America has exported Jack Bauer to London for “24: Live Another Day,” but we’re importing, too. A lot of the new offerings on TV this summer have already found success outside the U.S.
So the Swedes have already seen “Welcome to Sweden,” “Taxi Brooklyn” hails from France, and British audiences loved Ian McKellen in “Vicious” months before PBS bought it from ITV. NBC and the CW will air Canadian sitcoms “Working the Engels” and “Seed” on a delayed schedule.
So after being softened up with “Downton Abbey,” we’re now regularly forced to wait on other countries to relinquish their shows. This is a big improvement over U.S.-based networks remaking, say, “Coupling” or “Broadchurch” when the original would have sufficed.
It’s an old problem: Betty White was once cast in an ill-fated U.S. adaptation of “Fawlty Towers.”