Worst depiction of Britain in a US series

Jaycee DoveJaycee Dove Posts: 18,762
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Over on the ER thread we have just been discussing the recently repeated episode partly set in London.

It featured that well known NHS trauma hospital on Tower Bridge and had some deeply unpleasant NHS staff that drove Alex Kingston to want to return to the civility of downtown Chicago to escape the snobbery of London.

There were absurd lines about patients being ill after eating Pork Cutlets, Mash and several pints. And sloppy filming such as boarding a first class London to Scotland express train at Kings Cross when the story said she was heading on a local train for Heathrow!

In a series usually so very well written it was an awful attempt to reflect the UK and so stood out.

Must run close the infamous Frasier episodes featuring Daphne's brother supposedly from Manchester (via Dick Van Dyke's London and Mars).

So I wondered if you had your own favourite terrible attempts within a US series to depict life in the UK?

This is not an anti American rant BTW. Just for fun - and I am well aware that UK shows will have reflected visits to America in similarly dire fashion (indeed add them in if you like).
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  • srhDSsrhDS Posts: 2,063
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    Bones' little jaunt to England was pretty awful.
  • Jaycee DoveJaycee Dove Posts: 18,762
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    srhDS wrote: »
    Bones' little jaunt to England was pretty awful.

    Oh, yes the Mini as a hire car.

    Though I think to be fair that was partly intended to be funny.

    It certainly was humorous and not seemingly intentionally derogatory.
  • GulftasticGulftastic Posts: 127,194
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    Ugly Betty's trip to London Fashion Week was painful at times. My favourite part was probably the rugby team in full match kit drinking in the pub in central London.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 12,685
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    The Friends episodes set in London were really awful and full of stereotypes :rolleyes:.
  • MoreTearsMoreTears Posts: 7,025
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    Not quite on topic, but this seems like a good place to put my FAVOURITE depiction of Brits from a Canadian TV advert (and it was intended as humourous, so please take it in the spirit in which it was intended):):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUnbJAWk6gM
  • starsailorstarsailor Posts: 11,347
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    Nikita in London, which featured a frozen over thames... Yeah right
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 671
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    MoreTears wrote: »
    Not quite on topic, but this seems like a good place to put my FAVOURITE depiction of Brits from a Canadian TV advert (and it was intended as humourous, so please take it in the spirit in which it was intended):):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUnbJAWk6gM

    :D I say! Spiffing stuff!
  • VirginMediaPhilVirginMediaPhil Posts: 2,021
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    BluseyLou wrote: »
    The Friends episodes set in London were really awful and full of stereotypes :rolleyes:.

    That's odd considering Channel 4 worked closely with Warner Bros. to make the Friends episodes, and the UK episodes were made because of the large UK fan base in the first place. There aren't any stereotypes are there, just well-known figures like Richard Branson, Sarah Ferguson, Hugh Laurie.
  • MoreTearsMoreTears Posts: 7,025
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    starsailor wrote: »
    Nikita in London, which featured a frozen over thames... Yeah right

    Supposedly, Victorian era English novels refer to the Thames freezing over in winter -- according to stuff I have read on the subject of global warming. Perhaps the Nikita writers were simply recalling what they remember from English literature courses in university.:)
  • Danger CloseDanger Close Posts: 3,281
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    starsailor wrote: »
    Nikita in London, which featured a frozen over thames... Yeah right

    Actually, this last happened in the early 60's.
  • doom&gloomdoom&gloom Posts: 9,051
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    They're all terrible, even intelligent dramas like Sons of Anarchy get it wrong, Columbo wasn't up to the usual standard either.

    What's strange is that the Harvard alumni who write The Simpsons should be so ignorant (and not just about Britain, all the ones set abroad are like this).

