OK, here's one that I would just like to find out for my own info. We have literally hundreds of American shows on TV over here some are brilliant - Stargate (well the original and new Universe are very very good! Not quite so into Atlantis though), Battlestar Galactica, All the Star Trek's and my families current favourite Flash Forward. I could never get into Lost though!

Some are pretty awful - the Bionic Woman (even if it did star a british actress!), Lost (sorry but it bores me rigid!) are my main examples.

Do any Brit series translate well over there? I know that Dr Who is pretty big, but what else? And what are peoples favorite "old" sci fi shows - I lived for Quantum Leap and Babylon 5!

I await your input with anticipation! Especially about Birt shows in the USA.

Okay so I'm a Brit who's been in North America for nearly 30 years.

You're right about Dr. Who, it probably has a bigger fan base in the USA numerically speaking than in the UK. There again, bedbugs probably have a fan base in the USA.

Basically any Brit show that airs on non-PBS channels in the USA is popular by definition. Most Brit shows on PBS are snoozers. (The Simpsons did a brilliant bit on this a few years ago.) Exceptions: Python, Fawlty Towers.

Torchwood airs on sci-fi channels here; I like(d) it. The Sarah Jane Smith Chronicles or whatever it was did not and I think that was a wise choice.

Every American version of a Brit hit has been a pathetic flop (e.g. The Office, and whatever they called the copies of Fawlty Towers, Love thy Neighbour, and Steptoe and Son). Exception: American Idol. Even when they do nothing aside from retitle a show they give it a silly title, e.g. "Randall & Hopkirk (deceased)" -> "My Partner the Ghost". Puke.

Aside from the Who universe, I don't know if I can name any Brit scifi shows made since the 80s. The late 60s/early 70s was of course a massive flowering of creativity and many of the shows made then are still in reruns (e.g. The Prisoner, UFO, Space 1999). Many shows did not appeal sufficiently on balance to North American audiences to get transplanted (e.g. The Tomorrow People). Who and Python have numerous Brit-specific references that I am quite sure fly right over the heads of 99% of Americans but they don't mind as there's so much other stuff they can like.

I never got into Red Dwarf.

Trust me, there are plenty of awful USAian scifi shows that I imagine Aunty Beeb protected your tender eyes from and which you are blissfully unaware of. My life would be the richer from never having heard of A.L.F..

Just what *are* the current made-in-Blighty scifi shows?

We got DW here on the public (noncommercial) TV station for years. I watched it because someone else did. Never found it very interesting and the cheese factor (this was during the Tom Wassisname years, then the early Peter Davison years) was pretty high.

I was a rabid Trekkie in high school, mid-1970s.

Very little else media-STFnal ever caught my attention. I ended up watching B5 about a year after the series concluded because I had an hour in the afternoon I could do little else... and it caught me big time. Between serial broadcast, a beautiful set of off-air edited tapes I made, and then the DVDs, Audrey and I have watched it through perhaps four times, and there's no ruling out more viewings. Simply the most superb effort ever brought to television - not in sets, which barely cleared the DW bar sometimes; not in acting (especially not the brother-of-the-producer guest shots), but in fabulous story and exposition and above all rigid adherence to a strong, strong set of story arcs. I love that an issue brought up in the original pilot is not resolved until the very last episode, five years later, with no straining to fit it in.

We got caught up in BSG after it was discussed here, shortly after the last show. Loved it, got extremely tired of some of the characters (Brass Balls Starbuck, Crabby Ol' Bastard Tighe, Spineless Joe) but others - Adama, Chief and Six in particular - never failed to please. When I realized that the notion of a story arc was lost and they were winging it season to season, only to retcon in the whole "Final Five" thing, and all of the careful groundwork of the first two seasons was lost in a mish-mash of nonsensical mysticism and let's-pretend, I almost gave up... but I'm glad to have watched it all the way through. Will probably never watch it again, especially after the final Starbuck nonsense, whipped out of some writer's posterior without a thought as to integrating it into the existing story.

That's about it. Never was much of a media SF type otherwise...

I spent a cold, rainy/snowy week in a rented cottage on the Dorset coast this past February, and watched a lot of British TV on the excellent Sky TV sattelite service. It seemed to me that 50% or more of the programming, particularly on the commercial channels, was American. I did enjoy watching the Super Bowl on the BBC, because instead of commercials they ran game commentary.

In general I don't watch much Sci Fi programming on TV, American or British. One British program I do really enjoy is Top Gear, which plays on BBC America on my local FIOS service. It's by far the funniest, most entertaining show on TV.

My 10 year old daughter and I have a "date" every sunday to watch Top Gear!

