The Beebe seems to have put its full catalog on Amazon, and based on sampling I've done, it was wandering in the wilderness in the '90s. Nothing but crap, until first Russell T. Davies shook things up with "Queer as Folk" in the late 90s, and Steven Moffat came aboard at the same time. Seems like those two single-handedly gave the BBC its groove back. The post-millenial BBC is pretty amazing, what with Who and its spinoffs, Sherlock, Downton Abbey, Foyle's War, Jekyll, Whitechapel, MI5, and on and on. Moffat and Davies aren't responsible for everything, but they dominate and I'd give them credit for creating fertile ground at the stodgy old BBC.

Watch enough BBC and you start to see the TV production community in England as a pretty small one. David Tennant shows up as a guest on a lot of shows prior to becoming the Doctor, and Christopher Eccleston was the first choice for the lead in "Queer as Folk" (maybe that's why the romance with Rose didn't take off until Tennant came along to apply his Shakespearean emotive powers).

Ever since I cut the cable last year, my TV-viewing has settled into this strategy of watching whole series, and for months now, seems like I've been watching the BBC pretty exclusively. They seem to have a bottomless catalog of good stuff (and an amazing pile of crap, once you get to see the whole catalog and not just what makes the cut over to PBS and BBC America).