just how utterly thick and stupid is the american tv audience? tv execs think pretty thick …
on 01/02/2011 at 05:10 PM
I’m a huge fan of “The IT Crowd”, I’ve been singing it’s praises to all my techie friends.
Just now working my way through the various “Blackadders”.
Same here, “The IT Crowd” is some kind of funny! Loved “Coupling” too, but they butchered it in the USA on a remake attempt. It just doesn’t work with the cultural changes and without the accent! If you’ve not seen Coupling, think of Sex and the City combined with Friends, except actually funny!
Love the new 2005 Doctor Who, enjoyed every damn episode!
Posted by MJS
01/02/2011 at 09:56 PM
Blackadder is well worth it Mojoe. Seeing Rowan Atkinson do something besides playing a charming idiot was well worth it, but with the story being genuinely funny? Priceless.
What BBC doesn’t get is that most of the people over here that watch PBS would understand at least a good bit of the subject matter and what they don’t know, they would read up or Google it.
The mainstream TV crowd? Well, that is another creature. Every now and then, I will leave my fortress of educational matter and take a peak at the big networks. It’s crap attempting to make people think they are smart, or just crap that is aimed at the ‘average’ person…But at the same time, while being fully aware of my ignorance (I’d never heard of the show before now), at first blush it looks as if the writers or the director sabotaged their own script for the sake of political correctness, before they ever started cutting it for American viewers. Consider:
“The show’s ten million British viewers will be well aware that much of the drama revolves around challenges to the ‘entail’ - the legal device which determines how the estate should be divided up - after Lord Grantham’s heirs perish on the Titanic.”
and
If I have one complaint with Downton Abbey, it’s brief, but for me, stomach churning scene of two queers in an embrace. It could have been hinted at or strongly implied without the clinch. It wasn’t done to shock anyone. Not these days. It was simply acknowledgment of the acceptance of how normal that is nowadays.
(For the record, I’ve had at least a foggy idea of what an “entail” was since reading “Sense and Sensibility”.)
But the time period of the setting isn’t “nowadays”, is it? It’s set during the early stages of WWI. I’ve been around theatres all my life, 2 gay guys acting like 2 day guys doesn’t bother me and hasn’t for decades. But that’s not what you saw, was it? You saw 2 guys playing Britons in 1912, acting like Britons in 2010. I must admit, seeing a deliberate anachronism thrown into a “period” script like that would tend to ruin my respect for the director right there.
GOF - hit it right on with that last comment - I detest when I see a current ‘fad or CoP/PC vapidness’ put into a period piece.
We, here, all love British productions (both movie and shows) - have to admit that the humor is highest. Even if I never got Benny Hill.
And these tv execs fail to even consider the slime on the dumpster bottom of tv show-dom - The Soaps - that even the illiterate can tell you in an instant who was married, birthed of or sired by and of course cheating with who in an instant.
Define intelligent and define stupid. Bet you it all depends upon where in the World (and what ‘class’ you belong to) as to what criteria you use for the definitions.
Real class is making anyone comfortable and being comfortable - No matter where you are or who you are with.
Yes-Yes to Blackadder. And I can hear the theme in my head. That was funny and inventive and witty and the ands go on.
Grumpy ... those guys don’t bother me either except when seen smooching or being cuddly.
It’s seem so unnatural and off putting, as the Brits would say. But seeing a serious clinch, it just creeps me out. High gak factor.You’re right of course re. the time period and sum it up better then I did. But since homosexuality is as old as time, the writer, Julian Fellows, wrote it into the story. It isn’t as though they didn’t exist then. I could have accepted the idea okay as part of the story of the doings and the machinations of disloyal and scheming staff. But I’m confused as to the anachronism. It wasn’t out of place for the story and so the director I guess thought nothing of leaving in the part that I object to. They seem to have lost the art of subtlety. I think the director (wrongly) thought since it’s so widely accepted by so many, there was no harm in allowing the clinch to be seen as opposed to hinted at, as after all, it would have been very normal for the characters in the play.
Anyway, it really is worth seeing if anyone enjoys costume dramas. It is very well acted and Dame Maggie Smith is priceless, as always. She can do more with the twitch of an eye or a glance then many. I would hope so of course because she’s been at it for 60 yrs. Or is it 50? Whatever, she’s darn good.MJS: Speaking of butchering a good thing in translation.
They tried to transplant Faulty Towers if you recall, staring that god awful loud mouthed liberal woman, Bea Arthur. (spelling?) It was taken off the air after only one episode.
They should have used original writers, one of whom was an American, married to John Cleese. She played the maid on FT.I forgot to mention it above.
On page three of today’s Telegraph (Mon.Jan.3rd) is a large and bold headline that reads;
DOWNTON DUMBED DOWN FOR AMERICAN AUDIENCES
It is NOT that the Brits think we’re that thick.
It’s the power that is over there at PBS!
Which of course makes us look like jerks and feeds the kind of thinking and comments made about our country, even by those not on the left.Guys, remember, the PBS audience are the same people who elected Obama. What did old Forest Gump say? Stupid is as stupid does?
Thanks for the tip on this series Peiper, I’ve started to download the xvid encoded HDTV versions of the episodes now. I want to see the proper version, not the dumbed down version that’ll make its way online once PBS has hacked it to bits.
01/04/2011 at 10:51 PM
