Downtown Abbey Vs Sherlock

With the development of globalization, TV also starts to become global. In America, at present, there are not only American TV programs, but also non-US TV programs that have been imported onto US TV. These non-US TV programs include “UK or Canadian programming, dubbed animation from Japan and Spanish-language imports” (Jackson 3/15/2015). Thus, two UK TV dramas of Downtown Abbey and Sherlock can be as case studies of global TV. Downtown Abbey tells a story about different entanglements caused by an inheritance issue of earl Grantham family in “Downtown Abbey” of England in the 20th century. Sherlock tells that the famous detective Sherlock Holms solves different difficult criminal cases in London in the 21st century. Moreover, both of them
In season 1 episode 2 of Sherlock, there are three elements of British culture identity, which include language, location and the character Sherlock (“The Blind Banker”). Firstly, the same as Downtown Abbey, the formal British accent is the specific thing of UK that other countries do not have. Secondly, the location of this episode is London that is the capital of UK, so most of the buildings have British style. Thirdly, Sherlock Holms is a famous character from a British detective novel. In this episode, Sherlock always wears a trench coat and a scarf in daily life, which shows the British style. Thus, Sherlock Holms himself has represented British culture identity. Except for the homogeneity, Sherlock also has the heterogeneity: multiple cultures. There are different crimes in different episodes and different crimes mention different countries, so there are multiple cultures in Sherlock. In this episode, the crime is about a Chinese smuggling case, so a lot of Chinese culture appears in the content, such as Chinese characters, Chinese circus and Chinese tea ceremony. Thus, multiple cultures make Sherlock more universal. According to Levine, “the program’s success is predicted upon its servicing of both national-specific and global-universal ends” (516). Therefore, the global success of Sherlock is based on the usage of both British culture identity and multiple