They Are Back

By "they", I mean The Big Bang Theory, 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother and 2 Broke Girl. After a long summer break, all these comedies finally came back with the latest season. I've been trying to catch up with the first few episodes these days.

I started to watch American comedies in college, starting with the 10-season Friends. Actually I've watched it for so many times that I'd still remember many dialogues and scenes from the show. Later I watched Growing Pains, a family comedy from 1980s. When I ran out of American comedies and looked for replacement, I found that BBC had produced great (actually even better than its American counterparts) comedies, including the Black Adder, Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. After exhausting comedies, I switched to detective ones, CSI, the Monk, etc. Farah introduced Hulu.com to me weeks after I started school, which provides me with tons of latest episodes ever since: The Simpsons, South Park, The Family Guy, Two and A Half Men, and all the other 20- to 30-min TV shows that bring great joy to me.

Most of my friends joined me in watching these American TV shows when I was in Beijing, hoping to practice English while having some fun. Well, it didn't really work. But I did find them revealing a taste of how lives on the other side of the earth could be like. Feelings became more real after my arrival in the US: I'd tell some scenes in the show (actually it's ironic to talk about "scenes" since most of them are sitcoms). When I was watching the Monk, though I knew it wasn't a top detective TV show, I never missed a episode because I loved the rolling streets in San Francisco and intensive meters. Years after I first watched the Friends, I wandered around the Central Park, and couldn't help thinking lovely young people like Chandler were living in this lively city. Most American TV shows, though not helpful in improving my language skills, familiarized myself with a different culture.

But most American comedies are not comparable to their peers in Britain. I'd rank Black Adder, Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister has occupied my top three comedies for a long time. BBC seems to be better at sarcasm while Americans seem to enjoy humor of everyday life. Thank god I learned some English, therefore I still get things to watch when Chinese TV shows have been sucking for decades.