Ten British TV Shows Available for Netflix Instant Viewing that Make the Roku Worth the Price

Ever since A&E decided to do away with British television imports and attempt the Herculean task of proving that reality shows about the spoiled daughter of a psychopathic Mafia Don or the adventures of has-beens who really were closer to never-wases the only place to turn for highbrow English entertainment has really been good ol' PBS. Well, what with Bush and his fraidy cat Republican and Democrat lapdogs in Congress taking money away from PBS hand over fist, even that has gotten harder. PBS Mystery is gone; it has been merged into Masterpiece Theater. If John McCain gets elected you can bet that Masterpiece Theater will have ceased to exist by the time his lardass bobbles out of the Oval Office. For this reason alone, the Roku player that lets you stream Netflix instant viewing choices directly to your TV seems worth the price. There are those who will shout that there is really not much worth watching among the 10,000 titles Netflix has made available so far for instant viewing. These are, unfortunately, the same people who confuse the writing rules for text messaging with those for writing academic papers. Here are just a sample of British TV shows that you can watch using your Netflix Roku.

The Office: Series 1 and 2
The original British version, not the American remake. This was an incredibly popular British TV show that made a star out of Ricky Gervais in America. Well, almost. I've only seen Ricky Gervais in Night at the Museum where I thought he was really funny and doing a guest spot on The Simpsons where he was just annoying; one of the worst Simpsons episode ever. Which still made it the best show on TV that week, of course.

Coupling: Seasons 1, 2, 3 and 4
Apparently Coupling was intended to be the British Friends. Why anyone would actually choose Friends to copy I just don't get. Why not copy Who's the Boss or Kate & Allie? Same level of comedy. Still, if for some reason you actually would enjoy watching a British version of Friends then the Roku pretty much will pay for itself by the time you get through all four seasons, all available for instant viewing on Netflix.