TVSquad

Here's something I didn't know: it's cheaper to film in England and Africa than it is to film in Hollywood.

NBC has announced that their new midseason drama The Philanthropist (a real pain to spell, by the way) won't be filmed in the U.S. at all. Instead, the production will save money by setting the show and filming the show in London, with some filming also being done in Africa and the Czech Republic. Executive producer and writer David Eick, however, will stay in Los Angeles. The first episode will be directed by Peter Horton.

Remember when rock 'n roll was to blame for teenagers being out of control? What about when John Lennon's quote about The Beatles being as big as Jesus drew the ire of the church and resulted in deejays advocating the destruction of LPs and singles?

Well, here's another missive from an "authority figure" about how pop culture is ruining today's youth. Sociologist Kristin Aune claims that Buffy, the Vampire Slayer is responsible for young women not attending church.

Dr. Aune, who's written Women and Religion in the West, and is a teacher at the University of Derby (that's in the U.K.), doesn't know if Buffy has also affected young men. Her research doesn't address if boys are abandoning the church, too, so I guess they're safe.

This is no joke, although it does sound like a good way to promote a book that would otherwise be ignored. Mentioning Buffy is a good way to let the world know that Dr. Aune wrote it.

Oh thank God. Paris Hilton is going to England to try and find a new best friend for her reality television show Paris Hilton's My New BFF. Now, rather than subject us to her vapid, debutante antics, she'll be doing the same thing across the Atlantic where they're more used to that sort of behavior.

You know, this is quite an honor for some lucky Brit. There is nobody more loyal, caring and understanding as a friend than Paris Hilton. Just ask Nicole Richie.

As longtime readers of TV Squad probably know, I'm a tennis fanatic. I hate summer with a passion, but I'm happy for the season during four weeks: the two weeks of Wimbledon (late June/early July) and the two weeks of the U.S. Open (late August/early September). If you need me those two weeks, I'll be in front of my TV and a fan, drinking cold liquids.

Of course, it's not all popcorn and roses. There's something that really irritates me about ESPN's coverage of Wimbledon that's going on right now, and I see it every single time I look at the screen (which I find you have to do if you want to watch the matches). It's that damn scoreboard at the top of the screen.

I'm not sure who to root for in this particular dispute. The British authorities have banned Martha Stewart from entering the country due to her previous conviction of obstructing justice.

The television personality was hoping to visit England for some business engagements. Stewart's assistants confirmed her visa denial, but didn't give details (I don't understand this particular fact. American citizens don't need a visa to go to England, only need a passport.).

"Martha loves England; the country and English culture are near and dear to her heart," said Charles Koppelman, chairman of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. "She has engagements with English companies and business leaders and hopes this can be resolved so that she will be able to visit soon."

I'm not the biggest fan of Martha, but this seems like a bit of a snow job. She did the crime and did her time. Why do the British authorities feel that she is still some sort of threat?

She did, however, get to visit her ancestral country of Poland. Score one for the Poles! Maybe they'll keep her.

Showbiz has gone green, and that's not just ecologically! Green is flashing all over Hollywood. CBS has given the greenlight to three more pilots, including a doctor drama, a psychic romance, and a British-based tale of international love.

NY-LON (no, not nylon the fabric!), refers to the New York-London connection via air. The story, which writers Patti Carr and Lara Runnels (who both worked on 'Til Death) are translating from the U.K. version, is about a British businessman who meets a New York City record store clerk while she's in London, and then their subsequent attempts to maintain a transatlantic romance. The series ran seven episodes in England, which is not atypical. Of course, for American TV, many more episodes than that will be necessary to constitute a hit.

According to this article in the U.K.'s Telegraph, kids on the reality TV show Supernanny have been intentionally made to cry to boost ratings. The show is successful in Britain and in the United States (on ABC) and has made host Jo Frost a household name.

My question is: why is this surprising? It's somewhat common knowledge that reality TV intentionally gets its participants into awkward situations in order to get good TV out of it. Hell, right before I started with TV Squad I appeared on a cable TV game show and I was amazed at how much the producers wanted me to behave a certain way in order to make for better TV.

Later this month, TVComedyClassics.com will officially launch as a download service in which folks can purchase, or rent, various comedies from the UK.

Don't expect well-known shows like Black Adder or Monty Python, however. In fact, there isn't a single show listed on the site I've ever heard of. Perhaps they'll be familiar to some of our readers from across the pond: Labours of Erica, Up the Elephant and Round the Castle, Mann's Best Friend, Robert's Robots and Two in Clover, just to name a few. Other series from the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s will be added when the site officially launches, with over one thousand titles in all eventually added to the service.

If you've been enjoying the antics of Benny Hill on BBC America, I have sad news for you: the series is being removed from the channel.

The decision to remove The Benny Hill Show from the channel's lineup is just part of a new makeover that's discarding many older shows for newer ones. The channel hopes to give American audiences more modern shows instead of older fare such as Hill and Are You Being Served? and replace them with newer shows like Torchwood and Hollyoaks.

