Bill and Sheila and the BBC

It would seem that Sheila and I don't care much for American TV anymore.  We just don't watch it for the most part.  It is mindless at best and at worst insulting to our values.  I can't remember the last time we watched anything from the major networks.  Now that technology has given us multiple choices, we watch a lot and I do mean a lot of UK produced programming.  Here are some clips from a few of our favorites:

Dowton Abbey.  Previous seasons available on Netflix Streaming.  Season 3 will air early 2013 on PBS Masterpiece Theater.  Another period drama which began before the First World War and is now continuing into the post war years.  Too many plot twists to explain in a paragraph.  Just very entertaining.

Foyle's War.  Available on Netflix Streaming.  The adventures of an aging British Police Inspector in WWII Britian.  Probably the best of the host of very good Brit mysteries.

Doc Martin.  Available on NetFlix Streaming.  Only a Brit could think this one up.  What happens if a snooty big city surgeon suddenly begins fainting at the sight of blood and gets a last chance to continue practicing as a GP in a small fishing village?  We have already watched the whole series but for those who haven't it is now showing on OETA.

Lost Empires.  Available on Net Flix Streaming.  A Granada Televsion mini series based on J.B. Priestly's novel of the same name:


A very young Colin Firth is the orphaned nephew of a mysterious and highly cynical (but usually correct) star performer on the U.K.'s music hall circuit.  In this clip, he and his love Nancy are having what appears the perfect afternoon together which is interrupted by the sound of distant gunfire from an army rifle range, symbolizing the onset of the World War One in a few months.  Firth's character does not notice but his uncle has already set the premise up in an earlier scene when he predicts the horror of the coming war and observes that Great Britian is sliding into a morass it will never completely recover from and nobody was doing anything to stop it.

Midsomer Murders.  Again, NetFlix Streaming.  This is one of Sheila and I's favorites but for entirely different reasons.  She likes the light, breezy "Murder She Wrote" tone which I have to admit is pleasant enough.  I like the fact that the program is better than sleeping pills and can usually render me unconscious in less than half an hour.