Decent TV At Last

It’s at this time of the year that UK TV suddenly becomes absolute tosh! Endless reality shows appear like a fungus! This year it’s dancing shows which are clogging up the airwaves with So You Think You Can Dance, Got To Dance and Dancing On Ice popping up on BBC1, Sky1 and ITV1. Add into the mix Celebrity Big Brother, which appears to have people on it who aren’t even celebrities, as well as the endless “behind-the-scenes” shows that now accompany the main shows and suddenly it’s hard to find anything worth watching!

Which is why it’s good to be able to download US TV dramas, as some decent shows return over the next couple of weeks! Some are returning from their mid-season holidays this week including House, Heroes and The Forgotten (a recently-found gem!), and then over the next week or so we also get new seasons of 24, Chuck and Lost. Woo-hoo!

I don’t watch much TV when at home as I think the quality of UK programmes is pretty poor when compared to the ones we get from the US. I can’t remember the last time I watched a drama series on anything but BBC, and even then there aren’t actually that many. Life On Mars and Hustle are a couple that I can come up with off the top of my head, but even Hustle’s not as good as it used to be (Ashes To Ashes isn’t as good as Life On Mars either!).

When it comes to drama we just can’t compete with the big-budget shows. Flashforward, for example, had a budget for it’s opening episode that was comparable to some films, and you could tell that from its production (it’s just a shame the show has lost it’s way recently, which has resulted in it being put on hiatus until April). They can also draw in some top names to star in them, although this doesn’t necessarily guarantee the show is going to be good – the US version of Life On Mars was panned, and rightly so, even though Harvey Keitel starred in it.

The only thing that we appear to do well in the UK is comedy. Sitcoms (Gavin & Stacey) and comedy panel shows (QI) – both BBC shows incidentally! – are probably the best things that have been on TV recently that isn’t a drama or an American show. US comedies are very rarely funny (maybe it’s because the British laugh at different things, mainly ourselves) but this trend has been bucked by the very funny The Big Bang Theory.

Being able to download TV shows means that it’s now possible to watch programmes before they come out in the UK and also ones that don’t even get a release here. Shows like Leverage, In Plain Sight and The Forgotten (did I mention it’s a little gem?) are all decent enough shows but the chance of them being picked up by a UK channel is pretty slim!

As I mentioned, I don’t watch that much TV at home but I do spend my commute watching stuff on my PSP Go, and at the moment it’s Burn Notice a show that was launched in the UK with some decent advertising. However, the second series didn’t get the same amount of exposure and so I missed it when it started. I reckon I wasn’t the only one either!