I must say, I never really understood the appeal of Benny Hill, though that certainly doesn't mean it was a bad show. Obviously, a lot of people liked the series, and how many of us can watch a scene shot in high speed and not start humming that goofy Benny Hill chase music?

I have to ask: will any of you miss Benny once he's gone? Or is he an artifact of an earlier age and no longer relevant?

[via CC Insider]

A lot of stories are popping up about the scene in the most recent episode of South Park that shows the Queen of England putting a pistol in her mouth and blowing skull fragments and brain matter all over the wall behind her. These stories, mostly coming from the UK, tell of the "controversial" scene and how it "shocked viewers."

And yet, not a single one of these stories, from what I can tell, gives any real evidence that the scene in question stirred up any controversy whatsoever. The stories merely suggest that, given the series' knack for courting controversy, people were probably bothered by the Queen's suicide, as well.

I'm not from the UK, but I am a South Park fan, and as I said in my review of the episode, the Queen's suicide was so quintessentially South Park I hardly batted an eye. If anything, the whole sequence seemed a little too easy, especially by South Park standards. I'll admit I'm not easily offended, but South Park hasn't shocked or surprised me in several years. That's not a slag against the show, it just means I'm tuned into its sensibility.

HBO has plans to launch its HBO SVOD service in the UK, marking the first time the cable channel has launched its own channel in the UK market. The new on-demand service will be available on BT Vision, Tiscali TV and Virgin Media and will feature original miniseries; television series, comedy specials and documentaries. No dates have been set just yet as to when the new service will be available.

Here's a question for the UK readers: what do you think of this new service? The press release reads that HBO programs are popular in the UK, and I'm curious as to which shows you like and which ones you don't. Or, if you even give a flying fig newton* about HBO at all.

*Please excuse my language.

The final episode (episode? movie? miniseries) of PBS' acclaimed series Prime Suspect will air tonight (and conclude next Sunday - it's a two-parter, four hours). Tim Goodman over at The Bastard Machine has a review.

It's titled Prime Suspect: The Final Act and chronicles detective Jane Tennison's last case before retirement (she's almost 60 now), involving the search for a missing 14 year-old girl, a case that's a lot more complex than she first realizes. It also involves Tennison's heavy drinking and blackouts and sadness. OK, so it's not the most uplifting drama.

Actually, Helen Mirren has always given fantastic performances in these shows (she has won an Emmy for Best Actress and the show itself has won three Emmys), and Goodman says that this one is no exception. The state of Florida even figures into this last episode.

Last night at Royal Albert Hall in London, the National TV Awards, in which British viewers voted for their favorites in various categories, were handed out. Doctor Who won a bunch of awards: David Tennant won Most Popular Actor, Billie Piper won Most Popular Actress, and the show won Most Popular Drama; the show swept the three awards last year, as well (Christopher Eccleston won the actor award in 2005, of course). Little Britain won Most Popular Comedy -- one of the nominees was Will & Grace! -- and The X Factor won the Most Popular Entertainment show.

The entire list of winners and nominees are here, provided by Digital Spy. It's interesting how the mix of nominees combines both British and American shows, but the winners are all from British shows. And yes, that picture above is of Kelly and Jack Osbourne, who hosted the show with Sir Trevor McDonald. Kelly must have followed her brother's lead and dropped a bunch of weight. They look almost as distinguished as Sir Trevor in that picture.

Tomorrow, the UK's Channel Five will broadcast Five's Birth Night Live, a two-hour special during which one woman will give birth, or so the creators of the program are hoping. This is the first time a live birth will have been captured on British television, but while Channel Five and host Gabby Logan insist they'll remain unobtrusive, the series has caught a lot of flak from experts who insist the mother should be in a calm and unobtrusive environment, a situation they feel is impossible with a camera crew filming every moment. The folks behind the special say they'll withdraw if any problems arise for the mother or child, but that wasn't much assurance to those who feel they shouldn't be there in the first place. Perhaps one of out UK readers can fill me in on this, but I assume the mothers have to give permission before they can appear on camera? Whether or not you agree with this seems like a moot point if the one giving birth has agreed ahead of time.

When Tom & Jerry was in its 1940s and 1950s heyday, everyone smoked. Your parents smoked. Pregnant women smoked. TV stars smoked on the air. Heck, I even think I saw a picutre of a dog smoking. So it wasn't that unusual to depict Tom the Cat smoking, especially if he was attempting to be suave with the opposite sex.

But Ofcom, the British version of the FCC, doesn't care about that bit of cultural history. They've asked the Boomerang channel to delete scenes that depict characters smoking from two T&J cartoons. The cartoons in question are "Texas Tom," where Tom rolls a cig to impress a girl, and "Tennis Chumps," where Tom's tennis opponent smokes a cigar. Ofcom felt that, despite the knowledge that people smoked a lot more back then, it might give kids watching it the wrong idea. Boomerang complied with the order.

Here's the kicker: Ofcom made the request after receiving one complaint. One. Out of 60 million people. Makes the FCC look sensible in comparison, doesn't it?