You need a license to watch TV in UK?!

@farmerman,

And why do you let the Anglophobia slide while insisting I fight with one hand behind my back? If you were a bit more even handed I wouldn't have to fight fire with fire.

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@revelette1,

Quote:

If you are right, then the popular vote should have reflected Hillary losing the popular vote, it did not.

Hillary only won the popular vote because of CA, a single state pushed her over the top and it just so happens to be another state with very restrict gun laws that don't seem to be stopping the violence in CA.

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Next up, gays making 'killing fags' an unpunishable crime. Gays make the laws suitable for gay living .

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@centrox,

centrox wrote:

Foofie wrote:
No different than paying for a rollercoaster ride or merry go-round ride. The choice of "license fee" is just a poor choice of words, perhaps.

There was talk about 15 years ago of calling it a "subscription". One problem is that subscriptions tend to be voluntary, whereas the BBC Tax or whatever you want to call it is enforced by law.

I thought one had to own a tv to pay the tax/subscription? Owning a tv is voluntary, just like paying a toll to drive a car over some bridges. There could be other ways to get over a river, and other ways to entertain oneself without tv. And in the U.S. cable tv is almost mandatory for many, based on where they live, since the over-the-air digital tv signal is just line-of-sight from the broadcast tower. As the saying goes, there are no more free lunches (when buying a beer for lunch came with a free ham sandwich).

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

For a smart bloke loads of things shoot over your head. This nasty thread was never about different TV systems it was McGentrix saying look at how shitty Britain and the British people are, aren't we Americans so much superior.

Well you're not. Being an American doesn't give you the right to bully and cajole other nations or tell them what to do or how to behave. If you don't like the way we do things over here then don't bother coming. You won't be missed.

I don't think there's one American tv show that beats Doc Martin. Some people might think Downton Abbey would be number one. Mind you, these BBC pearls seem to be on the U.S. PBS (Public Broadcasting System) channels which main fare is educational/culture/political viewing.

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@Foofie,

Id rather watch Martin Clunes as he narrates that semi nature documentary. Doc Martin quickly grew old with us. I never suspected it could keep an audience for 6 years. We had a show called NORTHERN EXPOSURE many yers ago. It too was an ensemble of really wacky people who react in various ways to the environment, traditions, and seasonal light levels in Alaska. That show dealt with all sorts of problems but in a smart fashion. Doc Martin is a Haemophobe with Aspbergers and an inability to connect with his own wife. (Sort of like Sheldon on Big Bang).

Heres a challenge, come up with a show that you believe would go head to head with the US ensemble sitcom "Seinfeld". If enough of you can agree, I will watch it. Im sure most of these shows can be streamed from outer space.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

We had a show called NORTHERN EXPOSURE many yers ago.

Did that have a dog called Deifenbaker?

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@farmerman,

Superior, concise analysis with psychiatric analysis thrown in.

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@farmerman,

Doc Martin was a short run comedy drama set in Cornwall. It wasn't really intended for a long run. Martin Clunes is best known for playing Gary in Men Behaving Badly.

Seinfeld never really took off over here. It was never really marketed well, the slot kept changing but it was normally late at night. I only saw bits of it, but it didn't really do anything for me. I do like Curb Your Enthusiasm though.

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@izzythepush,

Well, Id consider seven seasonsw as a fairly long run. I guess GUNSMOKE is the longest running of any show. I think that Doc Mrtin took its formula from Northern Exposure

1self centered main character who is a physician with several major tics
2Heeroine who has a unique profession and is no shrinking violet
3a matriarch/pqtriarchal chqracter who represents the law or is an"eaarth mother
4several wacky characters ,

I actually like "Death In Paradise" for an ensemble Brit mystery.

Martin Clunes, shedding his "Sheldon-like" character, has a good series about Island ecology . Hes travelling all over the earth searching out unique island habitats .
The really good BBC stuff are the vast library of nature series. They are usually done with writing, and photography in a sustained production agreements with WUHB of Boston. Those are excellent and Im pissed that mst all US nature series have recently taken a disgusting turn to be only entertaining and absent all information. Truthfully, the Austrliqn natural history series also reach for some kind of cartoonish presentation. Ever since Bill Bryson set that "Sort of model" that EVERYTHING IN AUSTRALIA WILL KILL YA !!. producers seem to concentraate on that alone.

