h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Though I do share some of your pessimism about Brit telly I do think there are still some good elements. "Shameless" does bare a relationship to "Boys from the Black stuff" other than being set in the Northwest and though it may not be as gritty it in no way can be classed as a sitcom of the nature of "Bread". If you want genre busting look no further than "Queer as folk", though I dont think it could have got made without the adaptation of "Tales of the city" doing so well in the US. The Lattters limmited sucess over here showed that a a show like "Queer as folk" could be accepted by audiences over here. So in the end there was a show that dealt with homosexuals in a way that was previously restricted to heterosexuals, breaking the mould that homosexuality had to be slightly detached from noramality as in the "The Naked civil servant" or "Brideshead revisited".

I should really get out more.

Not so fast, Mister Italic!

The WB has chosen not to continue showing Angel, but Joss Whedon is looking for another network to take the show on AND there are plans to bring the cast together for some feature length escapades in the not too distant future.

So the future, while dim, is not entirely bleak.

Plus, I'm not entirely certain the end of Angel would be a bad thing. It may have Jumped the Shark last night, with an episode in which Angel was turned into a muppet whilst investigating an evil kids TV show.

Hilarious, but does blow my previous arguements about it being good compeltely out of the water.

I hope that's true (I do really like Angel, and since series 3 I've preferred it to Buffy for the most part), but Joss's comments on one of the boards this weekend were not so optimistic. In fact, the way he phrased it was 'Y'know the first act of "The Body"? That's how I feel right now', suggesting equal parts grief and denial. For this reason, and considering the announcement came as just as big a shock/disappointment to him as for the rest of us, I'd imagine any comments about future movies are, first and foremost, pacifiers for the disappointed fans rather than scheduled plans. Angel is, as of the end of this series, dead.

Luckily, that's never stopped vampires from being resurrected in the Buffyverse before, so we live in hope.