Reading Contemporary Television – serie

In his seminal book "Television's Second Golden Age", Robert Thompson described quality TV as 'best defined by what it is not': 'it is not "regular" TV'. Audacious maybe, but his statement renewed debate on the meaning of this highly contentious term. Dealing primarily with the post-1996 era shaped by digital technologies and defined by consumer choice and brand marketing, this book brings together leading scholars, established journalists and experienced broadcasters working in the field of contemporary television to debate what we currently mean by quality TV. They go deep into contemporary American television fictions, from "The Sopranos" and "The West Wing", to "CSI" and "Lost" - innovative, sometimes controversial, always compelling dramas, which one scholar has described as 'now better than the movies!' But how do we understand the emergence of these kinds of fiction? Are they genuinely new? What does quality TV have to tell us about the state of today's television market? And is this a new Golden Age of quality TV? Original, often polemic, each chapter proposes new ways of thinking about and defining quality TV.There is a foreword from Robert Thompson, and heated dialogue between British and US television critics. Also included - and a great coup - are interviews with W. Snuffy Walden (scored "The West Wing" among others) and with David Chase ("The Sopranos" creator). "Quality TV" provides throughout groundbreaking and innovative theoretical and critical approaches to studying television and for understanding the current - and future - TV landscape.

"The Queer Politics of Television" is a radical book, which brings together the fields of political theory and television studies. In one of the first books to do so, Samuel A. Chambers exposes and explores the cultural politics of television by treating television shows - including "Six Feet Under", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Desperate Housewives", "The L Word", and "Big Love" - as serious, important texts and reading them in detail through the lens of queer theory. Chambers makes the case for the profound significance of 'the cultural politics of television': the way in which the text of a television show itself engages with the politics of its day. He argues for queer theory's essential contribution to any understanding of the political, and initiates a larger project of queer television studies, treading the same path as queer film studies. This book makes an important and fresh contribution to queer theory and to the understanding of television as politics.

This is what we know, this is the truth: CSI is a global television phenomenon. It began in 2000 with "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation", a dark procedural drama about forensic science set within the neon escapism of Las Vegas, in which Grissom and his team search within the very vitals of the murder victims they investigate. Nearly 17 million viewers tuned in each week and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" fast became America's number one show. The success of the series moved it into franchise territory, continuing in 2002 with the body beautifuls and dismembereds of "CSI: Miami" (now the world's biggest television show) and again in 2004 extending the francise to the melancholic noir of post-9/11 New York with "CSI: NY". "Reading 'CSI'" pieces together the evidence in order to understand what the CSI shows mean to contemporary television culture, both in America and beyond.The varied, intellectually curious and often polemic responses to CSI from critics, journalists and industry professionals focus on a range of issues from the pornographic quality of the CGI effects, the relationship of characters to their narratives, and the reaction of the fans, to the semiotics of Horatio Caine's sunglasses. This in depth, compulsive read also includes a full episode guide.

Apart from its brilliance as television, it's amazing what "Deadwood" gets away with. This acclaimed series from HBO, which premiered in 2004, is set in the teeming outlaw camp of 'Deadwood'. It has been described by "Variety" as 'a vulgar, gritty, at times downright nasty take on the Old West brimming with all the dark genius that series creator and sceenwriter extraordinaire David Milch has at his fingertips'. All this and more. The international cast of authoritative contributors assess "Deadwood's" many facets: its profane language, its characters, from Al Swearengen (who lives up to his name) and Calamity Jane, to B.B. Farnham and Mr. Wu, its place in the western genre, "Deadwood" and serial fiction, prostitution, the making of American civil society, "Deadwood's" Chinese, the opening credits, Reverend Smith and much more. Episode and character guides complete the book - the "Deadwood" companion for fans and students to swear by.

'Everyone has a little dirty laundry.' The darkly comic series about the secret lives of the ladies living on Wisteria Lane became an instant breakthrough hit for ABC. 21 million viewers tuned in for the first episode and this figure has steadily grown as audiences from around the globe have switched on to the shenanigans in suburbia. "Desperate Housewives" was subject to a backlash in America, where advertisers on the ABC network were lobbied by Christian groups and Parents' Associations. But the sponsorship withdrawal that resulted did little to dampen the enthusiasm of its legions of fans. Recipient of several awards including the People's Choice Award and Golden Globe for Best Television - Musical or Comedy, "Desperate Housewives" is a hit. "Reading Desperate Housewives" offers a critical response to one of the most talked about shows on contemporary television. Leading scholars and writers dissect the appeal of "Desperate Housewives", tapping into early reactions and controversy. They consider the American sex wars, contemporary feminism, Republican politics and the rise of the Right, gender and femininity, motherhood and marriage - and that Vanity Fair shoot.The book includes an episode guide tracing all those goings-on beyond that white picket fence.

