Written by Anthony Burch

I don’t know about you, but American TV is pissing me off. 24 went downhill, LOST’s minor revelations can’t make up for its irritations, and the Heroes finale could literally not have been less climactic if it had tried. As such, I’ve run to British TV for  refuge, hoping that a world of funny accents and cross-dressing comedians might serve as some solace from the consistent mediocrity of US television.

If your knowledge of Brit TV only extends to Monty Python, you might be interested to know that there are more than a few modern British TV shows that you really oughtta watch.

Spaced

If you liked Shaun of the Dead, you’ll love Spaced. If you didn’t like Shaun of the Dead, what the fuck is wrong with you? Out of all the shows on this list, Spaced is by far the easiest to recommend: it’s the least “British” of these shows (you’ll never have to figure out what a “gay-rage forecourt” is), thus making it the easiest to get into. Not to mention that the show is goddamned hilarious, and will immediately hit home for any male in his late teens to mid-30’s. The show is ostensibly about two slacker twentysomethings who pretend to be a couple in order to get a flat together, but it really just serves as an excuse to showcase the lives of two struggling not-quite-adults who don’t want to grow up.

The show is chock full of characters who endlessly reference pop culture (but in a funny, poignant way, not an irritating Kevin Smith way) while trying to work their way through relationships and everyday life. In addition to some truly hilarious moments (like the one where Mike, Tim, and Brian have an extended imaginary gunfight), it also includes some legitimately insightful commentary about life in general, presented behind a veil of humor -- scroll to 3:50 in the above video and you’ll experience one of the greatest monologues ever delivered about relationship infidelity. From a guy’s point of view, anyway. Either way, Spaced is a perfect way to fill the days until Hot Fuzz arrives on DVD.

Never Mind the Buzzcocks

Ah, the panel show – a haphazard excuse for getting a half-dozen quasi-celebrities into the same room so they can make fun of each other and look like morons whilst promoting themselves. It’s a formula that can fail very, very easily, but thankfully, shows like Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Q.I. manage to do a pretty good job of handling the format. But where Q.I. gets most of its gusto from legitimately intellectual question and answer sessions, recent series of Buzzcocks have benefited from the fact that the show is hosted by a guy who, while clever and funny, is a bit of an asshole.

Simon Amstell, a presenter who looks like a cross between Mick Jagger, Johnny Rotten, and a Brillo pad, channels a perfect mix of British snobbery (when a guest spits on the floor, Amstell incredulously exclaims, “This is not a football match,”) and angry sarcasm (during one episode, he irritates a guest to the point where he leaves the studio). Team captains Bill Bailey (the dude who played the twin brothers in Hot Fuzz) and Phil Jupitus also keep things lively, but Amstell’s ability to mock literally anyone for saying anything makes the show worth watching.

Oh, and one time Amy Winehouse came on as a guest panelist, completely and utterly shitfaced. So the show’s got that going for it. That’s nice.

The Office/Extras 

Don’t worry – I’m not going to be one of those elitist snobs who says that the only good version of The Office is the original British series. It isn’t. The US version is equally hilarious, but in a distinctly American way – which is to say, more unrealistic characters and situations. Where Dwight Schrute’s epic battle with a potentially rabid bat might feel right at home in the US version, the original UK series focuses much more on the awkward truth of office life: that it’s a sad, boring, awkward, soul-crushing existence. Laughs come not from sight gags or punchlines, but from uncomfortable reenactments of moments we’ve all experienced, in some form or another. This awkwardness is personified in Ricky Gervais’s portrayal of Wernam Hogg regional manager David Brent, and his performance is damn near perfect: he represents every single awful, irresponsible, insecure, stupid boss anyone has ever had. Which makes it all the more incredible that by the second series, you’re actually rooting for him: despite the fact that Brent is a complete and total twit, he becomes oddly sympathetic in a sad, puppy dog sort of way.

