My month with the BBC or How I got back together with PBS

What started off as an attempt to get caught up with a favorite television series from my childhood turned into a month of catching up with all the British imports provided by PBS.

I have been an avid Doctor Who fan since I was a kid.  The first Doctor I remember was Tom Baker, the 4th doctor in the series.  You never forget your first doctor.  I know I saw the previous and the latter, but that's who I remember the most from my childhood.  I think it was the iconic quirkiness and the giant scarf that made him so memorable.  So, having seen that and being considered an outcast and a weirdo for it when I was a child,* it was rather interesting to me that there was all of a sudden a resurgence of Doctor Who.  I mean, sure, I had a Tom Baker Doctor Who burlesque routine complete with Tardis and scarf, but all of a sudden people out side of cons were recognizing that it was a Tardis and not just a Police Box.**  I caught a few of these newer episodes, but nothing regularly as I didn't really have time.  Since I just graduated in Dec and I wasn't producing, stage managing, etc... anything in January it seemed like it was time.  It was every bit as hokey and wonderful as I remember it being when I was a kid.  I started with the Doctor Who1st season^ and watched all the way through the first half of the 7th season^^ because that was as far as it would let me go with my Amazon Prime membership.

So I am stranded with out being able to go further in the series, now what am I going to do?  Well there was this character, Captain Jack Harkness, that was fun and beloved enough that he got his own series, Torchwood...so I watched that.  All of that.  Seriously, I think it took me like 4 days to watch all four seasons. The season in America got weird and frankly, it was funny to hear him be "American" and continually mispronounce words.#  I am sure they feel that way when they see American's do bad British accents so I guess it's all fair.  But that was only four seasons, and not even full seasons at that, so I still had time to kill and needed SOMETHING to be background noise while I worked on my computer all the time for Southern Fried Burlesque Fest...what should be next?

Next was Sherlock.  Keep in mind I have read all the original Sherlock Holmes novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle so I am no stranger to the great detective.  The "seasons" (seriously? 3 episodes each) were based on the original stories which were well done.  It was fun and I enjoyed Benedict Cumberbatch in the role.  I used to watch the Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett versions when I was younger.##  I have been in love with these stories for a long time and I think that it's something that will always fascinating to people because of the amazingness of his mind.  We all wish that we were that observant.  If you were smart enough you could actually work to be as great as he was.  You didn't need lots of money, or super powers, you just had to be smart and dedicated.  And the fact that Sherlock has flaws with addition and being a high functioning sociopath it makes him more likable because he's not perfect.  Television shows like Psych, The Mentalist, etc... exist because of an on going fascination with Doyle's work.  Even modern day crime shows like CSI, NCIS, that are based on examining evidence owe their existence to him.  So now I'm watching the new episodes as they come out and I remember why I tend to wait until a show is cancelled to watch because I am terribly impatient.

Speaking of terribly impatient, I added Downton Abbey to the list of must watch this month of British theme.  It's kinda awesome.  I was reluctant to get into it because everyone was ranting and raving about it so much it rather put me off.  Last time someone ranted and raved about something I was sorely disappointed because there was no way it could live up after being built up that much.  However, I do love a period piece and that's exactly what this is.  It very much reminded me of Gosford Park, maybe because Maggie Smith was in that as well.~  We don't have nobility in the USA so I think that's why so many of us are a little fascinated by it.  It's part of our history and yet means nothing to us here.  It's a study of the class system and you end up feeling pretty bad and attached to everyone involved no matter their station.  I am now keeping up with it as the new episodes come on as well.  I went as far as I could on Amazon Prime and then watched the episodes on the PBS website to get caught up before this past Sunday.

So here I am.  I can't watch the second half of the Doctor Who 7th Season.  I am done with Torchwood.  I am waiting on the new episodes of Downton Abbey and Sherlock.  What am I supposed to watch now?  I threw on The Tudors for back ground noise while I decide, but I've seen them all before.  I'm taking recommendations.

*Ya know, back before being a geek was cool, I remember going to cons as a kid in the 80s, they were totally different.
**Yes, when I was in London I totally looked for a Police Box and was sorely disappointed.  DON'T JUDGE ME!
^Seriously, the 1st season of a show that had it's 50th anniversary in 2013?  It acknowledges the original series, it's not a reset, it's a continuation...ugh...so dumb that we have to say new and classic as a result unless you just go by Doctors which really makes the most sense anyway.
^^Why did they keep all the specials separate, WHY?  it was so frustrating that I was having to hunt them down rather than they be in the frickin' seasons with the rest of the episodes.
#By mispronounce I mean with English pronunciations, because if he's supposed to be American it was wrong.
##I did mention this was a resurgence of an old forgotten love affair with PBS, right?
~I, in fact looked it up and apparently Downton Abbey was originally going to be a spinoff of Gosford Park and they decided to set it at an earlier time period...so I guess that's why it reminded me of it.

Babies are great....I just can't eat a whole one

If you type "Royal Baby" into Google you get "About 2,100,000,000 results (0.30 seconds)".  It is a headlining story on ABC, CBS, NBC, USA Today, Washington Post, etc...  Everyone is royal baby crazy.  My friend Kells Hildebrandt had one of the best reactions that I have seen:

"I mean, I know it's exciting when people have babies, but are we really celebrating that a university educated woman gave up a career to become a welfare recipient, and spend the rest of her life dependent on public criticism of what she wears and what offspring her uterus produces? Indeed, let's fucking reinforce the patriarchy a little more. And also, we should wait with baited breath until the baby's name is released after christening, a tradition that dates back to days when individuals actually didn't have names until the Church recorded them. What century are we in?"

Yet, as we are judging and wondering why it's all over the news and why people care, we're talking about it too.  Sure, I really don't care what the name is, unless it's something crazy like Obadiah, Ishmael, or Eleazar...really there are any number of awesome old Biblical boys names that would be interesting.  However, I think that we as America care about the Royal Family because there's part of this country that will always be connected to England because it wasn't that long ago that we were a colony and it was part of our culture.  We're barely over 200 years old as a country, we're young.  We moved out of the house and we're living on our own, but as a country we still not really adults yet.  It's like we're occasionally calling home to hear what the old gang is up to while we're finding ourselves at college.

We don't have a royal family in America.  We've elevated celebrities to this status because we want to believe that there are people out there who are better and more interesting than we are and traditionally this role was filled by the monarchy.  It's in our nature to want to believe that there is something better and that getting a glimpse of it makes us connected to the objects of our obsession.  And yes, I just called people objects because that's what we turn them into when we believe we have the right to know every detail of their lives and to judge them for it, because the rest of us are obviously perfect.  We relate through faults because it makes us feel like the people we idolize for their talents are just as human as the rest of us.  We judge and make fun of them because we're jealous that they're lives seem better then ours.  If we were secure and happy in our lives we'd leave them alone, but we're not.  No one is contented and that's why we watch Jerry Springer, why we read tabloids, why we care that a woman that we have never met, thousands of miles away has just had a baby just like thousands of other women did at the exact same time, but since this one's going to be a Prince and may someday be King, we care.

Me, I'm just going to keep reading the only tabloid I ever had a subscription to, Weekly World News!