What Americans Never See

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The heroine of Superlady truly lives up to her name. A single mother who works in a supermarket, she struggles to support four children while coping with a horde of distractions: a crazy ex-husband who thinks he is being attacked by cosmic rays, a girlfriend who shows up on her doorstep (with kids) to take refuge from a violent lover, a government bureaucracy that takes away her housing allowance the minute she earns a little extra income. This made- for-TV movie has more authentic feminist spirit than Murphy Brown, more realism and heart than The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, and more plainspoken charm than any TV movie seen in the U.S. in years.

But American audiences will probably never see it. It was made in Denmark.

International TV programming is the great terra incognita for American viewers. The occasional British mini-series or Australian soap opera makes its way to these shores, via PBS or cable, and news sometimes filters back about the latest hit on Japanese TV or those funny foreign versions of Wheel of Fortune. But for most of the U.S. audience, TV in the non-English-speaking world remains trapped in the twilight zone.

I got a quick but intense tour of that mystery land when I served as one of six international jurors at this month's Banff Television Festival -- an annual get-together for producers, broadcasters and other TV people from around the globe, held in the picturesque Canadian Rockies. Eight days of screening 130 programs, debating their merits and awarding prizes in 10 categories produced three chief surprises. First, after grueling 11-hour days of virtually nonstop TV viewing, it was still possible to retreat to the hotel room and turn on David Letterman without going bonkers. Second, despite the obvious differences in national and cultural background among the jurors (who came from Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Germany and Japan, as well as the U.S.), there was a surprising degree of consensus on which shows were prizeworthy and which were zappable. Third, U.S. viewers are missing out on a lot of good television.

American TV, to be sure, remains pre-eminent in some areas. Weekly comedy and dramatic series, for example, are still largely a U.S. specialty. NBC'S I'll Fly Away was voted best continuing series, beating out a lackluster group of entries dominated by American shows (The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Northern Exposure). Watching an episode of Cheers with a greatly amused band of international viewers, moreover, was a reminder that despite its grinding familiarity, the American sitcom at its best has achieved a level of craftsmanship unmatched anywhere in the world.

In most other categories, however, American shows look like slick assembly- line goods compared with the richness and handcrafted diversity of the best international fare. Made-for-TV movies from Europe, for example, are far more adventurous in style and subject matter than their true-crime-of-the-week U.S. counterparts. Actors are less glamorous, directors more imaginative, characters and themes more subtly explored.