"What's on the telly?"
"Looks like a penguin."
I was never a stranger to British TV. Every Sunday night at 10:30 my siblings and I watched Monty Python religiously. We also watched other comedies like Fawlty Towers, The Goodies, The Good Life, and Butterflies. The program Masterpiece Theater showed wonderful British dramas, with Poldark being my favorite. I was a real connoisseur of British TV.
Or so I thought.
Those TV shows were from the 70's. When I got here I was shocked to learn that I didn't know any of the current programs or celebrities. My induction into British TV consisted of watching mindless daytime TV like cooking and DIY (do-it-yourself) shows.
The DIY shows varied. There were shows about how to spruce up your house if you were selling it, or how to use those odds and ends of wood, paint, etc. to create some wondrous and exciting new room. What eye-openers! I never realised just how small some houses were, or that people would actually paint rooms in garish colors like orange or lime green.
Speaking of eye-opener...one day I was watching a show called "Escape to the Country." This is a show in which a city couple, who want to move to the country, are presented with beautiful homes in the countryside which they can potentially bid on and buy.
On this particular program, the city couple were nudists looking for that private country home in the sticks. As they were being interviewed, they showed the woman from the waist up, totally barebreasted. (And, shall we say, she was no lightweight.) Did I mention that this was at 12:00 on a Sunday afternoon? I called out to Hubby, "Look! Look! There's a naked woman on TV and it's only 12:00 in the afternoon!" He came in, shrugged his shoulders and left the room. Ha, nothing new over here.
All these years later, we tend to watch documentaries, BBC dramas or movies. Cooking shows are still a favorite, since we both like to cook. As for the "fluff" you can always catch me watching music shows like American Idol (shown a day later than in the US) or the X Factor. If there's really nothing on, Hubby will dig out his DVDs of Frasier, his favorite sitcom. Funny, but I never watched it in the States, but I love it now.
Basically, TV here is just as bad as back home. To quote Bruce Springsteen, "Fifty-seven channels and nothing on." Actually we have about 10 times that amount of channels. And most times there's still nothing on!
Here are a few other quirky (to an American) facts about British TV:
- We have to pay for a TV license each year. Yup, and we can be in big trouble if we don't pay. I know, I know, it seems really, really wrong and backwards. But actually the money is used to fund the BBC, which means that the channels BBC1 and BBC2 show programs with no commercials. NO commercials. Now that's worth it!
- Speaking of commercials, they're awful! While we don't get nearly as many commercial breaks as in the US, we do get the same ads repeated over and over and over. We see this guy a lot (click on the words below):
Now you know why the mute button gets used a lot in our house!
- TV shows have strange start and end times. In the US, TV shows generally start either on the hour or the half hour. Here, you might have a TV show start at 6:50 PM and end at 8:15. I don't really know why that is. And a program that you watch from week to week might have a different starting time every week. How anyone can keep track of their favorite TV show is beyond me!
- There is an abundance of American TV here, including:
The Simpsons
ER
Two and a Half Men
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Frasier
Scrubs
Glee
Judge Judy
Friends
And...
Jerry Springer. I'm so proud.
No comments:
Post a Comment