Whenever Dave and I turn on our TV, we are amazed at what we find. There are plenty of funny British commercials (at least funny to us, they are perfectly serious for the Brits). And a few British shows, but the majority of the TV programming is older US shows or older episodes of current US shows. All of these are advertised as hit US shows, I'll let you be the judge. I would bet that for many of us only a handful, if any, of these would make our list of BEST American TV shows. This is just a small sampling, many of the others are a lot WORSE than these:
1) How I Met Your Mother
2) The Big Bang Theory
3) Sex and the City - there is an obsession here not to be believed
4) Friends
5) Chuck - on every hour in the evening
6) Law & Order - in all its varieties
7) Desperate Housewives
8) American Idol
9) Scrubs
10) Veronica Mars
11) Two and a Half Men
12) Scooby Doo
13) My Super Sweet Sixteen (MTV)
14) The Jerry Springer Show
In other Bizzaro news, Dave and I know Gordon Ramsey from his US show, Kitchen Confidential. We have only caught pieces of that show, but he spends a lot of time yelling at chefs that can't live up to his expectations. He is notorious for his foul language. Here there is a show of his called The f Word. When it came on, we couldn't change the channel. He was having fun, laughing and teasing the four people he had helping him cook. A guy burned Gordon's arm with a hot pan and Gordon laughed it off. We couldn't believe this was the same person, truly bizzarro. I mean, do the Brits think he is a big teddy bear???
Also, almost every reality show you can think of exists here as well. Britain's Next Top Model, The Apprentice, Britain's Got Talent, Big Brother, and the list goes on and on and on.
Sometimes it is frankly embarrassing to see a show that is advertised as being a hit show in America, when it is SO terrible. When the Brits watch it, do they think, Americans are really shallow and stupid? So this leads me to an interesting question, If you could pick a few shows to air in another country that you thought were clever, fun, and interesting to another country as well as truly representational of the US, what would they be? Or alternatively, what shows would you be proud to see while lounging around in your hotel room in a foreign land?
3 comments:
First of all, there is a huge obsession with Sex in the City here as well since the movie comes out soon. I've never seen the show, but have no desires to. They even have New York tours based on it. Anyway, I think those shows are somewhat representative of what average Americans watch, even though I don't watch any of them. However, I do not think the shows I watch- Lost, Deal or No Deal, CSI, Amazing Race and The Tonight Show would go over too well in foreign countries nor are they representative of American values.
True Steph. I have tried to think of American TV that I am really proud to call my own, and am not sure there is any. I love some tv shows, but wouldn't suggest them carte blanche to others. I guess what we find most baffling is that in a country which produces wonderful TV like Pride and Prejudice, Planet Earth, and many others, they import some really terrible ones too! Come on, England, Jerry Springer??? But I guess we all are closet lovers of our own personally loved trash tv too.
Let's see...I definitely do not like some of them, but I must admit we are big Chuck fans (though there was only one season here, so I don't know how they could possibly be showing it every night there- you will have to keep us posted), and we do enjoy Scrubs. We also love Lost and The Office, but seeing as The Office was originally a British hit, I don't think it would be as popular there. Other than that, we really don't watch a lot of TV- Thursday night is our TV night.
Germany was the same way- except the shows were probably a couple of years old if I remember correctly because they had to be translated. I remember thinking that it was strange to see other countries loving "our" hits!
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