Television! British VS American
Added 2025-01-03 14:00:14 +0000 UTCComments
BBC radio 3 is a beautiful way to start your day
Chay Davenport
2025-01-06 09:03:25 +0000 UTCOmg you should definitely watch the inbetweeners and faulty towers and one of the greatest is father ted
Chay Davenport
2025-01-06 08:47:07 +0000 UTCAnyone with teenage boys & who remembers their mid teen years will LOVE the Inbetweeners. An absolute brilliant comedy series that has to be reacted to in full episodes. Someone reacted to it but cut bits out & ruined the whole thing because the context was lost. The Inbetweeners is a ‘must react to’. Best wishes again 🤗
Frank Mac
2025-01-04 12:10:38 +0000 UTCGuys, you really, really, REALLY ought to watch & react to the Graham Norton Show without shadow of a doubt. His guest lists are full of A list celebrities, actors, comedians, TV greats, almost all of whom make return visits because they love the format of the show. Graham has an almost unique ability to get them to talk so openly about their lives with no pressure from the host. I’ve seen lots of chat shows & his is the best in the world I believe. So many classics are on YouTube now. The treasure trove of appearances is amazing. Best wishes as always 🤗
Frank Mac
2025-01-04 12:06:56 +0000 UTCYou should definitely do the inbetweeners , not only is it hilarious, but very much portrays British youth (well youth from the 90’s - even though it was made more than 10 years later). It also shows the lack of hope in British comedy fantastically 😂
Aaron Page
2025-01-03 23:51:19 +0000 UTCDear Jess & Mike, If you want an understanding of American versus British humour, I found this YouTube clip featuring national treasure Stephen Fry to be a great summary. American comedy heroes celebrate the wise cracking successful guy whereas British humour is often self deprecating & celebrates abject failure. Please see this link for a far better explanation of the differences https://youtu.be/8k2AbqTBxao?si=51e_v2LGAH18vi9C
Frank Mac
2025-01-03 23:50:32 +0000 UTCThis stuff happens. So, did you start with An Unearthly Child or did you go straight to the Dalek story? - or did you set a randomizer? I finally saw An Unearthly Child in The Five Faces Of Doctor Who repeats that started on the 2nd November 1981.
Josef Schiltz
2025-01-03 17:53:47 +0000 UTCGirl Gone London did a really good video fairly recently on British and American Humour compared that would be worth watching as she’s pretty spot on
Kieran B
2025-01-03 17:44:53 +0000 UTCThat would be me misreading the first line 😂 My first Doctor was William Hartnell although in the early 90s
Kieran B
2025-01-03 17:42:18 +0000 UTCThe Royle Family is a show that would really test you, Mike and Jess. It’s basically a working class family from Manchester (with a Liverpudlian dad) just sitting in their lounge, supposedly watching TV, and chewing the fat about their uneventful lives. Sometimes very little is said, but it’s brilliant. One of those comedy shows that will make you laugh and cry, and it’s got an iconic theme tune. Think Karl Pilkington stuck indoors with his in-laws and you’ll get a rough idea.
Thomas
2025-01-03 17:22:09 +0000 UTCI would like to add to this, a lot of Americans react to An Idiot Abroad, Ricky Gervais Show, Inbetweeners and Peep Show. I would recommend starting with Inbetweeners. Inbetweeners will help you enter the cringe comedy, then move onto Peep Show (which is even more cringe). Inbetweeners being about teenager boys lifestlye, Peep Show being centered around adult male lifestyle. Please can people like this comment so they can see this.
Cem
2025-01-03 16:58:14 +0000 UTCThe UK and US Office are both excellent series, but very different. The Dwight character in the UK version is Gareth Keenan and he is just as brilliant.
Bikeaholic
2025-01-03 16:26:29 +0000 UTCThe inbetweeners and peep show are must watches for you guys (UK inbetweeners only though)
Bikeaholic
2025-01-03 16:21:28 +0000 UTCIn addition to all the Inbetweeners suggestions can I throw "Peep Show" into the ring? Less accessible than Inbetweeners but far superior imo
na plz
2025-01-03 15:57:22 +0000 UTCAh. but I was a fan from 1964 onwards because we didn't have a television until 1964. My father wanted to see the Winter Olympics, so it is incidental to that I got to see Doctor Who and found out what everyone else was on about.
