I recieved an email from a bloke in the British TV business in response to my queries about British series television and their short runs.

He explained that British series are almost always written by an individual while American ones are written by teams. Thus, the teams can whip out scripts faster than lone individuals. ABSOULTELY FABULOUS, for example, was written by Jennifer Saunders, who did double duty starring in it. My current favorite, TOUCHNG EVIL, was written by Paul Abbott, who also created other series.

He also explained that British series don’t always stick to the half-hour or hour formats, making packaging them for American television difficult. For the upcoming LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN on Comedy Central, American editors had to cut 8 minutes from each show and then used the bits and pieces to put together some new episodes.