Oh, and, of course, the Jim/Pam relationship is there (though the characters' names are Tim and Dawn), but it has to be said that Martin Freeman’s Tim is much more entertaining than John Krasinski’s Jim (who I still enjoy, by the way). What makes The Office so special is that in addition to its moments of outright painful awkwardness (a scene in which Brent tries to break the ice with his new underlings by repeating variations of the same joke over and over is hilarious, but fucking agonizing), the show still cares a great deal about its characters. You’ll be rooting for Tim and Brent just as much as you’ll be laughing at their jokes – a combination impossible to find in any other sitcom short of, well, the American version of The Office.

Extras is pretty much more of the same humor – those awkward moments in life we wish we’d never have to experience again are stretched out for agonizing minutes – but the documentary style of The Office is dropped, Gervais’s character is much more sympathetic, and the show is about acting instead of working in an office. It’s not quite as funny as The Office, of course, but most things aren’t. Simply put, if you like one Ricky Gervais show, you’ll like the other.

The Mighty Boosh

Combine charmingly low-budget sets, weird musical numbers, quirky supporting cast members (including an intelligent gorilla and Naboo, the five foot wizard), and tie it all around two alternately quirky yet frumpy protagonists, and you’ve got The Mighty Boosh. Though the show ostensibly centers around two zookeepers and their daily misadventures, it frequently lapses into the absurd and fantastic: in one episode, Howard Moon (Julian Barratt) is roped into a boxing match with a kangaroo. In another, Howard dresses like an ape and is mistakenly taken to monkey purgatory by Death, who has confused Howard for the zoo’s senior gorilla.

It’s hard to describe The Mighty Boosh without making it sound absurd and silly, but that’s part of the fun: each episode makes little to no sense, but the comic timing, cheesy special effects, and witty banter between Moon and Vince Noir (Noel Fielding) are all top notch. If Michel Gondry and Monty Python had a baby, it'd probably look something like The Mighty Boosh.

Q.I.

Like Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Q.I. (“Quite Interesting”) is a panel show that – while not technically necessary viewing – serves as a pleasantly diverting way to spend half an hour. The show, hosted by Stephen Fry (recognizable to American audiences as the gay TV host in V for Vendetta), presents its celebrity panel with a few dozen random, incredibly difficult questions and awards points based not on the accuracy or relevancy of the answers, but solely on how interesting they are. Given that the show often brings on some incredibly intelligent panelists, useless but entertaining tidbits of (assumedly true) information are often exchanged in efforts to answer absurd questions like, “What does Adam’s belly button have in common with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s left ear?”*

The show is often hit-or-miss given the fact that permanent panelist Alan Davies is only funny about 60% of the time, but it’s still an intellectually stimulating half hour of television. Note: the above clip also shows how damn scripted the show is – there’s no way Alan could have just coincidentally asked all the right questions that would result in Stephen divulging so many different bits of info about Mr. C. Still, though: interesting.

Life on Mars

Stay with me, because this premise is going to sound absolutely absurd: a cop in 2006, while chasing a kidnapper, is hit by a car and sent back in time to the year 1973. While there, he is forced to adjust to some serious cultural shock, but finds that he has been given the identity of a Detective Inspector -- whether by coincidence or divine providence -- in the same district he handled back in 2006. Still reading? Good. Because despite (or perhaps because of) its assumedly cheesy setup, Life on Mars is actually an extremely entertaining, intelligent, and unconventional police procedural.

The time travel aspect isn’t played for kicks – Doctor Who this ain’t – but instead as a method of getting a modern cop (John Simm) and his style of policing to clash with an oldschool, Dirty Harry wannabe (Philip Glenister). Again, this all sounds ridiculous and cliché, but that’s not how it plays out – Simm plays detective Sam Tyler as a man with a respect for the law and due process, but not to the point where he feels like a robot, while Glenister plays DCI Gene Hunt as a thug-hating badass, but not in the irritating “tough guy with a heart of gold” sort of way. Hunt is simply a complete bastard to criminals and people he doesn’t like, but he’s a decently nice guy toward others.

