Word: bbc
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...very odd coup," the BBC dubbed it in a headline that certainly seemed to capture the quirkiness of the ongoing putsch on the tranquil South Pacific island of Fiji. But taking the prime minister hostage appears to be becoming less odd and more par for the course in some of Britain's former Pacific island colonies. With no end to the Fijian standoff in sight more than two weeks after coup leader George Speight and a handful of cronies first seized Mahendra Chaudry and 30 other civilians as hostages, the prime minister of the Solomon Islands on Monday found himself...
...like all good metaphors, Gormenghast's works on other levels. To the tired bloodline of PBS-endorsed British programming, BBC America's appealing, often lacerating new-wave series are a Steerpike-like intruder. And for the delicate, powdered neck of proper Anglophile telly, the long knives...
Given American producers' continuing taste for adapting Brit hits like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (from ITV, not the BBC), you might think that watching BBC America is watching the future of domestic network television. But in the Pax Nike era of American cultural tyranny, is there still any difference between TV and telly...
...always. The BBC film Sex 'n' Death, an acerbic, sharp if unsubtle send-up of shock TV recently shown on BBC America, owes not a little to the American Hollywood-spoof genre, from The Larry Sanders Show to Action and back to the movie Network. And some Britcoms, like the wacky-priests' caper Father Ted, prove the Brits can make implausible, laugh-track-saturated work just as well as we, but with poorer production values. The best of the offerings, though, are not just rougher and often saltier than U.S. broadcast-network standards permit; they're genuinely surprising...
...develops its characters and wrings out uncomfortable laughs from scenes that can veer close to drama. "We find these moments as funny as the gags," says writer Jeremy Dyson. "They're like the things in Glengarry Glen Ross that you find yourself laughing at because they're so awful." (BBC America is currently running the second season; for latecomers, Comedy Central starts carrying the series from the beginning on June...