Land of the free

I'm not like most British people. You see I like America. I realise it's bombing Iraq, has the most murders than anywhere else and is the main cause of global warming. But those people involved in that (George Bush I & II, er psychopaths and Corporate Scum) are idiots. Most of the Americans I've met online and offline are really charming, smart and actually get sarcasm.

American telly is great too. Whilst we have the political satire of Have I Got News For You which is on around 20 Fridays of the year, they have the equally biting Daily Show with Jon Stewart which is on almost every weekday.

Same with Coupling, a great BBC comedy which has had 3/4 series of 6 episodes each. The just as humorous, but more emotionally touching How I Met Your Mother has only been on for two series but has series of around 20 episodes.

I think it's because in England we only allow one person to write the whole series, but in America anyone can write something even if it's just one line.

And the dramas are far better than anything over here. The only thing I try to watch every week UK wise is Doctor Who. In American TV I have to watch Veronica Mars, The American Office*, Sopranos and Heroes.

Oh Heroes how I love you. I've been watching it since it started on Sci-Fi and it's much better than I thought it would be. Unlike Lost it's tying up loose ends as it goes along, but starting new ones to keep you interested. And Hiro Nakamura is the best character ever!

But one day our Sky Plus failed to record Heroes so I downloaded an episode off the net. There was one big difference to the one shown on UK telly. The catch up bit at the beginning was very over the top. On the UK version you get clips of what happened before, in America you get terribly over the top voice-over man. He says cheesy things like "One man, comes to terms with the fact that destiny lays in his hands, but is he aware of his powers?"

It made me cringe. Along with catching a bit of Bill O'Reilly on Fox News it's made me realise that most people in charge of American Networks don't appreciate how clever their viewers actually are and feel they have to spoonfeed them information. Although if they watch Bill O'Reilly they need shooting.

* Much funnier than the British one for many reasons, but the most important one is lack of Gervais. A man who I've never found that funny & appears to only have one character.