Silk

If you're not a fan of Masterpiece Theatre, Brit TV may not be your thing. I'm a huge fan -- always have been -- and enjoy every murder mystery ITV serves up. Unfortunately there are far too few truly good bits, as UK programming is overwhelmed by those US imports I never watched when I lived there (CSI, Two and a Half Men, Jersey Shore, NCIS, anything Kardashian...)

Luckily, there are some exceptions. Silk is a legal drama written by Peter Moffat, the UK's answer to David Kelley. As with just about everything on the BBC, the show is well written & produced, and the acting is fantastic. So BBC, answer me this -- who made the bloody ridiculous decision to limit this fabulousness to 6 episodes? 

That's a crime worth prosecuting.

2 Men Eating



The Trip is a witty 6-part series featuring British comics Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon that's just wrapped on BBC Two. In it, Coogan {who appears to play a character loosely based on, well, Steve Coogan} is assigned a stint as guest food critic for a UK newspaper. After being dumped by his American girlfriend, he embarks on a Range Rover road trip through the English countryside with Brydon, his self-deprecating, slightly neurotic friend.

Together, the somewhat bitter Coogan and happy-go-lucky Brydon eat their way through a half-dozen of the better known restaurants in England's Lake District, Lancashire & the Yorkshire Dales. Although there is a bit of good chat about the fabulous food in which they're indulging, the pair also spend a fair amount of on-screen time in this loosely scripted epicurian Odd Couple bickering, singing (ABBA), pontificating, and imitating other actors (both do a bang-on Michael Caine).

With any luck, The Trip will eventually make it to the States -- via either BBC America or {in its edited reincarnation as movie} some sort of highbrow distribution deal. Not really for children. Or the less than clever.  See it if you can.

Would you rather...

Thanks Don.

MI-5

I've become impossibly hooked on early episodes of a BBC series called Spooks -- retitled for the US market as MI-5, perhaps because the Brits believe us incapable of understanding that Spook is the mother country's word for Spy. Love the sights of London, Thames House, all the intrigue, and top spy Tom Quinn, played by Matthew Macfadyen.

Enough said?