Red dwarf was IMHO brilliant, and there was a rather good little thing called the Young Ones - VERY british anarchic comedy.

I heard that the Office went down well over in the states - obviously I heard wrong!

Have you seen extras? That is another Rick Gervais outing that has flashes of brilliance (especially the one with Ben Stiller in it).

Current Brit Sci Fi is a bit thin on the ground, Ashes to Ashes is (sort of) Sci Fi ish - roughly about time travel into the past but more complicated than that! (Sorry!)

How about:

They keep throwing the ball - bloody strangest game of Rugby I have ever seen!!!!

We havent really had the American version of the Office over here, wasnt it Steve Carrell in it?

We have a very "odd" sense of humour over here, which doesnt seem to travel very well!

will throw in my 2 cents here

although they weren't sci-fi based, my favorite brit tv shows have been <insert drum roll>

"Benny Hill"- if you love slap stick humor, benny was the tops

"Are You Being Served?"- the ensemble acting was spot on!

ok ok i'll even admit to watching an episode (or 3 or 9) of "East Enders" ! even though this was essentially a soap opera, i found some of the plot twists interesting and individual charactors engaging

like alot of americans, brit humor sometimes goes over my head, but when it doesn't, i laugh my arse off


Nick

LOL Keith

ok ok i can also admit that i only sat through one or 2 whole episodes of EE !!

never got into malcom in the middle - rather i liked, and recently bought a 44 DVD set of "Everyone Loves Raymond", an exaggerated and comedic view of a italian-american family. Another brilliant bit of ensemble acting- saw bits and pieces of these shows enacted in everyday italian descent families who i grew up around !

try this one if you get the chance - thinking you may enjoy it

nick

British shows that I've enjoyed that I don't think anyone else has mentioned so far:

The Vicar of Dibley
Coupling
Mistresses
The Secret Diary of a Call Girl

OK, maybe I should stop now that the obvious pattern has emerged. But Coupling really was brilliant.

I tried to watch Benny Hill several times over the years. I really tried.

I discovered that when everyone else is laughing and you stand there looking bewildered it kind of dampens the party though and I gave up.

I have the same reaction to the Three Stooges.

Perhaps I am just dense or perhaps it is a gender thing....What exactly is funny here that I am not getting?

Interesting juxtaposition... Benny Hill and Curly were much alike, on and off screen. Never realized it before.

The (american) Office has been a "hit" show, although the quality of it has been hit-or-miss. My wife and I enjoy the PBS shows shown through the "Masterpiece Mystery" brand as direct imports. The Inspector Lewis series has been decent although we often wonder if there are any people left alive in Oxford based on the amount of strange murders that happen there.

I'd have to go back to the "Hitchhiker's Guide" shows to tell you one I really liked. Red Dwarf was fun but I never managed to see it all.

Now that this has opened up and I don't have to stick to sci-fi:
Monty Python (cannot be anything but first)
Black Adder -- I know lots of people don't get it, but I love it
Jeeves and Wooster adaptations -- more Steven Fry and Hugh Laurie!
the Poirot mysteries
Bishop of Dibley
The Young Ones
As Time Goes By -- made the the decades past 50 look cozy and fun, and not scary; came along at the right time for me
there was a Robin Hood series that looked magically delicious, but saw only a few episodes

American sci-fi TV favs (and a couple not really sci-fi) are:
Star Trek (esp. TOS, NG - #1, and V)
Firefly
Alien Nation
Babylon 5 but I only saw the first two or three seasons
X-Files -- we're watching season 4; X-Files are a Halloween tradition for us
Boston Legal
Northern Exposure
M.A.S.H.

In the last two seasons, South Park has moved past all other modern animated series, IMHO. And Team America is my favorite animated movie, but we're not talking movies, or I'd have to add Them and Forbidden Planet and so many more of the oldies to the American sci-fi list, as well as the newer The Man From Earth, which is a little bit like a conversation with L. Long right before the ship lifts.

TV I could never get into:
the Stooges -- they are soo mindlessly violent and depressing
Alf
spectator sports, whether openly staged or not

while appreciation of slapstick humor may have a gender bias, I'm thinking that it's the sort of thing that either strikes you as funny or it falls flat on it's face

with that said, I'll throw in a vote for Laurel and Hardy- a notch above the 3 stooges imho- Stan's stupid grin and fluffing of his hair will make me giggle in a heartbeat ! yep lotsa pratfalls for Stan and Ollie but never any blood or broken bones- oh yeah Stan Laurel was a brit !

as for (almost) contemporary tv will also throw in a vote for Third Watch and the Sopranos- i'm discovering that i definitely have a bias for ensemble acting! Sorry folks I don't watch a whole lot of network tv here-