Crossroads Café

Just caught the pilot episode of this show and was intrigued. Didn't realize the show was designed to teach English until the mini-English lesson in the middle, describing the function of "What is your name?" and "Where are you from?" Was wondering why all of the characters were enunciating their words so much and pausing a bit after each line.

Though it looks like the show was made in 1996, the characters seem to be stuck in the 80s. Seems a little too conservative for my tastes, a very "G" rated television show, but obviously more suited for non-English speakers who might not be able to pick up the subtle nuances of humor in the English language. The main character (the cafe owner) has a really bad accent - seems forced. The show seems to try too hard to include characters from each and every race (White, eastern European, Hispanic, African-American, Asian, and Indian) and tries a little too hard to be PC.

I'm addicted to this show because it is so bad! It plays on a Christian channel 'Wonderful' here in the UK and I only looked it up because of the title. This show reminds me of a real-life version of "Acorn Antiques" - the hilarious spoof soap opera sketch written by Victoria Wood - ironically based on UK soap "Crossroads" which was famed for it's bad acting/ scripts & sets.

The acting, scripts & plots in "Crossroads Cafe" are so weak & the humour so tame it's unbelievable this programme made it to transmission - and is far far worse than the much maligned "Crossroads".

And the fact that anyone can compare it to "Friends" is far funnier than the programme itself.

I found it interesting that Cynthia Burr, as Katherine Blake, is only credited with 2 episode appearances. I have seen every episode as I assist my wife in her ESL class, and they use Crossroads Cafe as the basis for their teaching. Also, at one time, and perhaps still do, Raleigh's PBS station replayed all of the episodes a number of times.

Cynthia, along with 5 other actors/actresses, are the key cast members of every episode. The same can be said about David Kirkwood, Jess Washington, who is only credited with 1 episode. It has been a while, so I may have forgotten, but to the best of my recollection, all 6 primary cast members are present in all 26 episodes.

At first, I watched the shows strictly to assist my wife's learning (She is Chinese) but as time went on I began to enjoy the episodes myself, and actually set a DVR Timer for the show on the PBS Channel. All 26 episodes I saved on my wife's computer.

Although this show was originally designed to help people learn English, I thought this show was terrific. I couldn't get enough of it. The plot was interesting and the characters were diverse and hilarious. I wish there really was a Cafe like this in life. I thought that there were more episodes to it but I can't find them. I know that this show has been shown all over the world and I think it had positive reviews overall. Whereas most television shows on TV nowadays focus on sex or mysteries, this show had feeling and made you feel like you were there. I think most of the tapes are available at local libraries if you can't catch it on TV anymore, and I highly recommend them!

I watched this show and I watched Friends. Although Crossroads Cafe was not produced for the sole purpose of entertainment, it does deliver with some intelligent and amusing moments. It actually does this better than those six repugnant misfits on the show called Friends.

Crossroads Cafe was primarily designed to teach the English language to foreign speakers. However, they also managed to provide good story-lines and decent acting. The show proves itself to be entertaining and causes the audience to stop and think. This is something that even the "better" shows on our networks stopped trying, probably because vocuous fast passed action does not allow for it.

So if not for the instructional aspect of Crossroads Cafe, then watch it for some amusing and cognitive story's.