Health & Fitness

A New Kind of British Invasion

US TV is full of "Honey Boo Boo" and "Duck Dynasty." Is it any wonder that Americans are turning to England for their TV?

We may have separated from England a long time ago, but in 2013, Americans want one thing — British TV. And online subscription services Hulu and Amazon Prime, as well as cable network BBC America, are giving it to us.

Luther. Whitechapel. Ripper Street. DCI Banks.

The British crime drama is experiencing a resurgence in popularity as Americans are eating this stuff up. And for good reason.

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This stuff is incredible.

If you haven’t checked out any of those shows, take a note. Right now. Do it. Write this down:

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Watch Whitechapel tonight.

If Whitechapel isn’t available — although it is if you have Amazon Prime and a Roku or other Internet-to-TV device — watch Luther. DCI Banks is currently available on PBS (DVR it. Now.) Ripper Street is filming its second series and will be on BBC America soon. (But, seriously, not soon enough.)

Soon, a lot of this stuff will be available thanks to services like Hulu adding more and more British programming to their subscriptions. According to a Wall Street Journal article published this week, the video-streaming giant is adding 144 British titles to its service in the first year of a deal with BBC Worldwide North America.

Included in the deal is the brilliant Luther, starring Idris Elba, who is known to American audiences as Charles on The Office. His John Luther character is a far cry from the corporate boss of Steve Carell, but is absolute genius. If you’re like me, you’ll have a hard time understanding Detective Sergeant Justin Ripley — those Manchester boys have a tough accent to crack — but you’ll get used to it by the end of Series One. It’s worth it. Trust me.

(What do I mean by Series One? That’s one of your first lessons to watching British TV — it's called a season in America; it's called a series in England. Easy peasy, man.)

Another show coming soon to Hulu is the darling of many Americans — Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. But, honestly? Skip this one. It’ll put you to sleep. It’s not even close to the others. Unless you need to go to sleep. By all means, then, throw on this British equivalent of NyQuil and get under the covers. You’ll be in dreamland in no time.

While Whitechapel is not mentioned in the WSJ article, we can only hope that it’s included in the Hulu deal. Series One, Two and Three are available on Amazon Prime for free, but Series Four just began showing in England earlier this month. It’s absolutely killing me that I have no idea what’s going on with Detective Inspector Chandler and DS Miles.

Whitechapel began its first series with DI Chandler and his team following a Jack the Ripper copycat through the streets of Whitechapel — where the Ripper actually killed his victims. Series two unraveled the story of the Krays, British gangsters. Series Three was just insane — supernatural ghosts, a guy living in the walls, the Bogeyman (that’s Bo-gey-man, not boog-ey-man!) … :shudder:

So. Much. Good. Stuff.

And you won’t have much trouble with the accents on this one. As my husband says, “One guy is like a Shakespearian actor, the other one yells a lot.” You can figure that out.

So, block all those silly reality shows that are really just scripted and look for these British crime dramas for an interesting change of pace. Between the acting, the camera work, the musical scores — you can’t lose. This stuff is worth putting down your remote and watching.


Tell me: What’s your favorite British program? (Even if it’s not a crime drama.)

This post also appeared on my personal blog: DanielleMastersonBooks.com.


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