Countdown to Homogeny

The good news is that you can stock up on DVDs, read and reread your copy of 30 Years of British Television, and basically relive the best that British television has had to offer.

“Well that is a very good suggestion,” l hear you say, “but what ever are you getting at?”

Oh my brave little British TV fan, I read  this in the news today and oh boy. Let me just give you the first sentence:

ITV, the UK broadcaster, has signed a potentially ground-breaking deal to develop new programmes with Twentieth Century Fox TV using joint funding and combined teams of US and British writers and producers.

You see where this is going, don’t you? If not, let’s lend our attentions to Lee Bartlett, the new head of global content at ITV (and a former Fox executive):

“From this development fund, we could actually create scripted formats that could be produced in both countries at the same time,” he told the Financial Times.

“There could be differences – the cast for the British version could be more British than for the American version – but you could be making two series on top of each other, if I can put it like that. That could get you some pretty good production synergies.”

Now when we’re growing up, somewhere after learning our ABCs and how many capfulls of water can be swapped for Daddy’s vodka before the alarm is raised, we are taught that “synergies” are to quality what Hollywood is to originality.

You have only to picture a planning session for the creation of Are You Being Served some 30 odd years ago to see how this might work:

British Planner: Now let’s see. We have the middle-age woman who goes on about her “pussy” cat — hilarious! I can hear the laugh track already.

American Planner: Um, excuse me. I don’t want to be a wet blanket or anything, but there is really no way we could have that joke on American TV – we just don’t call kitties THAT here. At least we’ll keep that out of OUR version of the show.

Bean Counter: (Clears throat.) Sorry to butt in here but we can only afford a handful of writers and they have to knock out both sets of scripts in a small amount of time. Whatever they write, it’s gotta go in both shows.

British Planner: Awwww no. Lee Bartlett quite clearly implied we could sort of ‘British up’ the British version and ‘American up’ the American one.

Bean Counter: Yes, well I’m afraid he was over-egging the pudding a bit there. Not Lee’s fault, really. We were all so keen at the time, but that’s before we realized that Steve couldn’t write twice the number of scripts in just a few months time.

American Planner: (Pause.) Steve?

Bean Counter: Er, yes. When I mentioned our “handful” of writers, it was I who was over-egging the pudding that time.

Now if you all don’t mind, I really must be off. I don’t want to miss the first episode of “Lost in Brideshead Revisited.”