www.ditl.org

Jim wrote:I crammed some STOS over the weekend. I don't think that I realized how many times Kirk and crew went back in time. Now I understand why they said "Kirk... that man was a menace!" on DS9.

And what is up with BBCA's love affair with Star Trek?

Well, they do rerun TNG a lot, at least on the weekends. Still nice to see them doing it.

They're doing an anniversary Trek-o-thon.

My question is why? I am not saying that BBCA needs to run British shows 24/7, but... I just don't understand why a "British" station that broadcasts in America would pic Star Trek (TNG and now the thon) to air. TNG has multiple episodes a day. I could understand SyFy doing it or some retro channel (TNG ended 22 years ago). But BBCA? If they wanted scifi for some reason I would understand running the entire Dr. Who or other British shows... I just see it as an odd couple.

Possibly it's something to do with the fact that for a long time the BBC was the home of Star Trek in the UK. That's how I got into it - the Beeb would show Trek at 6pm, so it was something both kids and adults could watch together. That lasted for decades - from when I was a kid to my thirties, there was practically always a Star Trek show on the BBC. They'd finish one series and just roll round to another, year after year. Now you tend to find Trek showing more on the satellite channels rather than the BBC, but maybe they still hold the rights and figure they can pad out the schedule on BBCA.

Because, it would be very odd to celebrate 50 years of Trek by showing a marathon of Dr Who?

I wasn't just talking about the marathon. They show TNG a few times a day for a long time now. Is there an "american" channel in the UK? It would be like NBC-UK showing Red Dwarf. You would expect American shows on an American channel... I would just expect UK shows on BBCA.

The holding the rights point is understandable though. Basically free programming.