An Intro to this Blog

     Hello, everyone!

     Let me introduce myself: my name is Luke Barber, and although I've lived my whole life in the Northeastern U.S., most of my favorite TV shows are from Britain.  Why is this the case?  Well, I'll get into that later on, but for now I'm going to outline the general nature of this blog.

     I plan on viewing and commenting on several different British TV shows (although shows from elsewhere in the Anglosphere such as Australia, Ireland, or Canada may also at some points find their way into this blog).  The general setup for this blog will be for each show I comment on:

• Intro to the show: when it was made, overall description of the plot (if any), etc.
• Episode posts: I recap an episode, note my own thoughts and observations on it, and explain any obscure jokes/references (and if I'm stumped as well I'll ask for help).  If it's for a show I've seen before, I'll probably note down any early installment weirdness in the pilot episode or first few episodes.  Mike Amato's terrific (though now dormant) blog about The Simpsons called Me Blog Write Good will definitely be an influence on these posts.
• Series recap: When I finish all the episodes of a series (season for American viewers*), I'll post a recap and review of that series.  If it's the last series for that show, I'll also write about the entire show in that recap as well.
• American remake comparison: If the show's been successfully** remade into a US version,I'll give my overall thoughts on the remake vs the original.

     So, why Britcoms?  Well, there are several reasons.  For me, the main one is quality.  American shows are usually written by groups of writers, resulting in (traditionally) at least 65-100 episodes being made (these were the traditional "magic numbers" for syndication).  Even with the best teams of writers, it's difficult to keep a show consistently good over that many episodes; furthermore, such a show will often have a written by committee quality to it.  In comparison, British shows will most often be written by just one or two writers with far fewer total episodes, usually 6-12 per series and often less than 30 in total.  This often produces a very concentrated quality to the show, with each episode usually having a consistently high quality***.  Also, British shows tend to have a more consistently funny setup; they're often about a group of unpleasant people being stuck together in close confines when they'd all rather be thousands of miles away from each other, which is more guaranteed to bring in consistent laughter than, say, a show about a bunch of people who generally like each other and get along well <cough> Friends <cough>.  Finally, I was introduced to them at the right time: just as The Simpsons was declining in quality, I started watching shows like Keeping up Appearances and Mr. Bean PBS or Channel 13, and the rest is history.

     The first show I'll be watching and writing about will be the dramedy Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.


-P.S.  Unless otherwise noted, any images here are screenshots I made myself and am using here under "fair use" provisions.
-P.P.S.  Consider this whole blog a giant spoiler; spoiler warnings will not be given with regards to revealing the plots of the shows and episodes discussed here.

*Note: other than using the term "series" to refer to a collection of episodes of a British show (I'll still use the term "season" to describe any American shows I'll be discussing here), this blog will primarily use American spelling and vocabulary unless otherwise noted.
**By "successful" I mean the American show aired (even if it did ultimately get cancelled); this means that while I may comment on the American versions of The Inbetweeners, Life on Mars, or The Office, I will probably not be commenting on the American versions of Red Dwarf or The Young Ones.
***This can be a double-edged sword; shows like The Simpsons or Star Trek: The Next Generation which had a poor first season but improved in quality in subsequent seasons would have probably been cancelled after the first series if they were produced in Britain.  Also, having 2 sub-par or filler episodes in an American sitcom might not be too bad, but on a 6-episode series that's 1/3rd of that series down the drain.