Watching the telly

Last night Maggie and I watched the first episode of a new TV series called La Chica de Ayer. It was a repeat of the programme that we'd missed on Sunday. In this series a Chief Inspector of Police is knocked down by a car and wakes up in the past, in 1977. He finds his colleagues brutal, ill equipped and inefficient. I don't think he's that keen on his orange shirt and leather jacket either.

La Chica de Ayer took over the Sunday evening slot formerly held by a programme called Doctor Mateo. That's about a high flying Madrid surgeon who is scared of blood so he moves to a small and picturesque village on the Asturian coast as the new GP. The village hosts an assortment of "eccentric" characters, the doctor isn't outwardly friendly but we all know he is really and he is soon integrated into the life of the village.

Do they sound familiar? I've never seen Life on Mars but I did see the first few episodes of Doc Martin before I left the UK.

We have all those talent show competitions and variations on things like Strictly Come Dancing, Big Brother, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Come Dine With Me etc. and I knew about the franchising potential of those type of programmes but I wasn't really aware that there was a trade in the characters and plots of TV shows.

The funny thing is that whilst we were in Culebrón at Easter there was a feature length Doc Martin available through our satellite dish. Because we were enjoying Doctor Mateo so much on Spanish TV we settled down, brandy and wine ready, to chuckle along with the UK version. There was absolutely no doubt about it, we were disappointed, we like Doctor Mateo better!