Review : SKY Atlantic

Sky TV in the UK have really hit on something good with their new channel Sky Atlantic showing the best of American HBO. Released in February this year this channel also coincides with the time of year most Sky Customers downgrade their package or leave sky altogether.

By offering the Sky Atlantic channel free Sky are ensuring that they keep a large percentage of their want away customer base, myself included by offering this channel for free.

Sky TV is expensive entertainment, in the current financial climate the full TV, landline and broadband packages starts at £70.00. The package can be altered with channels removed and added. The cheapest TV package with landline and broadband still costs around £55.

Nevertheless, the launch of Sky Atlantic has brought some new interest to SKY viewers showcasing the best of HBO’s drama’s in stunning HD. Highlights include :

Family of Cops drama Blue Bloods starring Tom Selleck and Donnie Whalberg.

Broadwalk Empire starring Steve Buscemi – 1920’s gangster epic produced by Martin Scorsese.

You don‘t know Jack produced for TV movie starring Al Pacino.

Big Love – Polyagimist drama starring Bill Paxton.

And many others.

The channel is also re-showing old drama’s from the beginning including The Soprano’s, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Battlestar Galactica and X files. So it really is showing something for everyone. Using Sky’s video plus whole seasons can be saved and stored till such time as you wish to view them.

Above all else, this channel shows that when it comes to quality Drama and entertainment the American’s are still the best for consistent quality entertainment. UK drama rarely scales such heady heights, program makers in the UK tend to copy or re-hash popular American drama’s to a less successful degree.

That’s not to say that the UK doesn’t produce quality drama though. Occasionally, we do. However, we always seem to have an eye on what is going on over atlantic. An example is the drama series 24 split screen format much aped by UK action drama’s in particular Sky’s own produced.

You just need to look at Broadwalk Empire to see that they have spent a\lot of money to capture the 1920’s, it shows. UK TV doesn’t really flash the cash when it comes to drama preferring to let the quality of the story and the characters drive the story. It doesn’t always work though.

So I for one will be waiting out the remaining dark winter nights filling up on SKY Atlantic quality drama’s.