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that it is never made explicitly clear how, or why DI Tyler is sent back to 1973: for the entirety of the series, in fact, it is left ambiguous as to whether Tyler has actually traveled back in time, or is simply experiencing a lucid dream while lying in a coma following his car accident. Life on Mars was unfortunately cancelled before the show’s main questions could be answered, but as it stands the show is still an unusually intelligent take on what could have easily been just another cop show.

I’m Alan Partridge

Despite the fact that both series of I’m Alan Partridge include an unfortunately obstrusive laugh track, it’s still one of the funnier shows to come out of the BBC. Alan Partridge is a strung out, washed up, ex-talk show host played by Steve Coogan. He’s petty, immature, selfish, disrespectful, self-aggrandizing, and in a constant state of denial – in other words, he’s hilarious to watch.

While the setting changes from the first to second series, he still spends the majority of his time sitting around, bored out of his skull, trying to convince himself that something remains of his former glory. Describing his “adventures” through text makes them sound pretty ridiculous (at one point, Alan gets so bored he decides to walk to a gas station and buy 20 bottles of windshield cleaning fluid despite not owning a car), but Coogan’s portrayal of Partridge is so unabashedly unsympathetic that it’s difficult not to laugh with and at the things he says and does. If you end up enjoying Partridge, also check out Saxondale, where Coogan plays a self-employed pest control worker with anger issues. No laugh track in that show, thankfully.

Doctor Who

If you’re a sci-fi fan and you haven’t seen the new series of Doctor Who, stop. Right now. Get your hands on the first two complete series, then download the current episodes of season three. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the new seasons of Doctor Who, under the guidance of Russell T. Davies, may very well be the best science fiction show in history. Firefly and Battlestar Galactica come close, but Firefly didn’t have enough time to get where it wanted to go, and Battlestar doesn’t handle characterization quite as well as Who.

Doctor Who follows an alien Time Lord (known as the Doctor) as he jets around space and time in his TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) machine. He saves the world, fights aliens, and all that good stuff -- but most interestingly, he does so without ever using violence. 

If you were disappointed with the finale for Heroes, then Doctor Who will feel like a breath of fresh air – unlike other sci-fi shows, Davies plans out every aspect of the series’ story arc before it even begins. Everything, in every series, builds up to a definite and predetermined climax. Being able to experience a series whose ending is actually planned is kind of nice (LOST is still throwing shit at the audience with no point or purpose, and Heroes obviously didn’t know where the hell it was going after the middle of the season), but it also doesn’t hurt that these finales are incredibly epic, climactic, and emotional. 

You don’t have to be a fan of the classic, extremely campy series in order to enjoy the new one – I certainly wasn’t. The first season of the new series (available , so there’s no confusion as to what the "first" season is) is specifically tailored for people with no knowledge of the Doctor or his adventures. Yet be warned: the first series will feel sort of unusual to an adult.

Technically, the show is aimed toward both kids and adults, like Star Wars. As a result, the Doctor may seem unusually optimistic and upbeat about everything,  the aliens may seem a little goofy, and the situations may occasionally seem a big lighthearted, but that’s part of the charm: assumedly childish, dorky looking things like Daleks or Weeping Angels are somehow made terrifying, and the Doctor’s upbeat attitude is more than welcome in a time where every other superhero sits around brooding and bitching about life. One of the producers called the Doctor the least cynical man in a cynical age, and it’s an appropriate title. Still, this doesn’t mean that all the episodes are happy-go-lucky crap: many, many people die in an average Doctor Who episode, and character-wise, the Doctor is often taken to some very dark places. Even if you don't like the first few episodes of Doctor Who, stick with it: the finale to season two is the single best television finale I have ever seen. Ever. And even having said that, this current season's finale looks to be even better.

Basically, I can’t recommend Doctor Who enough. If you want immersive, exciting, emotional, well-written science fiction, it’s the single best show on television today.

*Both are purely cosmetic: the Archbishop was deaf in his left ear, and if Adam was the first human on Earth, he wouldn’t have had a belly button because he wouldn’t have come from an umbilical cord.