91 replies to this topic

[al-x]

Europe is a big place but in the UK it's mostly the same kind of stuff but they have evening soaps which are not really like US soaps, they are ongoing kitchen sink dramas with a lot higher production values and more realistic subject matter than US daytime soaps. Also daily talk shows have never taken off, you get the likes of Jonathan Ross where the format isn't that far removed from Leno/Letterman etc but they are weekly so you get less of them but tend to get a better mix of guests and a bit less filler as a result.

I always did like "Are you being served?" a long time ago.
I never did get into "East Enders" but I always respected it.


Al...

[Arjan Dirkse]

Overall I'd say my all time favorite tv shows are American...Seinfeld, Twin Peaks, South Park.

BBC is good at documentaries though.

Lately the only sitcoms I can stand are reruns of King of Queens and According To Jim.

So...am I correct to assume you're a bit chubby?

[The Lorcan Nagle]

Can't argue with any of that.

I can. Beavis and Butt-Head is not stupid.

[garjones]

BBC is good at documentaries though.

Yes still an area where they have dominance. Discovery over here shows a mix of US and UK shows (I believe they do in the US too but dub over the British commentary sometimes, like Walking with Dinosaurs swapped Ken Brannagh with Avery Brooks) and you do go from Attenborough's Blue Planet to "When Sharks Attack!" in quality quite often. I think the US makes good documentaries for the cinema but on TV I can't think of anything that stands out.

[Ogul]

I'll agree that I enjoyed cartoons more back then. But I was also at the age where I should have been enjoying cartoons. I think Adventure Time is pretty great, however. No idea if I'd have liked it as a kid, but probably. Because it's very outlandish.

Yeah, I remember loving cartoons like He-Man, Transformers, GI-Joe, Thundercats, Silverhawks, etc. as a kid, but anyone who has watched those shows within the past five years and can still claim that they were "great" just has no taste at all. They had some interesting design elements to them, but they were horribly thrown together messes. The more modern cartoons like Spectacular Spider-Man, Young Justice, Avatar, and new Thundercats blow those older shows completely out of the water. The only shows that still hold up from roughly that period would be Batman, and maybe X-Men.

Now that said, I've never been a fan of "random crap" cartoons, and Cartoon Network seems to have plenty of those these days, but then they've always had plenty of those, so that's nothing new.

[garjones]

Yes I think there's an element that the golden age of cartoons is whenever you were 6.

[Johnny Henning]

Europe is a big place but in the UK it's mostly the same kind of stuff but they have evening soaps which are not really like US soaps, they are ongoing kitchen sink dramas with a lot higher production values and more realistic subject matter than US daytime soaps. Also daily talk shows have never taken off, you get the likes of Jonathan Ross where the format isn't that far removed from Leno/Letterman etc but they are weekly so you get less of them but tend to get a better mix of guests and a bit less filler as a result.

The reality TV stuff is almost identical as they just ship the formats across so half the time they have the same title sequence, music and even presenters.

South Korea produces some really popular soap opera material. You can see a lot of SK shows on Hulu as well. My wife is addicted to it, but I heard (possibly a legend) that Japan actually passed a law limiting the number of foreign produced soap operas available for broadcast in the country due to the incredible popularity of S. Korean shows in Japan.

Or maybe it was China that restricts them, but is there anything China doesn't restrict?

[Ogul]

South Korea produces some really popular soap opera material. You can see a lot of SK shows on Hulu as well. My wife is addicted to it, but I heard (possibly a legend) that Japan actually passed a law limiting the number of foreign produced soap operas available for broadcast in the country due to the incredible popularity of S. Korean shows in Japan.

They mentioned the popularity of SK soaps on NHK a couple weeks back, I kind of doubt that they would have a law specifically to limit them, although they might have a law about the amount of foreign programming on or something.

[garjones]

South Korea produces some really popular soap opera material. You can see a lot of SK shows on Hulu as well. My wife is addicted to it, but I heard (possibly a legend) that Japan actually passed a law limiting the number of foreign produced soap operas available for broadcast in the country due to the incredible popularity of S. Korean shows in Japan.

Or maybe it was China that restricts them, but is there anything China doesn't restrict?

Korean soaps are super popular here too. The interesting thing about them though is unlike European and American soaps they don't go on forever. They tell a finite longform story and then start again with most of the same actors with a new story, a bit like a Vertigo series rather than a superhero book.

