So BBC America has had a Doctor Who Marathon going all week. I may be seeing things in my head, but it occurs to me that Dr.Who shows - and other British action shows - tend to be way more violent than American shows of similar stripe. I mean that in terms of graphic violence. In US shows a guy gets shot, he falls down, you rarely see bullet holes. Captain Kirk got his shirt torn and smudges on his face. On Dr.Who, people get eaten, fall to their deaths, encounter all manner of mayhem that is seen directly, rather than implied as in US shows.
So the amateur armchair shrink in me tries to figure this out, and the conclusion I draw is that WW2 made death and violence real for the UK, while over here our cities were never bombed. A neighbor might go into the Army and never return, but we never saw him blown apart. I could go on, but I hope that articulates it. Does this sound rasonable?