British Invasion

There's a new British invasion happening at my house.  In the 60s it was the Beatles, today it's British television.  Downton Abbey, Doc Martin, Kingdom, to name a few.  I love their cop stuff too.  A couple of them especially, but I don't remember their titles. 

PBS has been airing British comedies for years.  Usually Saturday and Sunday nights.  There's a new one Miranda that's on Saturday nights.  Check her out.  She's hysterical.  Of course everyone knows The Office is a Ricky Gervais show first launched in England. 

For my time, the only originally funny show on American TV now is Happy Endings.  I watch Modern Family too. Survivor I watch with Paulie.  And also some of the other contestant shows are solid entertainment to watch with Paul, such as Storage Wars, Ink Masters, Top Chef.   But the rest of my TV watching lately has leaned toward the British kind.  Thank you Netflix!!! 

I was thinking last night as I watched 3 episodes of Kingdom, a series about a small-town lawyer (solicitor) whose clients tend toward eccentrics and the downtrodden, that it's really a pity we don't have programming like this here in America.  The actors are not model beautiful.  They examine racism, cross-dressing, discrimination, etc. in such a manner only the British can and make it look classy.  Flawed characters and their relationships are depicted in non-vulgar ways. Total fiction, but with a heart. You don't feel dirty after watching. Sometimes you might even learn something.

The setting and cinematography for Kingdom is beautiful, soothing even.  Makes you want to live there, same as the setting for Doc Martin. 

I can't really come up with any U.S. shows that are comparable. And the Brit shows appear to cast actors based on talent, not notoriety or something else.

I wonder why our shows here have to be so crappy?  And all the same, really. 

Good thing is I still have 12 episodes of Kingdom to watch and it's only the first series out of three.