‘YOU know you’re in a golden age of television when you take a show like The Americans for granted.” That line came from a character in another great show, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and it’s so true.
Every week when I scan the schedules and see The Americans listed on ITV Encore I feel insulted on the show’s behalf. It should be on a glittering channel like Sky Atlantic, or at least on the real ITV, and not one of its wee offshoots.
The Americans (Mon, ITV Encore) is a marvel.
Yet I fear many viewers in this country won’t encounter it as it’s not likely you’ll be casually channel-hopping and alight upon the distant, subscription-only ITV Encore, and those who might consider giving the show a chance could be put off by its home.
“ITV Encore” suggests a channel crammed with Loose Women and shows about traffic cops, but there’s actually some good stuff on it. It’s dedicated to drama and so you’ll find The Americans alongside quality titles such as Broadchurch, Victoria and Downton Abbey – and I promise you won’t be pestered by a single loose woman!
So why aren’t we all watching The Americans? Everyone loves a good Cold War thriller and we all went crazy for Deutschland 83. However, The Americans just hasn’t had the same massive impact – at least, not in this country. It has never become “water cooler TV” over here, and yet it deserves to be.
Apart from its relegation to ITV Encore I think part of the problem may be its style.
The opening credits are full of sinister Soviet imagery and menacing music but that’s where attempts at capturing the feel of the era end.
Once the show begins, we could be in any time. The teenagers just look like teenagers; the father, Philip, is just a good-looking guy; and the mother, Elizabeth, could have stepped straight from Dynasty with her glamorous blow-dried hair.
They live in the same kind of palatial house which American TV tells us is the norm for families, and they drive big, boxy cars and play squash. To put it bluntly, The Americans just looks too American.
Recent Cold War thrillers like Deutschland 83 and The Same Sky captured the grubby, dingy feel of the 1980s, but The Americans is all white teeth and big hair. It looks far too slick and stylish. Of course, America was indeed richer in the 1980s than East and West Germany, where the other two dramas were set, so perhaps Americans did look sleek and glowing during the Cold War, and it was the rest of us who ran about in corduroy trousers and jumpers with baggy elbows. But the glamour of the cast means, for us on this side of the Atlantic, that it loses a bit of sinister Cold War grit and texture.
Yet the show is bold and fabulous. This week’s episode had a brilliantly strange scene which I can’t imagine any British drama being inventive enough to create.
The “Americans”, being Soviet spies who are living in disguise as a charming American couple, have been told to investigate a sinister new plan being cooked up by the evil imperialist US government. They suspect the authorities are breeding a type of insect which can chomp its way through wheat crops. The Soviets fear this insect could be smuggled into the USSR and deployed to devastate the harvest and starve its population, so our white-teethed, blow-dried spies have broken into the laboratory where the beasties are being bred in their thousands.
The room is packed with glass cases full of insects and a lot of dry, dead plants. Of course, an innocent little scientist happens along and they begin thumping his head into the glass to get information on the insects.
What are they? Who is breeding them? For what purpose? The poor wee nerd protests that he doesn’t ask questions! He just does his job! At that point Elizabeth says, in a deathly quiet voice, “You should have asked,” and then shoves him hard in the chest. This sends him backwards into Philip’s waiting arms and he expertly tips him over and snaps his neck. During this terrible scene the insects are humming and a Roxy Music soundtrack is softly playing in the background. A broken neck delivered amidst furious beasties whilst Bryan Ferry croons? Wow! Compare that to the usual drama we get on ITV and start asking why this show is being hidden away on ITV Encore.
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