British MoFos....any suggestions for TV?

Just saw Misfits and was blown away by how good it was. Really enjoyed it. I didn't even know about the show here in the US til someone turned me on to it. Can any of the British Mofos recommend other good TV series? I'm a huge fan of Brideshead Revisited (a while back....), but these are the only 2 series I'm familiar with....

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Under-the-radar Movie Awesomeness.
http://earlsmoviepicks.blogspot.com/

You crazy Brits and your TVs.

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"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

Foyle's War is good, but I am not a Brit.

Stay away from the one with the two middle-aged women gardners always dgging up corpses.

The Canadians had a good show once, The Da Vinci Inquest. The lead was a great actor.

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- Paula

Spaced is one of my favorites, and so's Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, Doctor Who, The Young Ones, and The Office. I've yet to see Misfits.

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"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

Will, I take it you're NOT a fan of Rosemary & Thyme?

Earl -
Im not English, but since you liked Misfits, I'd suggest Survivors (in the apocalyptic/supernatural category). Also Luther, The Last Enemy, and perhaps The Prisoner, tho Im not sure its a brit show?

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something witty goes here......

Ay, Misfits was a daft & playfully sordied take on superheroes. I felt the second series almost caught the writers by surprise tho - the initial set ups were so ludicrous it felt like they had trouble giving everything an arc (hence some rampant power-swapping & relationship shifting that ensues).

Hah, just looked at BBC America listings, and it seems to be mainly reruns of Star Trek. Odd . Thought there might be more than just Top Gear on there. (Altho The Tudors is fun watching, with its strange mix of history & soft porn. And emerging Irish accents at points of high emotion ).

There's been a whole swathe of 'gritty cop dramas' recently (Luther, Case Histories, & stalwarts like Waking the Dead), but I can't say I'd recommend them above US fare (they're all beautifully shot, and well acted, but there's nothing to elevate them above standard crime fare. If you like that tho, they're all pretty solid).



The Life on Mars & Ashes to Ashes series have a more novel crime twist. They feature a modern cop in a coma being mysteriously transported to the 70s & 80s respectively. (I didn't catch all of em, but what I did was addictive telly).

The spy drama series called Spooks also seems to have its moments. I only joined it with the penultimate series (which was pretty great - intense, horrible moral decisions, underbelly punches & deceptions, & occasional confrontations with archaic UK politics ). The final series was truly horrible tho. As in written by monkeys. Avoid.

For more hard-core crime you could try the 'grim up north' Red Riding trilogy, based around real 70s crimes, it's dark indeed. Holden has waxed lyrical about it here.

The irreverance of Misfits is all over Shameless (a love/hate prog about rogueish real-life taken to the edge of cartoon extremes but never quite beyond). It's just been remade in the US with Willy Macey tho, so you may prefer that?

Downton Abbey was a recent lushly-shot 'upstairs downstairs' period drama set in the build up to WW1, written by Julian Fellows. Very solid too.



(This trailer is too choppy to show it, but what the series really nails are the rare & lingering shots & the thoughtful detailed commentary)

Outside of that the main thing we seem to do well over here is factual docs. If you haven't seen any of the David Attenborough nature doc series (and there are decades of them), get on em right now . Planet Earth & Blue Planet were two recent epic-scale stand-outs, but they're all good. From macro to micro, they capture massive awe.

There's probably loads I've forgotten. And a load of shite that we make too that I haven't mentioned

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On a very gentle / period / historical front, you might like the series Victorian Farm. (I think there's an Edwardian variant too, and other spin offs). Three academics go back and live the life of the times, getting their hands dirty, trying out forgotten remedies & thriftiness, getting old farming technology working & building in the style of the time etc. It's both accurate and engaging (coz they spend the year really trying to bring the crops in as they would have etc etc). It's got that beguiling feel of a 'slower' time, and a closeness to a (admittadly industrialising) nature, while also making you appreciate the labour saving devices of our times.

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Life On Mars was remade Stateside so you might have a bias against it (as it only lasted a season) but go to the original. Personally, I prefered Ashes To Ashes, which was a sequel/follow on set in the 80's.

Spooks is known over there as MI-5, but from what I hear, is cut to make it fit a one hour slot. This means you miss 15 minutes an episode, so I've no idea how it's managed to garner a following over there. It's never interested me, but it's considered quality. There again, so's 24.

If you've seen the "Planet" or "Life" series of documentaries without the David Attenborough commentry, please watch them again with it. I know I'm not Sigourney Weaver's biggest fan or anything, but there is no substitute.

A few from Pyro's "Must See TV" thread.
http://www.movieforums.com/community...ad.php?t=25909

Prime Suspect, Cracker, House Of Cards Trilogy and Yes, Minister/Yes, Prime Minister.

I'll just add stuff I like now, so as not to block everyone else out.

