I don’t watch French television very much as I can’t stand the silly voices they use for the dubbing and they are so behind on everything I watch its just not possible! Not to mention that when a programme is popular (such as Desperate Housewives or Grey’s Anatomy) they will play two or even three episodes in one evening meaning you’d have to stay awake until midnight at least watching them all. Or they put a great show on at teatime (was the case for Brothers and Sisters and then didn’t even show the end of the first season as no-one watched it!). I should also mention that I’m useless with technology and have great difficulty trying to work the Freebox remote control and system but that’s a different story…
My reasoning’s were confirmed yet again when I heard what TF1 had done to the new serial The Mentalist. I have no idea what the serial is, but an article on Closer.fr (yes, I know!) made my sides crack as I read that the new show was supposed to be the saviour for TF1 now that Grey’s Anatomy is finished. Great! Good for them.
So, they probably had half of France tuned in to watch the first few episodes and the idiots didn’t even play them in order! Apparently they are playing all the episodes out of synch so that people can see the best episodes first. What is the point? Week one was episodes 1, 5 and 7, week two will be 4, 14 and 3 etc. Why bother broadcasting a show if you’re not going to broadcast the episodes in the order they were written? Do they not understand that episodes a written in an order and therefore it is helpful if people watch them in the right order?
I don’t know about you but I’m totally baffled. Maybe it’s a French thing?
I hate dubbing too. What’s most irritating is the kids voices which are dubbed by adults putting on sickly sweet ‘iddy widdy’ voices. Ewww. It makes my skin crawl.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who complains about French telly – it can be really dire…
But the Mentalist – that chap is soooo sexy it doesn’t matter if it’s not in order…
I tried watching a film last night dubbed in French. Just couldn’t do it! My brain kept switching off so ended up giving up. If it was a French film it wouldn’t have been a problem.
I haven’t actually watched The Mentalist, maybe I’ll try and find it on the UK tv…
If you do have the Freebox system, it is totally easy to watch it in English. Take your remote, push the light blue “Info” button. Then you will see that “Langues” is one of the choices (above “Mode Video”). Use the arrow buttons on the remote to go up to Langues, press OK to select, and then you will see that there are two boxes, Français and Anglais. Scroll with the arrow keys to Anglais, press OK to select, and you should be able to hear the show in English. All of the CSIs (“Les Experts”) are the same, as are some episodes of “Bones” (which I think has “jumped the shark” so I can’t watch it without being sarcastic and making fun of it…).
I am not that crazy about “The Mentalist.” I feel like it is re-hashed crime show stuff, which I do like, but c’mon, it has been about 25 years of “Law & Order” and almost 10 of “CSI.” It is getting to be a worn out genre, IMHO.
We subscribe to the Free Home Video stuff with Freebox and there are a *ton* of good series that are in English, like “The Sheild,” “The Closer,” and lots of others. Previous seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Desperate Housewives,” too.
They designate shows as VF or VM, with VM meaning “multilingual.” Sometimes, though, they lie. The VF shows are actually VM (and therefore in English) and vice-versa. So it pays to actually load one of the shows or movies and check for certain before getting ones hopes up. That happened to me with Ugly Betty Season 2. It said VM but was *only* in VF. I was miffed about it for a while, lol.
So there *are* easy ways to watch shows in English with Freebox that do not need a higher degree in tech savvy!!
Good luck and send me a message at my site if you want more info. 
Wow! thanks for the tips – really appreciated! I do have Free so should hopefully be able to get it working in English but I’m an absolute disaster zone when it comes to the remote control!
The thing I hate most about French TV is that they are so behind, after having UK TV for so long it drives me nuts!
BTW, I really enjoyed reading your blog and have added it to my blogroll
Thanks again!