My family have enjoyed watching shows from the UK for years, such as The Office, Jeeves and Wooster, and Pride and Prejudice (it was a miniseries so it counts as both a movie and a show in my book). I was introduced to Monty Python at an early age, and I knew the entire Holy Hand Grenade speech by heart at the age of 8. We love Doctor Who (everyone loves the Doctor, don't even pretend you don't), and now that we have the exciting online sections of Amazon and Netflix available to us, we try out a lot of shows. My father generally finds something important to do instead of television, which he regards as a pointless waste of time that could be used compiling bird information or reading Flannery O' Connor, so Mom and I get to pick what to watch, and we like to watch mysteries. British television has quite a selection of mystery shows, and because we think the accents are wonderful and we are totally well versed in Britishness we are generally drawn to them. Now that I have seen many UK adventure and mystery shows I have noticed something odd. British shows are much more soul crushingly depressing then any other shows I watch. I am used to the occasional sad episode in the American crime solving shows I see. Sometimes the bad guy gets away, sometimes the good guys don't save everyone, and once in a great while, a character you love will die (although generally the important character death that has been forshadowed by the media is that guy in background who is always eating cheese). Most of the time though, our heroes catch the evil people, save the last victim, and are entirely protected from danger via the Main Character Bubble of Invulnerability. It's only when a show is on HBO or described as 'gritty' that all bets are off. In the British shows, sad and hopeless endings are the usual, and happy endings are exceptionally rare. The murderer is going to go free because of lack of evidence even if the police walked in on him stabbing someone, any living victims or extra characters in a show will die messily, and every season or so they kill off a main character. My mother and I watched a British show called Touching Evil, starring the delightful Robson Green, Nicola Walker who is lovely but reminds me of an unpleasant person I know, and Rose's Tyler's father. We could never remember the name of this show so we preferred to call it Poking Evil and we had fun watching it. At first. I think each of the show's three seasons should have its own name, corresponding to how fun it is to watch. Therefore the first season is christened Poking Evil With a Stick (fun), the second is Evil Pokes You Back (not fun), and the third is Evil Goes to the Bathroom on You and Steals Your Clothes (don't watch it if you like being happy).
One of the more upsetting things that I find in these shows in something that I call the Purge. This is when every single character in a show is killed off and the entire cast is replaced by new folks. I never even knew a network could DO that. I stopped watching a particular show when I learned I only had one season left before everyone was murdered, including the baby. I stopped watching another one when I looked ahead and found out that the main character was going to be replaced no less then four times. Your main character should be a precious gem! You should take care of them and treat them well, going through FOUR main characters is simply negligent! If you did that with a dog you would be placed on a LIST and not allowed to have pets anymore.
Even Doctor Who, a remarkably fun show that is often considered to be for children is absolutely horrible about this. There are multiple deaths every episode, and very few non recurring characters make it through a visit by the Doctor (not his fault, just bad timing). My mother and I get sad every time the Doctor promises that he will save someone. I can't even think of a time when he promised to save someone and managed to pull it off.
I have watched British shows that were quite nice, and it's taken me several years to actually watch enough television to notice this, but it makes me unhappy. I understand when a show is trying to be realistic, but most real people have both good and bad things in their lives, and the characters in these shows basically have no good things at all. I often wonder how they keep going and don't lie comatose in bed all day. Oh well, I will continue to watch Doctor Who and that new mystery series that doesn't seem quite so bent on tearing viewer's hearts to smithereens. It's called Wire in the Blood (Robson Green kick, I have to see him happy somewhere), and you must believe me when I say that these characters seem to have reasonably good lives. Yes, they live by themselves and only have work and cops and crazy people for company, but they love each other, they occasionally smile and eat together, and one of them has a cat that hasn't been killed by anyone yet. It's a charmed life.
One of the more upsetting things that I find in these shows in something that I call the Purge. This is when every single character in a show is killed off and the entire cast is replaced by new folks. I never even knew a network could DO that. I stopped watching a particular show when I learned I only had one season left before everyone was murdered, including the baby. I stopped watching another one when I looked ahead and found out that the main character was going to be replaced no less then four times. Your main character should be a precious gem! You should take care of them and treat them well, going through FOUR main characters is simply negligent! If you did that with a dog you would be placed on a LIST and not allowed to have pets anymore.
Even Doctor Who, a remarkably fun show that is often considered to be for children is absolutely horrible about this. There are multiple deaths every episode, and very few non recurring characters make it through a visit by the Doctor (not his fault, just bad timing). My mother and I get sad every time the Doctor promises that he will save someone. I can't even think of a time when he promised to save someone and managed to pull it off.
I have watched British shows that were quite nice, and it's taken me several years to actually watch enough television to notice this, but it makes me unhappy. I understand when a show is trying to be realistic, but most real people have both good and bad things in their lives, and the characters in these shows basically have no good things at all. I often wonder how they keep going and don't lie comatose in bed all day. Oh well, I will continue to watch Doctor Who and that new mystery series that doesn't seem quite so bent on tearing viewer's hearts to smithereens. It's called Wire in the Blood (Robson Green kick, I have to see him happy somewhere), and you must believe me when I say that these characters seem to have reasonably good lives. Yes, they live by themselves and only have work and cops and crazy people for company, but they love each other, they occasionally smile and eat together, and one of them has a cat that hasn't been killed by anyone yet. It's a charmed life.
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