Have you seen what women in the 1860's looked like? Judging from the black-and-white photos, they were about as sexy as fundamentalist Mormon women look today. And the show is focusing on Civil War women in a hospital, rather than men on the battlefield, for a quite obvious reason. This is PBS, they have very little…

From Masterpiece Theatre Executive Producer Rebecca Eaton's 2013 memoir, Making Masterpiece, p.14: "The Beeb, as the Brits fondly call it, often gets the credit for ANY English drama shown on American TV, but there are actually dozens of production companies and several broadcasters that have made many of the most…

Not only does the BBC do co-productions all the time, it has been doing them with PBS specifically for decades. DECADES. AV Club completely bungled the story. This new agreement is ONLY about documentary specials — what the British commonly call "factual programmes." PBS has been co-producing BBC drama series —…

Yeah, right. Musicals. So inherently gay. (Shakes head, wondering what the fuck is wrong with people).

"You?" I'm not American (nor British, I'll also note), but sure, I have noticed that at least a fair number of Americans who comment on UK TV series just seem to assume that any UK series they are talking about came from the BBC. I think that reflects three things: (1) the great strength of the BBC as a "brand"…

SundanceTV boarded the project as a co-producer for season one AFTER the pilot had already been made and aired on British TV, so they didn't have rights to the pilot. I don't see why they couldn't have bought the rights to air the pilot anyway, but I suppose that would have been an extra expense they didn't want to…

It didn't air on BBC. It is a Channel 4 series.

Five-Pin Bowling. Invented in Toronto in 1909. It is quite popular here in Canada (my 83-year-old father plays every week), but it only exists in Canada, where Gracepoint was of course filmed, but is not set. So, let's just pretend that the Solano family took a quick trip up to Canada to engage in a little un-American…

Hannibal wasn't black. And frankly, the fact that so many people seem incapable of grasping that not everyone born on the continent of Africa was black would make doing a Hannibal project a PR nightmare, so it won't happen.

SundanceTV boarded Babylon as an official co-producer, so Americans who don't go the whole pirate route will be able to see Babylon on SundanceTV some time in the future.

Besides PBS, many American cable channels, including HBO, are open to doing co-productions with the Brits. The BBC scarcely does any drama without trying to get a US co-producer attached that will fund a good chunk of the production costs, and they have done such productions with HBO, Showtime, Starz, BBC America,…

It's funny how many Americans think every British TV show must be made by the BBC (basically because that is the only UK broadcaster they have heard of). Black Mirror is a Channel 4 show in the UK.

Orphan Black is an American-Canadian show to begin with.

There wasn't anything at all surprising about the identity of the killer in Broadchurch: the legal gambling establishments in the UK that were taking bets on who the killer would be had the person who turned out to be the killer as a heavy "favourite."

So, you are saying it's not very realistic, then? Okay, no point in watching it now.

Well, it isn't called "fantasy" for no reason. In reality, both Britain and the rest of Europe still very much look to America like a puppy looking to its owner for a pat on the head and a doggie treat.

Silly person. There is no such thing as a "writing staff" in British television. Or as one British writer recently put it, the difference between American and British television is the placement of an apostrophe: in America there is a "writers' room," and in Britain there is a "writer's room."

But 16 would be too old for a "pedophile," surely (not that I am an expert on the subject). I think 16 is legal marrying age in some US states, if parental permission is granted.

According to American TV critics who have seen all of Broadchurch, and have seen Gracepoint's first seven episodes, we are now through the part of the show that follows Broadchurch. Episode 7 is a whole new ball game.

I have noticed, over many years of watching British TV series and films, that there are certain British actors and actresses (let's just say British people) who quite simply "look British." Even if they could fake an American accent perfectly, they would look unbelievable as Americans. Olivia Colman is one of those…