Category talk:British television miniseries
Category:British television miniseries
Hello there. I was just wondering about whether this category was really accurate, given that "miniseries" is not a term that's ever really used in the UK for home-grown products; "serial" is generally used, "miniseries" being an Americanism that tends to only be used here in reference to US imports. Therefore I would suggest that the category ought to more accurately be called "British television serials". Angmering 23:54, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
- Hello Paul, thanks for your note. Although the article miniseries agrees with you, I think it's out of date. I'm pretty sure I have read the word mini-series in UK TV guides, and I suspect that it will become more used here even if it did originate in America (wouldn't be the first time). As for the category Category:British television miniseries, I was wondering about adding a definition, at least on the British page, namely series consisting of 3 to 12 programmes. If there's only 2, it's a "two-parter". I just checked Google UK: there are 319,000 hits for "(tv,television) serial" and 123,000 for "(tv,television) mini-series", so it's certainly used here, even if it is mostly used for TV imports and exports.
- Also, even if it's not used much in the UK, it is used about our productions, so I think it's a valid category. Evidence: over a dozen British shows were already in Category:Television miniseries before I moved them down. I considered renaming the new one as "British television serials", but that would emcompass longer-running series. So, I'm inclined to keep it. Fayenatic london 07:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
- I don't see the presence of some British productions in the general miniseries category as evidence of usage here — they could just as easily have been added to the category by Americans. Definitions of the term may be trickier — the British Academy Television Awards include two-parters in the "Best Drama Serial" category, so basically it's any production of more than one but a finite number of episodes, where one over-arching story is told and concluded in the final instalment. The Forsyte Saga, for example, was a 26-part serial. Angmering 07:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)