My Open Letter to BBC America

A while back, I mentioned that one of the last bastions of good TV was BBC America. The British just seem to have a way to make television fun, exciting, and thought provoking. After the run of Life on Mars, I was getting excited about the possibility of the sequel, Ashes to Ashes, making its debut. BBC America did what it normally does, and waited for two full seasons to be released in Britain before bringing it over here, since American audiences are not used to the short season runs of British shows.

So, when it finally premiered on BBC America, the Duchess and I settled into watch. While a casual fan of Life on Mars, she is a devoted Anglophile, even living in Britain for about 4 months after her graduation from a prestigious institution of higher learning. While not as good as predecessor, this show was fun to watch (if only to remind us all that absolutely nothing good came out of the 80’s). The season 1 finale was probably the best of the bunch, finally revealing who that scary looking clown was that kept haunting Alex (much like the girl in the red dress that kept haunting Sam).

So, I settled in to watch the Season 2 premiere the next Saturday only to find an old episode of Torchwood on. Now, while I have nothing against Torchwood, it was a repeat and on instead of a new episode of Ashes to Ashes. Shock was my immediate reaction, as I had seen the new show on my future recordings list on my DVR. This was followed by a string of expletives that would have made a trucker blush. I immediately logged on to my computer and went to the home of where truth and information meet, the BBC America message boards. It was there that I found out that the show had been cancelled and the American viewer had no recourse.

So I did what any red-blooded American who is semi-literate and semi-drunk would do. I wrote a letter expressing my deep displeasure at their choice. Before I could find an envelope and a stamp, the Duchess interceded and got her hands on the letter. She made necessary changes to some of my phrasing and grammar, and then allowed me to send it off. For you now, is the original first draft of my letter:

Dear Ass-Hats of Programming,

What the hell kind of thoughts do you harbor in your drug-addled minds? I tuned into BBC America on Saturday night, looking forward to one of the few shows that didn’t involve horrible CGI, Gordon Ramsay, Top Gear, over-sexed mouth breathers, or morally-indefensible British public and what do you think I found? Horrible CGI, wrapped up in the package that is a repeat of Torchwood.

While I like Torchwood, I would like to watch a new episode of one of the few shows you present that doesn’t slowly diminish my will to live. Seriously, is a rerun of Torchwood better than a new episode of Ashes to Ashes? Did your mother’s free-base battery acid while she was pregnant with you?

Speaking of, what the hell is up with your programming as of late? I swear, if there was ever an episode of Top Gear, in which Gordon Ramsay and Graham Norton run down the sluts of Mistresses, you would probably run it on an unending loop. What happened when you rebranded the network so that a different genre was presented every night? Did it cause you to have to think? Was that too much trouble for you?

And why do you rerun the same shit all the time? Why not give us reruns of Gavin & Stacey, or Worst Week, or Touching Evil, or Wire in the Blood, or MI-5, or one of the multitude of good British programs? It’s like the guys from Top Gear have pictures of you fornicating with a goat, which you know would make the cows jealous. Either that or you’re actively trying to become the Head of Programming at FOX.

Seriously, bring back Ashes to Ashes or I’m going to have to sludge my way through the den of pornography that is the internet and find some unwashed slug who lives in his mother’s basement who was kind enough to violate copy write laws (or whatever they have in England) and upload the episodes onto his website. Do you want me to do that?

Thank you and burn in Hell,

Trent Lane

Personally, I think this version is better.