What happened to American TV? I just started thinking about all of the shows I’ve obsessively watched in the last few years and realized that pretty much none of them were American. One possible exception was Heroes, but it never lived up to its first season and I lost interest.
I know that all of my favorite shows for the last year or so have mostly been British. Doctor Who, Skins, Being Human, and Torchwood have held my attention and eaten my time unlike anything widely available in the US. However, as I stopped and looked into it more, I realized that many of the programs I had thought of as American also had Canadian or Australian roots. Stargate, Farscape, and many things on Discovery channel (How It’s Made, MythBusters, etc.) are some examples of this.
I’m curious if US television has always been this bad or if it’s a recent development. I’m hopefully assuming that I’m blinded by my recent adolescence and either was unaware of, or too young for, awesome American programs from 10 or 20 years ago, but somehow I doubt it.
Edit:
Maybe my reaction was slightly premature. As I think about it more there have some great shows like Alias that I missed, but have since been introduced to. We also have some pretty great comedies like The Office, 30 Rock, and Arrested Development. On the other hand, many of the programs I treasured in my childhood shared the same non-American origins as my current preferences. Junkyard Wars and Fraggle Rock are two of these shows from very different time periods in my childhood. While both were broadcast here as American, they had strong non-American influences stemming from their original roots. It seems that the Internet has made access to a wider variety of programming possible, since before it had to be rebranded as American before airing here.
So, my final verdict is that American television has very successful comedy and very occasional success with other types of programming. Unfortunately, while very entertaining, comedy still falls into the mindless category. Mindless television is all we can succeed with. So sad.
