British television has been enjoying its “finest hour” in the US. Shows such as Downton Abbey, Call the Midwife, Sherlock and Dr Who have attracted huge ratings and critical esteem. Indeed, Downton, while winning few awards at home, has become the most decorated foreign TV show in US history – a fact that “speaks to pathologies in both nations: in Britain, nothing so much fun is allowed to be good, whereas in the US, fancy accents and exquisite production automatically connote high artistic merit”. But these shows have more than just snob value. The key to their appeal is their cosy nostalgia. “The Brits’ chief imaginative export is the idea that a nation can reconcile with its past, and, crucially, that even if others may not forgive them, they have forgiven themselves.” Britain is no longer a great power but America is, and its “TV landscape is accordingly vast, bewilderingly profuse and almost dementedly creative”. Genres are colliding; taboos are being broken. But when it all gets too much, “Americans can gaze across the ocean and be reassured that decline, when it comes, is not to be feared, and that if the national memory is selective enough, you can get away with living quite contentedly entirely in a past of one’s choosing”. (adapted from an article by Damian Lanigan in “NewRepublic”)

This is just too silly.  The truth is simpler. Americans can indulge in a romantic fantasy with no class or historic overtones, such as exist in Britain, where the toffs are still reviled (the murderer/ baddie in Midsomer Murders is inevitably a toff, living in the local manor house).  Writers keep trotting out these class war plots, because they sell to still-resentful Brits, even though the really rich and exploitative people are now a totally different set than that depicted in movies (and are less attractive). It has nothing to do with decline – the British got used to that at least a generation ago. Indeed, few young people know or care about the Empire. This is about still fighting an old and tired class war. I love Downton Abbey but am sick of the war. Epicureans get over these things.