Time, Gentlemen Please
Top Gear
The Supersizers Go.../The Supersizers Eat...
The Tribe
Amazon
Mock The Week
8 Out Of 10 Cats
QI
Room 101
Nevermind The Buzzcocks
Have I Got News For You
Absolutle Power
Suburban Shootout
Live At The Apollo
Come Dine With Me
Gavin & Stacey
A History Of Britain
Outnumbered
Garth Marenghi's Dark Place
Phoenix Nights
This Life
Absolutely Fabulous
'Allo, 'Allo
Are You Being Served?
Till Death Us Do Part (which was made into All In the Family in the states)
Fawlty Towers
The Young Ones
Not The Nine O'Clock News
Ultraviolet
Being Human
The Avengers/The New Avengers
The Blackadder Series (2-4 being very different and, IMO, superior to the first)
The Fast Show
I, Claudius
The Good Life
Porridge
Open All Hours
The Sweeney
The Professionals
State Of Play
Our Friends In The North
The Singing Detective
Blackeyes
Pennies From Heaven
The War Game
Threads
The Power Of Nightmares
All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace
The Victorian Farm
The Victorian Pharmacy

I agree with everything there except 'Allo 'Allo

Oo, I shoulda realised Attenborough mighta been dubbed out. So long as they keep his phrasing I guess the details are still there, but there's something about his breathy knowledge/excitement that I doubt could be beat

On more 'timeless' recent stuff I'd definitely back Tribe in the exploration / anthro category. I guess Ray Mears deserves a reco too for his survivalism stuff. Def more subtle/informed than Bear Grills guzzingly gall bladders anyway.

I'm, gonna stay away from older & more UK-centric stuff (too much there ), but if I had to pick one of the lesser-known ones, I reckon Yes, Minister could still cross time zones. Civil services & geopolitics are modern staples

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Altho of course, if earl hasn't seen Blackadder, he totally should (Minus the first series, naturally )

Oh, and I forgot The Mighty Boosh. I love that one.

Wh... what?! Life On Mars was so much better. I liked Ashes To Ashes, but man, LoM was just f-ing phenomenal.

Hah yeah, Mighty Boosh is pretty off the wall. Third series was made too quickly, and rehashy (and minus the director, & with some of the FX guys getting a bit bored of the effort vs financial reward I think). But first two are hidden-theatre musically-deranged oddity-gold alright ...





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Nice to see it was mentioned, I also recommend Waking The Dead, even above all the US ones everytime(if you mean stuff like CSI), perfect series and hate how they finished it this year. There is a spin off coming involving Eve from Waking the Dead called The Body Farm - so am looking forwards to this a lot.

If you like Thriller/Crime series, it's not British, but I highly recommend the French series Engrenages, it's got three full series and two more officially on the way, all three series have been amazing. Also recommend the series Forbrydelsen, from Denmark. America have remade it, called The Killing.

Trailer for series 2 of Engrenages, sorry no subtitles:



Try Skins, our British versions are excellent, forget that the American version was axed after only one series. If you liked Misfits, you should find something in this. We are up to the 5th series.

An excellent trailer for series 5 of Skins:

No cop show, British or American, was as good as this one from Canada because none of them had this guy starring in it.


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Firstly, if you're watching a Canadian cop show, you want to be watching Due South.

Secondly, also not British, but I second Nausica's suggestions, Engrenages (also called Spirals) and Forbrydelsen (The Killing). Both excellent. I'll also throw in Wallander, a Swedish police drama. Excellent stuff, series 1 starring Krister Henriksson as Wallander being my favourite. Though series 2 and the previous films are also good. There is a link to the thread, though, as there's a UK version with Kenneth Branagh as Wallander. Not as good as the Swedish version, IMO, but still good.

As Golgot mentioned more modern stuff, I'll give out a quick list of that, too. I wouldn't actually watch all of it, but others seem to like them.

The Seven Ages Of Britain
A History Of Scotland
Lark Rise to Candleford
Sherlock
Merlin
Torchwood
Dr. Who
Him & Her
The Indian Doctor (I meant to mention this on the last list)
Upstairs, Downstairs (a three episode continuation/reboot of the original classic)
Hotel Babylon
Peep Show
That Mitchell & Webb Look
The Inbetweeners
Teachers
Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe/Newswipe/Gameswipe
Dead Set
Messiah
The Thick Of It
Green Wing

Due South sucked.

You wash your mouth out with soup!

Unless you mean season 3, in which case I agree.

The Trip

Best British TV comedy in years. And years.



The Thick of It

Nearly as good as The Trip.

Sweariness abounds!

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Yeah, I didn't care much for the series where they were living in a flat together, it wasn't as funny as the others. My personal favorite one's were the Crack Fox one ("I'm gonna make you wear a dress and hurt you!") and the one with the green skinned hitchhiker who has a polo on his eye and sings about eels.

I thought about mentioning The Trip, but I only saw the first two episodes. I did mention The Thick Of It, even though I don't think it's funny.

*EDIT* As a break to all this 'opinion' I thought I've give you the official version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFI_TV_100

These were the results from a public vote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britain%27s_Best_Sitcom

The Guardian put together a top 50, though it's not exclusively British, I'm sure you'll know the US ones.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-rad...evision-dramas

The Trip, I think, gets even better as it moves along so watch the other episodes, like, now.

A couple or three (or four) classics:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Smiley's People

GBH

And, probably my favourite out of the four, Edge of Darkness.

There's more to it than this.



AKA: The scene that the shoddy Mel Gibson remake chickened out of filming.