in English, TWC just won't put up Anime in English(dubbed), yes I complained about that. I have a DVD collection that I can't access right now, with more Anime, with English audio...

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Hey as long as it's interesting, I might watch it, heck I watch Anime(subbed in English), whose audio is in Japanese and sometime the credits are in English, TWC just won't put up Anime in English(dubbed), yes I complained about that. I have a DVD collection that I can't access right now, with more Anime, with English audio...

I have the same from Directv. And when something was English dubbed. It was not what I wanted to watch. But I do have access to my Anime collection.

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I recall a few years back staying in a hotel in Milan, watching BBC Gold on a Wednesday evening, back to back StarTrek, starting with the first series, then working through the various follow-on series (with a break scheduled in so one could get dinner!).
All in English, but with Italian sub-titles :-)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I've been watching some shows from the BBC and it put how big the Earth is into perspective. Seeing fictional events and drama transpire in London feels foreign to me. But while watching American TV these things would be happening in LA or New York and feel more natural for me as a viewer. Interesting take on my perspective.

We have a large multi-country group here, does anyone else suffer from this while watching shows produced in other countries?

No, actually I like watching shows from other countries. While in Mexico I watch their news to see how they think about us. They even show Europen Channels for visitors from Netherlands and Russia

In Eastern Europe I watch RT ( called Real TV in the USA but know as Russia Today in the rest of the world)
They don't hold back their contempt for America or what they really think about our president.

Its a good source to see what the rest of the world reports about us compared to what the major networks here want us to know.

If you want to see what their young think, they have a social media that is actually a stolen code for facebook called Contact or VKontact.

I use Google translate to view it. Opens your eyes

In UK, it's fun to watch American Shows and how people ask if we really are like that. No, it's not. We all don't live in Hollywood or Miami or New York.

So in short. no

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The truth is that UK Humour is nothing like American humour, it loses a certain something in travelling over the pond. We can laugh ourselves silly at Morecambe & Wise, while they would think it rubbish!

Well now you might think that, however I have first hand experience that says otherwise.

A couple of years back whilst visiting a certain other SETI participant in the wilds of New Hampshire, we were at the top of Mount Cannon waiting for the "aerial tramway" ride down when a woman with her family hearing my English accent engaged me in conversation regarding our comedy shows and in particular "Are you being served", whilst I believe they may have been laughing at us. It appears they do in fact enjoy several, can't actually remember the other shows she mentioned. Also from what I remember Benny Hill was very popular in the US.

Also thinking about the thread title in reverse, American Shows on UK TV, you have to remember that in the UK we have been watching US shows since the 50's. I can remember Rawhide, Wagon Train, Highway Patrol and my favourite as a 7/8 year old was Cannonball (OK it was Canadian). About two truck drivers.

So here in the UK we also grew up with a lot of your shows and have to admit that before I stopped watching TV last year my recent favorites were the CSI/NCIS shows (except Miami never liked him).

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The truth is that UK Humour is nothing like American humour, it loses a certain something in travelling over the pond. -Chris S

I agree with this, a lot of UK Humour compared to the US humor is quite different. I have had times where I was watching BBC shows or other UK shows and felt that a lot was lost due to slight cultural differences. And had often given them up or moved on.

However while watching shows like The IT Crowd and Dr Who 2005 I had A LOT of laughs. And in the time since I had originally posted this thread, I have already started adjusting quite a bit to the different perspective. I have also been watching Dr Who for about 7 seasons now and it has quickly became one of my favorite shows ever. On a side note I was also very disappointed that The IT Crowd didn't ever wrap up and just ended.

So in a way I believe that finally sticking it through with a few shows has changed my perspective.

Any suggestions to continue my voyage with UK shows after catching up on Dr Who? Maybe I just need to jump all in!

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-"Young" James

"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like." -Steven Hawking

But there was crap, Car54 where are you, the Cosby stuff, and Prince of Bel Air etc.

The Fresh Prince was a little too fresh perhaps? Haha!

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-"Young" James

"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like." -Steven Hawking

"Morse"

Big thumbs up on Inspector Morse. :~)

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

The truth is that UK Humour is nothing like American humour, it loses a certain something in travelling over the pond. We can laugh ourselves silly at Morecambe & Wise, while they would think it rubbish!

Oh and a Government Surgeon General's health warning

Avoid UK soaps at all costs, i.e. Emmerdale, Coronation Street, and East Enders. They are fictional programs that bear no resemblance whatsoever to everyday real UK life. We do not have pubs burning down, train & plane crashes, murders, or extra marital affairs every week on every street corner. It is all hyped up for the ratings here Soap awards. Th winner gets the most advertisng revenue for their channel. That is what it is all about, money. Bad acting and cheesy scripts = cash in the bank.

Quite apart from which all three of them portray screeching female actresses in their 20's/30's that haven't got an ounce of talent between them, and in real life actually would be buried under the patio!

AVOID

You do realize that most of what happens in US shows is also inflated, and for the same reasons.

I think a lot of the failure of British humor to translate is just in the cultural references that aren't familiar to us (major example: Ford Prefect).

My mother read all the Inspector Morse books, so it was natural for us to watch the shows. Since she passed, I have continued to watch Inspector Lewis, when I'm aware that it's on. She also read the Brother Cadfael books and we caught the few productions of that which appeared on PBS. Ditto Dalziel and Whatsisname. We also watched the detective show with Richard Griffiths as a chef who keeps getting dragged back to being a cop, but I liked that better than she did. There was another detective series too; I think we saw the show first and then I got her the books from the library. We also tried the Linley series, but didn't like it. She liked the Vicar of Dibley better than I did. And she really liked As Time Goes By, while I only tolerated it, but being familiar with it let me in on the joke of M squabbling with the admiral in some of the Bond films.

Blake's 7 appeared on PBS (at least in Chicago) after Dr. Who and we watched it for a while, but it wasn't as much fun as Who.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

As Time Goes By

My mother really likes that show.

Inspector Lewis never caught on with me. I just really liked John Thaw.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

I recall when I was working in the US, at the tail end of the 1970s, a group of young Americas were trying to analyse the source of the humour in Monty Python. They c/wouldn't accept that the source was that it was all totally beyond such futile attempts, they c/wouldn't just sit back and enjoy the ride...
'twas great fun for us Brits (and Frogs) who just sat back laughing at the futility of their attempts....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?