English television shows imported by PBS, beginning in the 1970s. The first show, Upstairs, Down stairs was a serial imported for many seasons, depicting the trials and tribulations of the Bellamy family and their many servants, set in Edwardian England.

With this production, the tone of the series was set; it brought “highbrow” television made abroad to a seemingly well-educated American public, dissatisfied with American fare. Always introduced by a literary or thespian celebrity (initially the intensely Mid-Atlantic Alistair Cooke), the series has gone on to other adaptations of English novels, notably Jewel in the Crown and the soon-to-be camp classic I Claudius.