Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Question: In reviewing your column, I have seen some references to Life on Mars and Torchwood. I am an expatriate Brit and have been watching Doctor Who since I was a kid back in the ’60s. Doctor Who is practically an institution to the Brits who grew up with it, and of course Torchwood is a great recent spin-off. Life on Mars was, I thought, one of the most intelligent TV offerings in years (on either side of the pond). I love Moonlight and New Amsterdam, and I read and watch fantasy wherever I can get it. Over the years, when discussing a piece of recently enjoyed fantasy with my friends here in the U.S., I have noticed the Brits seem far more ready to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride. The Yanks seem to always be dissecting everything (scoffing regularly "as if that could happen.") I noticed this in their reaction to Moonlight (which caught on very quickly in Britain) and New Amsterdam, and many of them don’t even know about Life on Mars, Torchwood or the good doctor. I am not saying that no Americans have it in them to enjoy a good fantasy or that all Brits do, but have you noticed that the really imaginative stuff either comes from there or is more readily accepted there, and that all the reality drek, while not completely ignored, does not do so well there? Are we Brits more imaginitive, more prepared to go for the ride and more willing to be amused rather than amazed? — Lyn

Matt Roush: Excuse me? In hopes of stemming off an avalanche of heated responses from indignant Yanks, can I just offer up a few choice titles like The X-Files, Lost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Battlestar Galactica (current version), Farscape, all the way back to The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits — and, dare we mention, Star Trek? — if anyone wants to play the anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better game. The appetite for fantasy and sci-fi is as strong here as it is anywhere, but the mass marketplace where U.S. broadcast TV is concerned can be a notoriously tough nut for many genre shows to crack. Whatever anyone thinks about Moonlight, its scheduling on Fridays was also going to make it a cult show at best. And if lots of Americans have yet to embrace Life on Mars and Torchwood, that may have something to do with their being primarily available on the relatively niche (though glorious) BBC America channel. As for reality TV: Where do you think many of our most popular concepts originated? Europe. And in the case of American Idol, in the U.K. with Pop Idol. The idea that reality doesn’t sell across the pond is nonsense. Its pervasiveness in overseas markets has everything to do with why we’re constantly being assaulted by fresh (and often foul) new formats.