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US TV: Paris, SuBo and Mental

Paris Hilton posing with a bulldog
  • Posted at 4:00pm
  • 25 June 2009
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 1 comment

TV critics don't take holidays, we just watch telly in other countries while eating different food, which is how I ended up yelping with disbelief on an American sofa in an American house eating horrible American sweets (sorry, candy) as I gazed at Paris Hilton on Entertainment Tonight, a featherlight nightly primetime, major-channel gossipy magazine programme. A bit like The One Show, only slick, fun and interesting.

ET's producers realised that they needed Hilton's titanic intellectual presence to comment on Susan Boyle's departure from The Priory. (Never mind the convulsions of our parliament over the MPs' expenses scandal, the American media is transfixed by Boyle and her every move.)

So did Paris have anything to add to this fascinating story? Well, only that Susan Boyle "really needed a new look". Yes, dear reader, perhaps you would care to absorb that piercing shaft of insight imparted to a mainstream television audience of many millions.

Someone with a personality as substantial as a net curtain, who has built a career out of pouting and posing with her hand on her hip as she snuggles hideous rat-sized dogs, recommends that someone she knows nothing about "needs a new look".

I think it was about this time that I realised I really needed to come home. Or it could have been after an excitable announcer, heralding a forthcoming reality series whose title I have, mercifully, forgotten, yelled: "Watch obese women dance!" I am not making this up.

Or maybe it was after watching Mental, a new drama running on the Fox channel after House. This conjunction is significant; the hugely successful House is about a piercingly intelligent medic who diagnoses brilliantly and intuitively. He also has a close relationship with his ballsy female boss. And he's played by a British actor.

Mental (no, not The Mentalist) is about a piercingly intelligent psychologist who diagnoses brilliantly and intuitively. He also has a close relationship with his ballsy female boss. And he's played by a British actor. (Chris Vance, who looks like a young Harvey Keitel). It's dead, dead boring. If any British broadcaster out there is thinking of buying it, don't.

The biggest current drama hit on US telly is The Mentalist, which has proved a hit for Five over here, and, though the schedules are stuffed with reality shows - The Bachelorette, I'm a Celebrity (which is tanking in the ratings) - I think US dramas are still healthy. This is good news for both American and British TV audiences, particularly us, as we tend to get the best of the bunch. So as 4 July approaches I can only wave the Stars and Stripes and say "God bless America."

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times - read her column in the latest issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale now.

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  • Posted on 08 August 2009
  • at 5:19pm
  • by Hana

That is the best thing about American TV... the fact that us Brits only get the best of it! You're right though, the US drama's are still healthy. The Mentalist is the best crime drama to come out of the US for a number of years. The only frustrating thing about being this side of the pond tele wise is how behind we are... Five are only just showing season 7 of Law and Order: SVU when they are about to start airing season 11 in the US. Ridiculous.

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