[The Lorcan Nagle]

That's awesome

[Tonycal]

No one here has mentioned The X-Files. That was a great show! Also like many have said HBO, AMC, FX and SHOWTIME are producing great shows right now. Those are the main channels I watch.

[Will Carper]

About a third of X-Files was a great show (not the main-story third).

"Humbug" is a brilliant episode.

[garjones]

That's awesome

It may be a formula that works better. I don't know if it's been tried that much elsewhere, a 200 or 300 episode daily soap that ends.

I mean people across Asia are not that into shows in other languages, they show Indonesian stuff here because the language is the same but nobody watches Thai or Filipino or Japanese stuff (only anime dubbed into English first). The Korean soaps break that rule. I have no idea what's going on but the actresses are very good looking so I tolerated it when Audrey got hooked on one briefly.

[John Mosby]

I observed a while ago, from spending a lot of time in both countries, that we see the best of the US material and they see the best of ours in the UK - but there's a lot of other stuff inbetween in both cases that's not quite as good.

However, last night in the US there was Person of Interest, Big Bang Theory, Scandal, Awake and The Mentalist spread across the networks. In the UK, we've recently given the US the likes of Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, Sherlock etc as exports.

It basically makes me feel we've ALL got some pretty good TV at the moment...

[garjones]

I observed a while ago, from spending a lot of time in both countries, that we see the best of the US material and they see the best of ours in the UK - but there's a lot of other stuff inbetween in both cases that's not quite as good.

Absolutely. It's like the hype around Nordic crime shows now. They are good but we get one or two hours a week to their full schedule.

Unless you have an immense amount of spare time though I think we should revel in the good stuff on offer. I'm a dad of two which restricts the time I have and just watched the last Sherlock and a Walking Dead last night, both were fantastic, there seems to more good TV than I have time for so if there's a lot of crap, and there is across the board, I don't have to watch it.

I think the truth is with torrents and cable channels numbering in the hundreds we aren't as geographically tied as we used to be. Doctor Who in the US airs 5 hours after the UK and gets 1.2m, some network shows in the US don't get those numbers, CNN doesn't.

[Arjan Dirkse]

Dutch tv is pretty dire. So I won't say a single bad word about American tv.

That said, in the nineties there was a brilliant Dutch comedy show called Jiskefet. It is glorious but probably completely incomprehensible to any non-Dutch.

Edited by Arjan Dirkse, 11 May 2012 - 09:50 PM.

[Robert B]

We're lucky right now in that the NBA playoffs are on. That's the best thing on American television, although it only happens for two months a year.

After that, we're lucky for Louie. Season 2 was my favorite season of television by any show ever. I'd like to see the boundaries pushed in comedy a bit more. I'm not really a fan of the standard sit-com (with the exception of Parks & Rec). The Honeymooners and All in the Family were great shows but I'm not sure why we're still bound by roughly the same formulas we've been using for 50 years. I think British TV was a little ahead of the curve in introducing new comic formulas, but they've stagnated a little (that I've seen) while the US has improved, albeit at a trickle.

Anyway, I'm actually one of those D-bags who doesn't watch much TV.

Edited by Robert B, 11 May 2012 - 10:55 PM.

[Ogul]

I think the truth is with torrents and cable channels numbering in the hundreds we aren't as geographically tied as we used to be. Doctor Who in the US airs 5 hours after the UK and gets 1.2m, some network shows in the US don't get those numbers, CNN doesn't.

And keep in mind, that's on a cable network that is not part of most packages. I don't get BBC America and would have to pay something like $10-15 per month extra to pick it up along with a handful of other channels. If it were airing on a more standard channel like Syfy, USA, TNT, etc. it would likely double its ratings or more.

[Todd Gross]

About a third of X-Files was a great show (not the main-story third).

"Humbug" is a brilliant episode.

"Home" is my favorite with "Humbug" a close second.


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Korean soaps are super popular here too. The interesting thing about them though is unlike European and American soaps they don't go on forever. They tell a finite longform story and then start again with most of the same actors with a new story, a bit like a Vertigo series rather than a superhero book.

American Horror Story is doing something similar. Each 13-episode season will be a different with some of the same actors in new roles.


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[Christian U]

I hope we'll see more of that kind of format, it makes for a nice change. And American Horror story did it well, I'm looking forward to the next characters and story.

Skins is of course another example for a series switching leads.