British TV shows

There are some excellent British TV series.  Just now I'm watching the royal biography The Crown.  Back in the '60s, when American TV was producing series like Gilligan's Island, the British were making shows like The Avengers and Doctor Who and The Prisoner.

I've liked a lot of the British shows on Masterpiece Theatre, like Upstairs, Downstairs, though it's only in the third season that it really hits its stride. (I read somewher that servants in those rich households actually didn't see much of each other!) Other Masterpiece Theatre series I've liked include I, Claudius, The Jewel in the Crown and Fortunes of War.

Even TV criticism can be at a somewhat higher standard than in America.  I remember this critic who wrote a weekly column and once mentioned the mediocre detective show Bergerac.  At the end of his column, he wrote, "If I had more space I'd write about Bergerac.  I've been meaning to do that one of these weeks."

Of course, British TV isn't all excellent.  I recall this sitcom from the '70s titled Mind Your Language. (On those Britcoms they'd play applause over the closing credits, emphasizing the stage element.) It was about an Englishman teaching English as a second language to a bunch of foreign stereotypes:  the sexy Frenchwoman, the Chinese radical, the East Indian Moslem and Hindu always quarrelling.  Paradoxically, it's unfunny in such a dated way that it's hilarious!