BBC One, BBC Two...

The BBC is a model of journalism and programming greatness. Of course, I can only really compare it to the States' broadcast news, but I remember Jesse and I hanging out in our room in Panajachel, Guatemala, with a full range of cable channels, and we chose the BBC World News. Reporters actually get screen time and are encouraged to delve deep into their stories! No one gets a microphone shoved into their face! It is informative, relatively unbiased; it is like NPR for the eyes!

Making the BBC even cooler is that it broadcast the Super Bowl. After a great night of television, from the joys and trials of small town, Victorian life in Lark Rise to Candleford to the rare paintings and 7-foot-long broadswords of The Seven Ages of Britain, all excellently written and funded shows from the people who brought us Planet Earth, Rome, and a ridiculously long, but authoritative version of Pride and Prejudice.

All that to say, we were thrilled when we began to hear the overly-dramatic orchestra-rock of the greatest sporting event in the history of 2010. Here, it began briefly with Alex Smith of the 49ers and Rod Woodson from the Hall of Fame talking to various British commentators before it switched and the voices of Phil Simms and Jim Nantz filled the room like a thousand tiny violins... and, for the sake of this story, these are soothing, homelike violins, like the voices of friends or peanut butter. We are thankful to the BBC for providing this moment and when kickoff happens and we get ready for one of the best things about the Super Bowl... we are back to Alex Smith, Rod Woodson, and the Brits. There are no commercials.

Granted, the commercials wouldn't have much bearing on a British audience, and, if BBC broadcasts something, it will have no commercials. Yet it felt cruel that Jim Nantz would say, "If you haven't seen enough of these Super Bowl commercials, go to x website after the game for all of them!" But we can't activate said website from the UK! So, friends, if we missed some good ones, we may ask you to act them out when we get home. We don't need much in the way of costumes, just people to read the lines, sing the songs, and make Budweiser Clydesdales as anthropomorphous as possible.