British Television

Mr. Darcy

So I love the Brits…and not just because of their dreamy accents.  And I like it all – not just period pieces with the likes of Mr. Darcy (although very dreamy). The main way I get my British television is from PBS‘ Masterpiece Theater.  Masterpiece Classic in the Winter and Spring, and Masterpiece Mystery in the Summer and Fall.

I grew up on PBS.  My parents never invested in cable or satellite television, so there was a limit to the number of channels we got, and invariably the TV was almost always turned to PBS.  “This Old House,“ “New Yankee Workshop,“ “Victory Garden,“ “Cooking with Julia,“ etc, etc, etc., and of course Masterpiece are all shows that I grew up watching.  I never really appreciated any of it until the last four or five years or so, and now that I do, I can’t get enough of it.

Masterpiece Classic is always some type of period piece, like remakes of Jane Austen or Charles Dickens classics.  They weave in some more contemporary time periods as well, like this year’s Downton Abbey, which was set during the early 20th century.  The stories are all so amazing, and the cast of actors and actresses are recognizable from all sorts of British shows.  It’s like a 6 Degrees of Separation of British Television – do you recognize so and so from such and such?

Inspector Lewis

Masterpice Mystery is my all-time favorite.  I can remember the theme “song“ from when I was very little, and it always fascinated me with the girl wailing on top of the roof of an old manor house.  The titles for mystery range from Ms. Marple and Poirot to Inspector Lewis, Wallander and the new Sherlock.  Inspector Lewis is an offshoot of the Inspector Morse series (which my mom and I are rewatching right now).  Inspector Lewis‘ Detective Sargeant Hathaway is very dreamy too.  Tall, blonde, genius, a little nerdy – kind of like Steve Jerve the weatherman (who I also have a slight crush on).   The Inspector series are typically murder mysteries set in Oxford, England, and with that kind of education, they all are pretty smart.

Sherlock

Wallander

Now all that’s on PBS of course, and there’s obviously the BBC America channel.  I’ve got quite a few titles in my Netflix queue – MI 5 and the BBC version of Being Human just to name a few. I’m just starting to get into all the shows there, so I’ll keep you posted on what I end up loving.

There’s just something about British television that makes it feel so smart.  The stories are gripping, and it’s easy to become slightly obssesed (like myself).  I’m always looking forward to the next episode or the next story to debut, so I can get swept away in all the classics and mysteries that the Brits are so good at executing.