There’s a whole lotta hatin’ going on Facebook and Twitter about tomorrow’s Royal Wedding.
True, the news media is filled to bursting with coverage — all the minutiae on Kate and Wills, their families, the wedding parties, the route, the ceremony, the receptions, the ridiculous souvenirs.
It’s almost as annoying as NBC’s promotion of The Voice.
But how can Americans spew such bitterness upon these nuptials, when we typically lavish such love on all things British?
Don’t we get all excited each summer come Wimbledon… even though its finals fall on or around our nation’s Independence Day? Sure, we have the US Open in September, but their tennis tournament has the Duke and Duchess of Kent, strawberries and cream, and spiffy tennis whites.
It’s so proper. It’s soooo not us.
And don’t we love the actors and actresses who hail from the British isle, with their superior dramatic training and — most importantly — their glorious British accents? 
Didn’t we just bestow the Best Actor Oscar on the very worthy Colin Firth for his performance in The King’s Speech? We love him ‘exactly as he is’ — for his Mr. Darcy-ness — a quality that could not be achieved if he were not British.
You know it’s true.
So, America, try to recapture some of the love for the British that was in your heart when you gave The King’s Speech the Best Picture Oscar…when the very prickly, very American The Social Network clearly deserved to win.
It’s there. You’ve just forgotten.
(Ad campaigns will do that to you.)
The special relationship
Is Downton Abbey the one public TV program that will convert viewers into contributors?
PBS sure thinks so.
But PBS viewers in the U.S. have to wait a full four months after their counterparts in the U.K…which means spoilers, and lots of them.
I assumed the time lag was laid down by the producers. The Brits would appreciate a slower pace, right?
NO.
Downton Abbey executive producer Gareth Neame wants American audiences in on the first viewing! In an interview in Vulture, he was quoted as saying, “If I were PBS and I had the biggest drama I’d ever had in my entire 40-year history, I would be sorting my schedules out to make sure I was airing it more quickly.”
So what gives, PBS?
Are you scared to put Downton Abbey head-to-head with other new programming that comes out in the fall? I would think its strong showing against The Walking Dead this spring would ease your mind on that score. I know marketing DA might be a bit more challenging — since the actors will be committed on both continents — but a divide-and-conquer approach could be adopted.
Or perhaps the U.S. viewers will continue to vote with their checkbooks…and then the cartoon will look something like this:
Hee.
→ Leave a comment
Posted in Comics, Commentary, Entertainment, Humor, Television, TV
Tagged British, comics, commentary, Downton Abbey, entertainment, fall television premiere, Gareth Neame, Humor, PBS, pledge drive, public television, Television, the special relationship, The Walking Dead, TV, U.K. spoilers, Vulture