Streaming TV has blown up the notion that Americans aren't interested in British and other foreign television

Vanity Fair

"For most of TV history, broadcast networks simply assumed foreign fare would not appeal to average-Joe viewers," says Joy Press. "Rather than import series, they revamped British successes into something more American-shaped: All in the Family, Three’s Company, The Office, Shameless, House of Cards, and Veep were all adapted from Brit hits. But streaming has taken a truncheon to so many preconceived notions about what we will watch—and one of the biggest misapprehensions is that Americans aren’t interested in shows from other corners of the world. All you have to do is turn on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Hulu and you’ll be awash in foreign-TV options you never knew you craved. There’s a deliciously bingeable series about the misadventures of Parisian celebrity agents (Call My Agent!); a hypnotic Weimar-era German thriller (Babylon Berlin); a sophisticated Indian crime saga (Sacred Games); and a sharp-edged dramedy about an Iranian-American bisexual woman abroad in London (The Bisexual). There’s even a streaming service devoted to Anglophile nostalgia, as well as to new series" called BritBox.