Virtually no British-made TV shows get any mainstream notice.

Okay, I'm overstating it slightly.

We have four major television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox), two minor ones (CW and PBS), and a superfluity of "cable" channels. By and large, if it's not on one of the "Big Four", your mother has never heard of it, and they only broadcast shows made for them.

British shows get broadcast either on PBS or on one of the many "cable" channels. ("Cable channels" are the ones that are only available from a for-pay service and not broadcast over the airwaves, though most people watch the networks as provided by cable or satellite providers.) As such, they basically never even show up in official viewership ratings. In addition, because British shows tend to be six-or-so episodes long per series, and the fact that that's so different from the 24-or-so episode-long US series, they often get lost in the mix.

That said, the long-running PBS anthology series "Masterpiece Theater", which has often run British dramas, has had something of a hit lately with "Downton Abbey". They often cut the episodes down a little, though. I've never really been clear on why.

Also, one of our cable channels is "BBC America", which specializes in running British TV, though, oddly, not specifically BBC productions. You'll see ITV things there as well. But, again, it's just a cable channel, and things running on cable channels don't tend to be hits of any nature.

There are actually a few cable channels that have started producing their own shows of note, notably USA ("Monk", "Psych", "Burn Notice", and a lot of others) and AMC ("Breaking Bad", "Mad Men", and a few others). There are some others, too. But again, it's shows specifically produced for them.

So, did "Life on Mars" fare well over here? No. Virtually no one saw it.

That said, British TV makes up the vast majority of foreign programming shown in the US. Canadian TV shows are almost never seen. And I don't know that I have ever personally seen an Australian TV show, and I'm a pretty big TV fan.