What fills the British TV year?

[alving4]

Hi,

This question is directed towards any forum members in the UK.

I was curious about the fact that British shows have so much shorter seasons/series. If a show such as Doctor Who or Torchwood has only 13 episodes per series and a new series only comes once per year, what is filling up the airwaves for the rest of the year? Do you get new shows premiering new series every 5 months or so? Or does the entire series repeat?

The shortened seasons on US TV shows this year (due to the WGA strike) got me wondering about this.

Please enlighten me. Thanks.

Alvin

[Meds]

Hi, well with Doctor Who we get the run in the middle of the year, it is then repeated on BBC 3.  We have Torchwood at the moment, this ends then the new series of Doctor starts. Also we now have the follow up to Life on Mars which is called Ashes to Ashes and we will be on episode 3 this Thursday. Prime Evil is ITV's big Sci Fi offering (ITV being a terrestial tv channel that is paid for through advertisements, which is on every saturday at the moment. We have Star Trek and Lost on Sky, and Heroes is shown on BBC2 (now waiting for series 2). Nine times out of ten our great British TV stations show classic Trek at some ridiculous time in the morning, they showed The Prisoner about 4 years ago which is a disgrace if you ask me, that show should be shown at prime time. Hope that helps you out.
Meds