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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Morrus" data-source="post: 5684855" data-attributes="member: 1">The fact that you're not familiar with them doesn't mean they don't exist, though.  These things that "most Americans have never heard of " are very real, and much of it is extremely popular, and whether or not Americans like it does not even enter into the consciousness of the average viewer.  There's plenty of "darker" TV and music outside of the US, and there has been for a very long time.  As for "dark" - I don't consider your cited Buffy and Angel to be dark.  Especially not compared to current UK dramas like <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8738468/Appropriate-Adult-ITV1-review.html&sa=U&ei=dJJzTvzJGpKq8AOMpe2BDg&ved=0CB4QFjAB&usg=AFQjCNFN6Y6c5TJ21Z9mGYnnPLrhuYyBgA" target="_blank">Appropriate Adult</a>, and Spooks, or even very old stuff like Blake's 7.  Hell, even UK soaps (not that I watch them) have dark storylines - Eastenders has storylines about mature themes all the time, a recent example being one about a grieving mother who "switched" her baby for someone else's, and all the emotional turmoil that involves.  I'd argue that the UK has been doing dark very well for a long, long time; I don't know whether the US has, but if it has I've not been privy to it.  But I'll not deny that the US has been doing so simply because I didn't see it.Indeed, the show we're talking about - Doctor Who - get more viewers in the UK than any comparable US genre show (such as Buffy and the like, and much, much more than things like Angel, Smallville, and the other shows you cited) did in the US.  US genre shows simply don't get viewing figures of that level on the whole, with a few exceptions.  The US market is not the primary market for Doctor Who; the 10-million weekly viewers at home are.  It's nice that some US folks like it and all, but it's far from being a primary factor.  It's a big, big show (t<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/5931441/Doctor-Who-named-as-most-successful-sci-fi-show-ever.html" target="_blank">he world's most successful sci-fi show ever</a> in terms of viewing figures - more successful than the likes of Buffy, Lost, or BSG), produced by the world's largest broadcaster, and it's marketed towards the UK.There's a strong argument that the US genre shows are the ones that "nobody has ever heard of", your own experience notwithstanding.  The UK ones are seen by more people.You're mistaking "Americanized" for "not being stuck in the mid-twentieth-century".  Modern Britain, like modern America, is very different from what it was in the 1960s.  Modernity - such as special effects - is not an "American" concept; it's a global concept closely linked to the linear passage of time. The world moves on.As for music - check out some 70s British music, along the lines of Bowie and the like for darkness; or plenty of people before that for global popularity.  I'd strongly argue that, given that the UK has one-fifth the population of the US, its influence on modern music is astonishingly prevalent and that it has influenced American music just as much as vice versa.  Only 8 artists have sold more than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists" target="_blank">300 million records</a>; four of them are British (including the top one), three American, and one Swedish.  Six have sold between 200-300 million records: three are British, and only one is American. If you look at that linked page, you'll see the UK featuring in the lists far more often than its size would suggest.That of course, is historical - if you look at the biggest bands in the world today, you're talking U2, Coldplay, and the like.  Again, firmly on this side of the pond.  Or your biggest TV shows - British produced and starring reality shows like American Idol (Simon Fuller produces, Simon Cowell starred, British crew) are actual direct copies of existing UK shows - and The X Factor (US) is going to eclipse even that.  The biggest literature and movie franchises in the world right now?  The work of a Brit called JK Rowling.  Sports?  The most famous sportsman in the world isn't a baseball or basketball player - it's a British football player called David Beckham.  The biggest, most famous, and richest sports team in the world?  A British football cub, Manchester United.  In every conceivable entertainment industry, the British are right there at the top - influencing, creating, shaping, and being the one at the top of that chart, whatever it is.  You look at it, the top entry will be British.So, I'm afraid I must dispute your conjecture than most Americans have not heard of British stuff. The numbers say otherwise, and that the direction of influence is just as strong - if not stronger in some areas such as music - from the UK to the US, not just the other way round. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Oh, and I've never heard of "American Singer" - not that that in itself means anything.  But it'd be fairly trivial for me to Google up some local American music acts and contrast them with some global-selling British ones, the way you did with Lady Gaga vs. Robbie Williams.  Why didn't you choose Coldplay?  Or U2?  Or Elton John?  Or Adele, currently the most popular female singer in the world and dominating your music charts right now?  Or a hundred other current British musicians who have sold vastly more records than Lady Gaga?  Even Kylie Minogue (an Australian, but most popular in the UK) beats her in every measurable way - more records, more sales, equally pop-crap.  In summary: your conclusion, based merely on the fact that Who has better special effects than it did 50 years ago, that British culture mimics American is fatally flawed, and demonstrably shown to be the reverse in a not-insignificant number of instances.  This little island 3000 miles away has far more influence than you think it does. And yes, I agree it goes both ways.  I wouldn't be so gauche as to say the US does not have equal influence.  But one cannot deny that the UK has a phenomenal global influence in these things; always has, always will.  Despite being a fifth of the size.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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