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5 Amazing British Television Shows That Not Enough Of You Have Seen

I bet Paul Revere wouldn't have been able to see this coming. What, you ask? The influx of premium British television shows that seem to exist in abundance, for us all to pluck from as we see fit. I am going on the record, right now, to say that I truly believe that some of the best television I have ever seen has been British in lineage. And the factors for this are many.

[h2]The Young Ones[/h2]

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How do I explain The Young Ones to someone who has never seen it?

Imagine the Sex Pistols and The Three Stooges had kids, and this show was about them, as 20-something slackers living in England in the 80’s, and you have a quarter of an idea, at least.

The Young Ones was a British television show that ran from 1982-1984, about four flat mates living together even though they had wildly different personalities. The humor on the show ran the gamut, from dark (with a beheading used for laughs) to the slapstick (same scene, body now stumbling around looking for its own head). It was insane and irreverent, and everything you had never seen on a television show outside of Monty Python, yet here it was.

Funny side fact about this. It was on at midnight on Sundays on MTV in the very early nineties. It was also the first non-musical program the channel ever ran. Also, the anarchist character RICK is pretty much my favorite TV character of all time.

[h2]The Fades[/h2]

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The Fades could have (and probably still should become) a film. It is an epic good-versus-evil tale on the scale of Buffy (the Whedon show) and it was creepy, tense, and incredibly well made. The Fades was a British television show about a teenager named Paul who is haunted by apocalyptic visions, and on top of that, can see “The Fades”, which are the spirits of the dead that can’t be heard, seen, touched, or smelt by other humans. It puts Paul at a real disadvantage.

Add into that the “evil” Fade named Polus, who figures out a way to become human again, and suddenly you realize Paul is not only cursed with this “gift”, but pretty much has to figure out a way to save humanity against the Fades, who want to become real again and destroy all of humanity in the process.

See, light-hearted stuff.

No, but seriously, if you are a fan of shows like Buffy and The X-Files, The Fades reminds me of the best aspects of those shows, all while bringing something entirely new to the table as well.