Torchwood, Russell T Davies, and Americans...

[fajrdrako]

A fascinating quote from Russell T Davies:

There's a fundamental difference between British and American television, it seems to me. This is a great generalization, but as a whole, American television is aspirational, where British television looks towards the working class. If you're on British television, you're more likely to have lead characters who are unemployed or shop workers. Maybe on American television, they're more likely to be running the shop. I admire American television for being aspirational. There's a slight guilt and complex and persecution culture in Britain about moving away from it. In British television, our evening soap operas are all entirely working class, and that's been the dominant voice for 40 years. We're stuck with it. We need to move on. It shouldn't be the only voice. There's a huge contingent of British writers who'll say you sold out and betrayed the whole profession of writing by not writing about the working class, which I find extraordinary and laughable. Nevertheless, perhaps that's where Torchwood's interest comes from. They're a strange little bunch of people living in a sewer.

It isn't how I'd describe the difference between UK and American television, but it's an interesting angle. I see American TV as being usually more about groups, British TV more about individuals; American TV being more about groups hanging together, British TV being more about groups falling apart, or trying not to.

And the very fact of talking about classes as all - as if it were something that is assumed to exist - is British, not American.

But like any generalizations, that doesn't mean much.