Josef Schiltz
2025-01-03 15:22:10 +0000 UTCTo quote Ken Bruce, one year out… it started in 1963, 23rd November - the day after JFK was assassinated
Kieran B
2025-01-03 15:12:58 +0000 UTCThe volume of ads in the US is almost unwatchable for us as we’re not used to them - even channels that have ads don’t have them that frequently The good thing about the licence is that the BBC doesn’t need to worry about commercial interests quite as much, they don’t need to make something that will just sell the most numbers or keep advertisers happy so they can make interesting and unusual stuff. Not that they always do to be fair, but I think historically they have done.
Kieran B
2025-01-03 15:04:48 +0000 UTCThe BBC does have its critics in the UK, but I would not want to be without it. The criticism normally revolves around BBC News or political broadcasting. It gets criticised by both extremes of the political spectrum which tells me (as a retired journalist of 42 years in the game) that it is doing a balanced job of not favouring any particular ideology. It has made mistakes, and there have been scandals surrounding individual presenters but these are rare when you consider the vast scope of its output. Beats the likes of Fox and CNN all hands down.
Thomas
2025-01-03 15:03:24 +0000 UTCYou could probably get round the BBC iPlayer which is their streaming service by using a VPN with the region set to the UK. I love the BBC but I have to admit their News and Current affairs dept has been it's weakness for some time now as the Government of the day exerts pressure on them to be more favourable to them by threatening the licence. We have another state TV company Channel 4 but this one has adverts and was designed to grow homegrown talent and this is why sometimes you may see Film4 at the start of some British movies. Also I loved Ozark, it's a shame they don't show British shows in the US on mainstream channels but remake them. I can remember back in the late 70's when shows like MASH, Taxi and Soap, where shown late at night on TV, and I can remember some of the accents caused issues but we soon got used to it and now our TV has tons of US shows I'd recommend you watch the original BBC Ghosts, this was remade for the US I think for CBS, but the British version has a wider range of Ghosts due to our long history. I think you'd both enjoy this.
Jason Bonner
2025-01-03 14:56:04 +0000 UTCPersonally I like a lot of the BBC shows, particularly the history, documentaries and a lot of the drama programmes. I know there's a lot of controversy about the BBC but I still like the no adverts. I enjoy not being bombarded with adverts.
Louise Miller
2025-01-03 14:52:47 +0000 UTCYou guys are honestly the smartest, most insightful 'reactors' I've ever seen. I always look forward to seeing what you've got to say about what you're watching.
James Aston
2025-01-03 14:52:19 +0000 UTCI like the US Office and it probably helped that I watched it with my American girlfriend who absolutely loves it - and Dwight is my favourite character by far. Michael starts to get increasingly on my nerves when we binge it and I was kind of glad when he left 😂 They’re two fundamentally different shows, the UK Office really is a mockumentary, a lot of people thought it was a real documentary for the first couple of episodes. You are watching the documentary, and the presence of film crew change how they behave, they behave like real people would if they were being filmed working. The US Office is very much a *sitcom* where a documentary happens to be being made, and half the time they forget about it and do things that would be implausible if it really was documentary footage. They changed it part way through so that you weren’t watching the documentary itself but watching the documentary being made. As you say ‘it’s over the top funny’ and that’s exactly the difference, it’s a fairly cartoonish sitcom - the UK version is painfully dry. And although it had the same core writers you can tell it has lots of voices going into it - whereas every moment of the UK Office was written by Ricky and Steve only. That’s a fundamental key difference between US and UK comedy in general JackWolf does a very good comparison on YouTube once you’ve watched the UK Office.
Kieran B
2025-01-03 14:48:11 +0000 UTCYou really should react to Fawlty Towers. Iconic show and really really funny. It will probably be one of the funniest things you have reacted to.
L Chi
2025-01-03 14:39:15 +0000 UTCThe US Inbetweeners did air but don’t think it even had a full season
Kieran B
2025-01-03 14:38:52 +0000 UTCThe thing to remember when you watch the original Office is that you are watching the documentary as it airs
Kieran B
2025-01-03 14:38:00 +0000 UTCThe follow up to this ‘British vs American Adverts’ is really good too Jay Foreman’s stuff including Map Men is well worth a with
Kieran B
2025-01-03 14:20:09 +0000 UTCMartin Freeman was one of the main stars of the original The Office. He was brilliant in it!
Thomas
2025-01-03 14:19:49 +0000 UTCDoctor Who fan here - from 1964 onwards. Matt Smith started as the Eleventh incarnation with 'The Eleventh Hour' on 3rd April 2010. The current actor in the role is Ncuti Gatwa. The Eleventh Hour was also a changeover point, not only of entire cast, but also of showrunner when Steven Moffat took over the helm. Steven was, at the same time, writing and producing Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch.
Josef Schiltz
2025-01-03 14:18:55 +0000 UTC