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@farmerman,

It did seven seasons? I'm amazed. They must have sold it to the Americans early on.

Only a fraction of British TV makes it over there so your judgement is based on the tiny fraction of programmes you actually get to watch.

Coronation Street has been running constantly since 1960.

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@centrox,

Quote:

Did that have a dog called Deifenbaker

Sorry, I skipped over your post till this AM.

The show you are thinking of is "DUE SOUTH" a CBC production that was about an RCMP inspector assigned to a Chicago Precinct and became a "buddy cop series"". It too was an amazingly quirky (canadian style) where the plots and the cameo stars(like Leslie Nielsen) were always making the show a must watch. That w done in the 90's too. "Dief" was a coy wolf mix and was never quite domesticated.
Not to be overlooked in this, I must say that The Canadian Film Board has given us some really excellent entertainment in the historical and mystery/adventure genres.

I think the show was made for the US market by picking Chicago , but , typical location budgets didnt allow for a real Chicago setting so they picked Toronto. (If Id see the CN tower once , Id see it 2o times in a season).

I used to waatch the Dvid Suchet "POIROT" series and was always amused at how they would use the same damn building as a new setting and focus in on different rooms and outside shots but one could always see that it was the same damn building doen in an ART MODERNE style

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@izzythepush,

For every excellent Brit Mystery like "prime Suspect" we have been fed an equal amount of dreck, like "Miss Fishers Murder Mysteries" . Brit TV, like our own, tries to. weed out the drek by selective cancellation.
We get some production done in Iceland by Danish tv nd these are always great entertainment with brutally true shooting.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

I used to waatch the Dvid Suchet "POIROT" series and was always amused at how they would use the same damn building as a new setting and focus in on different rooms and outside shots but one could always see that it was the same damn building doen in an ART MODERNE style

This one?

In the 1960s there was a (UK, but not BBC) spy-police-drama series called "Department S" (they solved the cases Interpol couldn't) To save costs they did all the outside shots in the parking lot of the studio complex, or the streets nearby. The studio building might be a German police headquarters one week and a French business headquarters the next. This sort of thing was (and is) very common at the dreckish end of the market.

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@centrox,

thats why I never became a dr Who fan till recently when the production values and CGI capabilities caught up with the series dreams. I recallthe first episode I watched, the Daleks were these huge cardboard cones , you could even see the folds. It was, and I say this reverentially so I dont get Izzy all worked up, CHEESEY production.

"lower end of the market" thats what fits. Of course, we had that too in our own "Mystery SCience Theater 3000"> The word CHEESEY was incorporated into its theme song

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@farmerman,

There's a load of stuff you don't get. I've never even heard of "Miss Fishers Murder Mysteries." I just googled it, and it's Australian. If you're going to complain about British TV you could at least get your facts right.

I watched Doctor Who when I was a kid, it always seemed very real back then.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

the Daleks were these huge cardboard cones

You used to see the scenery shake. I remember an alien HQ where the walls were made out of what looked like those cardboard trays that eggs used to come in.

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

I watched Doctor Who when I was a kid, it always seemed very real back then.

In a way that Fireball XL-5 did not. I remember an edition of Blue Peter, not long after Doctor Who had started in 1963, when it had become a craze among kids. where the producer of Doctor Who came to the studio to answer questions from an invited group of kids. One girl asked "Why don't we see Doctor Who going to the toilet?".

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@centrox,

I can only just remember William Hartnell. And I can remember being terrified by the cybermen and literally hiding behind the corner looking at the telly intermittently scared if they saw me they'd get out.

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@centrox,

centrox wrote:

One girl asked "Why don't we see Doctor Who going to the toilet?".

Because it's not easy. I once upset J Goldman with this who labelled it pornography.

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You need a license to watch TV in UK?!

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