Photograph courtesy of Showtime

Watching British TV has always been like reading British tabloids: You get the gist of it, but some things are lost in translation. Showtime sets out to prove American viewers capable of crossing the pop-cultural pond by presenting the U.K.'s popular Secret Diary of a Call Girl with its Britishisms and pasty shagging bodies intact. Despite the accents—and the fact that the lead occasionally delivers her lines mid-blow-job—Secret Diary is supremely easy to follow. The half-hour show is free of melodrama, and Billie Piper is so likable as high-end sex worker Hannah (hooker name: Belle) that you won't even notice the cast is only half as attractive as The L Word's. Margaret Lyons

The trailer for Secret Diary of a Call Girl