The box in the room - TV comparisons

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That box in the corner, the box of entertainment is universally loved regardless of the country. Yet the attitudes that are attached to the TV and shows on it do differ. Going from having freeview to hundreds of cable channels was a shock in itself although admittedly the first time I properly got to watch American TV was in our hotel room in Chicago and that is when I feel in love with American Pickers and Pawn Stars previously to this we just had netflix. 

In the US TV shows all seem to end or start at the same time. Within two weeks most of the programs we constantly watched finished their latest series - from NCIS, Best Ink, The Big Bang Theory. They all take four months off and they'll all restart at the same time. Which is a bit of a bummer because you find you have nothing really to watch.

In the UK a new show will start and unless there's no major events [say sports and or holidays] a show will run every week without fail. In America it is so stop start. You'll get two weeks of new episodes and then a month without. Another episode and then some more reruns. It makes it hard to keep up with new and repeated episodes.  

American TV shows have HUGE budgets so they all seem like mini films with huge plots and special effects - I know Joe finds some English shows to be very limited in their wow OTT factor. I prefer the British shows because of their quirky low budgets.

The Big Bang Theory - one of America's most watched shows <3 . Source

Compared to the UK where soaps are huge. I haven't seen EastEnders [image source] since left the UK seven months ago but I know if I was to start watching again [somehow] I'd still be able to catch up. They don't tend to move that quickly in their plot line and are often rather repeating.

With regards to the news - although there's many many news channels on cable they are all very limited and bias in their broadcasting.  Especially in regards to world news. American news stations are pretty much politically run, so the news stories you hear come from a political standpoint. MSNBC is very liberal minded [that's the one I watch] whereas FOX News is in bed with the Republican party. This isn't to say the news in the UK is wholly objective but it's more so then what news we get here.

America shows tend to travel better then UK ones. We all grew up in the UK with Friends, Saved by the Bell and say Sabina The Teenage Witch. We all grew up with American TV in our lives and that's continued well into our adulthood especially with all the HBO shows that migrate eastwards. In comparison most UK shows don't really tend to get transferred over to the US, and if they do then they are remade. 

The shows that do cross and get redone is funny at times - from the UK - The Antiques Roadshow, Being Human, America's Got Talent, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, The Jeremey Kyle Show, Life on Mars, Junkyard Wards [taken off from Scrapheap Challenge], Secret Millionaire, Shark Tank [from Dragons' Den], Family Feud [USA version of Family Fortune] are all on TV today. They are even making an American version of the latest BBC adaptation of Sherlock called Elementary - we're going to refuse to watch it - how could you ever top Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman with Johnny Lee Miller [as Holmes] and Lucy Lu [as Watson]?! You just can't!

Have you ever found any differences between your own country and another? What shows would you miss if you left your home country?