    The worse one was Murder She Wrote set in Ireland not Britain though, so bad it's good.
  • dg123dg123 Posts: 8
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    Not really a depiction but I watched the first episode of "falling skies" and one of the characters, who if I remember was a history professor, is telling someone about "the Scottish fighting the British at Stirling bridge". That would be impossible as if you're Scottish then you're British, not to mention that battle took place 410 years before great Britain was formed! I realise thats petty and it's just a tv show but if you're going to reference something you clearly don't know anything about then google it or something.
  • mickmarsmickmars Posts: 7,438
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    Saw rather brilliant TV biog movie about the Def Leopard story - all those mountains in Sheffield and the same phone box,black taxi and mini in every background scene.
    priceless
  • GogfumbleGogfumble Posts: 22,155
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    The episode of New Adventures of Superman where there is a supposed threat in London (but it is in fact just a hologram of an asteroid). Superman goes over to stop it and in one scene they manage to get in just about every stereotype going.
  • PhoenixRisesPhoenixRises Posts: 2,607
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    starsailor wrote: »
    Nikita in London, which featured a frozen over thames... Yeah right

    That episode was fun, it also had a cafe that had its own Canadian website, the traffic lights were all wrong and so was the signage.

    It was funny spotting these inaccuracies, although at times I thought they had travelled to somewhere else after the London trip.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 671
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    doom&gloom wrote: »
    They're all terrible, even intelligent dramas like Sons of Anarchy get it wrong, Columbo wasn't up to the usual standard either.

    What's strange is that the Harvard alumni who write The Simpsons should be so ignorant (and not just about Britain, all the ones set abroad are like this).

    The worse one was Murder She Wrote set in Ireland not Britain though, so bad it's good.

    Ah yes! the dodgy accents and blatent stereotyping, i half expected a leprechaun to emerge from behind a rainbow carrying a pot of gold doing an irish jig.
  • BeethovensPianoBeethovensPiano Posts: 11,689
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    doom&gloom wrote: »
    They're all terrible, even intelligent dramas like Sons of Anarchy get it wrong,

    How did they get it wrong?
  • doom&gloomdoom&gloom Posts: 9,051
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    How did they get it wrong?

    When they went to Belfast, the accents, the fact they seemed to think it was still the 70s.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 109
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    Whenever lost was in the UK it always made me cringe, why do the Americans all think we talk like upper-class morons!!!!
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 13,367
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    denton178 wrote: »
    Whenever lost was in the UK it always made me cringe, why do the Americans all think we talk like upper-class morons!!!!

    They tempered it by doing some actual filming in London though, because Alan Dale was in Spamalot and couldn't fly to Hawaii. There was a nice scene near Tower Bridge.
  • MoreTearsMoreTears Posts: 7,025
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    denton178 wrote: »
    ...why do the Americans all think we talk like upper-class morons!!!!

    Americans don't think you all talk that way -- it is just that your "upper class morons" are the only people among your lot whose accents are reliably intelligible to us (yes, Canadians too) on my side of the Atlantic. American TV producers make a calculated choice to go for intelligibility over accuracy, and that is the RIGHT choice, especially given that the programmes are made for Americans, not -- well -- you.:)
  • scotchscotch Posts: 10,608
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    Columbo was awful - he was actually in London and he was filmed outside sites in London, but everytime he went inside it was so clear that he was back in LA. :D
  • BeethovensPianoBeethovensPiano Posts: 11,689
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    MoreTears wrote: »
    Americans don't think you all talk that way -- it is just that your "upper class morons" are the only people among your lot whose accents are reliably intelligible to us (yes, Canadians too) on my side of the Atlantic. American TV producers make a calculated choice to go for intelligibility over accuracy, and that is the RIGHT choice, especially given that the programmes are made for Americans, not -- well -- you.:)

    But isn't that just patronising American viewers?

    Wasn't it 101 Dalmatians where they had wild Raccoons in England? lol
  • Bill ClintonBill Clinton Posts: 9,389
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    This is such a common thing that US series regard England as a quaint little country where we all sip tea and live in castles, and they we are depicted almost puts us in Victorian times. I have seen this in lots of US series that are normally very well written such as Columbo, The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air (the posh butler's boss), Married WIth Children (Ye olde victorian London!), The Simpsons (was more like the Austin Powers depiction than the real London and as for the Tony Blair bit, pointless!)
  • MoreTearsMoreTears Posts: 7,025
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    But isn't that just patronising American viewers?

    How many British shows are abundant in characters whose speech is difficult to understand? With all the choices Americans have for things to watch on TV, with audiences for any particular programme shrinking year by year, there is no point in giving members of the target audience (Americans) one more reason to switch the channel. These prgrammes live or die by American ratings, not by what British people think of them.
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