Television Studies

American Culture in the 1990s focuses on the dramatic cultural transformations of the last decade of the millennium. Lodged between the fall of Communism and the outbreak of the War on Terror, the 1990s was witness to America's expanding influence across the world but also a period of anxiety and social conflict. National traumas such as the Los Angeles riots, the Oklahoma City bombing and the impeachment of President Clinton lend an apocalyptic air to the decade, but the book looks beyond this to a wider context to identify new voices emerging in the nation. ...

This reference work is an authoritative chronicle of prime time television programming on 20 major cable networks: A&E, ABC Family, AMC, BET, Bravo, Comedy Central, The Disney Channel, FX, GSN, HBO, Lifetime, MTV, Nickelodeon, Oxygen, Showtime, Spike, TBS, TNT, USA and VH1. These 20 represent the mass-oriented cable networks that have been most involved in airing original programming. ...

Though one of the most popular genres for decades, the western started to lose its relevance in the 1960s and 1970s, and by the early 1980s it had ridden into the sunset on screens both big and small. The genre has enjoyed a resurgence, however, and in the past few decades some remarkable westerns have appeared on television and in movie theaters. ...

Test films, pilots, trial series, limited runs, summer tryouts--by whatever name, televison networks have produced thousands of experimental shows that never made it into the regular line-up. Some were actually shown, but failed to gain an audience; many others never even made it on the air. ...

This book explores the globalization and liberalization that has occurred in Indian television over the two decades starting from 1990. In India, this period has been marked by unprecedented change in television, both quantitatively and qualitatively. ...

Together, these two volumes provide the definitive technical history of the medium. Upon the development in the mid-1940s of new cameras and picture tubes that made commercial television possible worldwide, the medium rose rapidly to prominence. Perhaps even more important was the invention of the video tape recorder in 1956, allowing editing, re-shooting and rebroadcasting.This second volume, 1942 to 2000 covers these significant developments and much more. Chapters are devoted to television during World War II and the postwar era, the development of color television, Ampex Corporation's contributions, television in Europe, the change from helical to high band technology, solid state cameras, the television coverage of Apollo II, the rise of electronic journalism, television entering the studios, the introduction of the camcorder, the demise of RCA at the hands of GE, the domination of Sony and Matsushita, and the future of television in e-cinema and the 1080 P24 format. ...

Popular Television Drama: Critical Perspectives is a collection of essays examining landmark programmes of the last forty years, from Doctor Who to The Office, and from The Demon Headmaster to Queer As Folk. Contributions from prominent academics focus on the full range of popular genres, from sitcoms to science fiction, gothic horror and children's drama, and challenge received wisdom by reconsidering how British television drama can be analysed. ...

Critically examines the quiz show genre in American culture from the 1930s to the present.

In Scripted Affects, Branded Selves, Gabriella Lukács analyzes the development of a new prime-time serial called "trendy drama" as the Japanese television industry's ingenious response to market fragmentation. Much like the HBO hit Sex and the City, trendy dramas feature well-heeled young sophisticates enjoying consumer-oriented lifestyles while managing their unruly love lives. Integrating a political-economic analysis of television production with reception research, Lukács suggests that the trendy drama marked a shift in the Japanese television industry from offering story-driven entertainment to producing lifestyle-oriented programming. ...

Largely neglected by Hollywood in the early 1990s, the youth market began receiving increased attention from American media industries by the end of the twentieth century. This book focuses on the resurgence of the teen/youth market. It highlights Hollywood's attempts to exploit the millennial teen market across a range of media platforms and examines the impact of social, institutional, and technological changes on the aesthetics of contemporary teen-oriented entertainment texts.

This is an insider's tour, touching on the network's dizzying decision-making process, and the artists who have revolutionized the medium.

Follows the Camden family, with Eric, the minister father, and Annie, the stay-at-home mom, and how they deal with the drama of having seven children. The kids range in age from toddlers to adults with families of their own. The friends, neighbors, and love interests of the various members of the family are heavy issues and are addressed in a real-life matter.

Superstar producer Peter Dragon builds his stellar career on the three pillars of show business--prostitution, nepotism, and dishonesty. Adding to that an ego as big as a Beverly Hills mansion, the aptly named Dragon and his cohorts manage to be politically incorrect, backstabbing, phony, petty, and ingeniously funny.

When Boston lawyer, Ally McBeal, meets up with a former college friend who hires her at his prestigious law firm, things get complicated when she learns she'll be working with her first love and his wife. Ally slips into one fantasy after another to try and cope with her new life.

Steven Bochco's award-winning, controversial police drama - so true to life that it earned primetime drama's first mature rating.

Stephen Crane is a con artist, swindler, and purported savior of a struggling sports car company. Sacked from an investment bank after one dodgy deal too many, Stephen lands a job at Douglas Motors, a business distinguished by old-fashioned craftsmanship and plagued by decades of familial mismanagement. There he finds himself playing surrogate son to the family patriarch, confidant to the adulterous son-in-law, and lover to the beautiful but willful daughter. All the while, he fends off forays from his erstwhile boss, a deliciously evil banker bent on recovering a bunch of swindled money. But, can Stephen keep his double-dealing past at bay?

Cold Squad, set in Vancouver, is about a team of police officers in charge of investigating and solving cases that have been in the "cold" file for a while, which basically means the police gave up on them because there were no leads.

After centuries of sinful bloodshed, Nicholas Knight has forsaken immortality and is determined to reclain his humanity. He now spends his nights as a homicide detective with his smug partner, Donald Schanke, fighting the city's most brutal crimes. Joining in Nicholas' quest is Dr. Natalie Lambert, a brilliant forensic scientist, who is inching closer to the cure for his supernatural condition. The master vampire Lucien LaCroix, however, will stop at nothing to ensure that Nicholas remains a vampire. In his darkest moments, Nicholas turns to the lovely vampire Janette, who offers him unconditional loyalty despite her prominent standing in the vampire underworld. As the stakes get higher and his path to redemption becomes burdened with temptations, Nicholas valiantly sets out to conquer his curse night by night.

Former biker gang leader Onizuka switches paths to become a teacher, joining the faculty at a prestigious private school and taking on their most difficult students.

Hercules, aided by his best friend Iolaus, goes on many adventures helping people and slaying mythical monsters using his half-god strength.

This show delves into the dark side of the New York underworld as the detectives of a new elite force, the Special Victims Unit, investigate and prosecute various sexually oriented crimes, while trying to balance the effects of the investigation on their own lives.

Presents the first season of the Emmy Award-winning television series about the investigation and prosecution of cases ripped straight from today's headlines.

Season one of the sketch comedy television program based on the popular MAD magazine.

Angela Chase is a teenage girl who struggles with the problems of growing up, high school, and family life.

Fran Drescher stars in her defining role as street-smart Fran Fine, a down-on-her-luck diva who finds herself hired for a job for which she never even applied. Now, she's the nanny for a rich, sophisticated family in Manhattan, and when this blue-collar girl from the block moves in with a blue blood, widowed Broadway producer and his three children, the comedy is red hot.

Eccentricity defines daily life in Rome, Wisconsin, where the Tin Man from "The wizard of Oz" is murdered, a student brings a severed hand to school for show-and-tell, and a woman runs over her husband with a steam roller pleading "not guilty by reason of menopause." Sheriff Jimmy Brock has seen it all. Indeed, behind the tidy picket fences of this quirky little town lie all the same problems and prejudices found in the big city, except here everyone seems to know everyone else's business-- or thinks they do.