If you want me to watch a television show – and you do, since I’m what’s known in marketing circles as a “tastemaker” – you need to do two things and two things only. First, assemble a British cast; everything’s better with accents. Second, throw in some puppies; everything’s better with puppies.
Much as I love it, I recognize that British television programming is not smarter than its American counterpart. This is simply a myth, readily understood as such by anyone who’s ever watched Dr. Who, a show about a 900 year old humanoid alien who travels through space and time in a phone booth, presciently anticipating Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. For the most part, science fiction is colossally nonsensical, the sort of thing only idiots and autistics could genuinely appreciate, but Dr. Who, ostensibly as moronic as Star Trek and its ilk, is an exception. What separates it from its brainless brethren is its charm, which I attribute wholly to the accents.
Britons sound so smart that any Dr. Who devotee has little choice but to view it not as the retarded catastrophe it would be were it American, but rather as a camp extravaganza. Being British, I suspect the show’s masterminds appreciate that more inane aspects of Dr. Who are really, truly worthy of ridicule: bad graphics, cheesy dialogue, no acknowledgement of the more philosophically complex issues related to time travel. The awareness I ascribe to them, rightly or wrongly, turns what could be an arduous viewing experience into a rollicking good time, which is why I’m all about tuning into BBC America and suspending my disbelief.
As for puppies, they’re just so adorable I’ll watch them do anything, including play football. Animal Planet’s answer to the Super Bowl, Puppy Bowl VII, aired this past Sunday, and I’m not ashamed to admit I watched. Puppies obviously don’t take direction well, nor are they possessed of the competitive spirit so prevalent among human athletes, so canine football differs somewhat from the American variety. That being said, I’m way too stupid to understand football, so watching puppies sniff each others’ butts is far more rewarding.
On a related note, puppies are a great addition not only to television programming, but to commercials as well. In fact, I’m biased toward any advertisement featuring a baby animal, irrespective of species, particularly if he’s asleep; if on top of it all he’s wearing pajamas, I’m buying whatever you’re selling.
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