One of my fondest memories of growing up are the Sunday evenings spent sprawled on the floor of our family room working on 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles while my parent settled in to watch PBS's fine selection of imported British drama. While I was too young to fully appreciate many of the programs I was certainly fascinated with - and eventually influenced by - them for they offered what American TV seldom did, truly fine acting, rich and engrossing story lines and, perhaps most important to me at the time, a healthy dollop of sex and violence. In fact I think my first site of exposed female flesh was glimpsed in an episode of Those Glittering Prizes, and PBS was (pleasantly) surprisingly reluctant to edit or bleep content so I heard far saltier language coming from our TV set than was ever allowed to be spoken in the house...and my parents not only approved but encouraged me to watch it !
The centerpiece of PBS's British programming was, and probably still is, Masterpiece Theater. As a youth I assumed this was the name of the actual British series but eventually leaned that the programs were purchased separately and shown under the MT banner for the benefit of American audiences ( a system they would employ again with great success with the Mystery series). The WGBH Boston produced MT. Of course it had the added value of the esteemed Alistair Cooke providing wrap-around commentary on the programs helping to bridge the culture gap and bringing a lovely sense of continuity to what might otherwise have seemed a bit slapdash and arbitrary. When Cooke departed MT, I found myself less and less drawn to PBS on Sunday evenings. Part of it was likely the subtracting of Cooke's charming presentation but also the offerings seemed to become more pedestrian as time went on. It's gotten to the point where I not only don't watch MT but I'd be hard pressed to tell you what they've shown on it this past season.
Here now a brief jog of my memory of those evenings long past. Not every one of these series was shown under the MT name but the passage of time has blurred the distinction between what was shown as a stand alone series and what was presented in anthology.
The Forsyte Saga: Based on the seemingly endless series of novels by John Galsworthy and hugely popular in the UK. I have rather dim memories of this 1967 series, though it impressed me enough at the time to motivate me to read the first few books in the series.
