Friday Fun - Learning from the BBC

I've long had a fascination with the UK. I love the literature, architecture, the culture, the landscape, but mainly, my love for the UK started with castles. Who doesn't love castles? (Yes, I took that picture of Warwick Castle!)

Us Americans don't see castles on a day to day basis, and it really is a shame because I love looking at them.

Anyway, as a kid I watched a few BBC shows like Blackadder, Are You Being Served, Ab-Fab, etc. More recently I've gotten into Doctor Who, Being Human, Law & Order UK, and Torchwood.

Watching these shows is a completely different experience than watching American TV.

Here in American we LOVE our characters. We make websites and Facebook Pages, we write Fan-Fiction, create Fan-Art and so on. Of course people around the world do it too, but it seems Americans are very character oriented.

Then I started noticing how BBC shows get rid of their characters WAY more than frequently than we do on American shows...well, except for the L&O's and LOST.

Imagine my surprise after the 9th Doctor was gone after one season, or how they kept revolving his companions just when I was starting to like them, or when they killed off just about every main character in Torchwood one by one or how they got rid of a couple central characters in Being Human. Man, talk about a new way of viewing TV.

I read an article that sort of explains why this happens on the BBC shows and mainly it's about money. It's harder for them to keep actors for long periods of time because of budgets. Okay, I totally understand that, but it doesn't make it easier when you fall in love with a character and they're gone after 6 or 7 episodes. Grr!

Yet the more I continued to watch, the more I realized that they are mimicking real life more so than we do over here. Yes, it's true many people stay in the same job or neighborhood for years, however, we all know that people always come and go from our lives all the time and there's little we can do to control it. The BBC shows certainly make you feel that way and rarely do they sugar coat it.

So now, any time a main or semi-main character gets the ax on a TV show, I consider them BBC'd.

Do you have any favorite characters on TV that have been BBC'd before their time? Tell me!