"The L Word" captured international attention when it first appeared on American screens in January 2004. The groundbreaking primetime drama from Showtime is about a group of lesbian and bisexual friends living and loving in Los Angeles, and challenges traditional notions of relationships, queer life styles, gender identities, race and ethnicity and sex and sexuality. "Reading the L Word" is the first book about this television phenomenon. With an introduction by Sarah Warn, the founder of premier lesbian entertainment website, AfterEllen.com, and a foreword by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, the collection brings together leading academics, feminist critics, scholars and award-winning journalists to discuss "The L Word". There is also a complete episode guide, as well as a series of interviews with the actors Erin Daniels, Katherine Moennig, and the writer, Guinevere Turner. Analytical, often humorous and sometimes provocative, "Reading the L Word" uncovers what makes this show both so compelling and groundbreaking.

Bada bing! What drama. "The most important work of American popular culture in fifty years" is how the "New York Times" describes "The Sopranos". Critically-acclaimed, award-winning, and the most watched show on HBO, the mobster drama swirls around the middle-aged Mafioso, Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini). Having to negotiate two families, both at home and at work, is it any wonder he is suffering an epic midlife crisis involving Prozac and visits to a therapist? The series quickly became compulsory watching when it first screened back in 1999 and has since gone on to become an international hit and subject of intense discussion. Coinciding with the sixth and penultimate series, "Reading The Sopranos" offers a timely response to one of the most talked about shows on television. This book explores how "The Sopranos" has rewritten the rules of television drama and changed attitudes about television itself. Contributors present fresh perspectives on psychotherapy and dreams; racism and the Italian-American community; Carmela and post-feminism; "The Sopranos" as an HBO brand; racism; the full cast of 'gangsters Italianate' that people Sopranos' New Jersey; and much more.Reading "The Sopranos" also features a timeline, character list and complete episode guide, as well as editor David Lavery's up to date 'Intertextual Moments and Allusions on The Sopranos'.

Don and Betty Draper live in a picture-perfect world. He is a hard-living advertising executive - a 'mad man' - on the fast track. She's a Bryn Mawr graduate and former fashion model, now a suburban princess, mother of three children. If they've everything, why are they so unhappy? Why is their dream come true not enough? This book explores, analyses, celebrates the world of "Mad Men" in all its aspects, and includes an interview with it's Executive Producer and an episode guide. Every few years a new television program comes along to capture and express the zeitgeist. "Mad Men" is now that show. Since premiering in July 2007, it's won many awards and is syndicated across the globe. Its imprint is evident throughout contemporary culture, from features to fashions and online debate. Its creator Matthew Weiner, a former exec producer on "The Sopranos", has created again compelling, complex characters, this time in the sophisticated go-go world of Madison Avenue through the 1960s, with the excessive drinking and smoking, as well as the playing out of the prejudices and anxieties of an era long neglected in popular culture."Mad Men" is a zeitgeist show of the early twenty-first century, this book demonstrates, partly because its characters are an earlier, confused and conflicted version of ourselves, trying to make the best of a future unfolding at breakneck speed.

Promoted as a 'disturbingly perfect' and 'deeply shallow' television drama and created by Ryan Murphy, who is also behind the teen musical show Glee, Nip/Tuck has been one of the most popular and controversial shows on cable TV. The misadventures and soap opera-esque entanglements of the lives of plastic surgeons Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) and Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) won Golden Globes and boycotts from the American Family Association. Yet, as this first full critical examination of Nip/Tuck shows, ironically the show is an examination of the American family and its many definitions, anxieties and complications of gender and sexuality, and the class issues and illusions surrounding the American dream. It is also revealed as a glorious televisual melodrama, full of Gothic tropes and contemporary sensationalism and at the same time, a deeply misanthropic satire on the American dream with a sometimes highly problematic portrayal of women and minorities. The book also features an interview with frequent Nip/Tuck director Elodie Keene and an episode guide.

Premiering in 2006,Ugly Betty, the award-winning US hit show about unglamorous but kind-hearted Betty Suarez (America Ferrera),is the latest incarnation of a worldwide phenomenon that started life as a Colombian telenovela,Yo soy Betty,la fea, back in 1999. The tale of the ugly duckling has since taken an extraordinary global journey and become the most successful telenovela to date. This groundbreaking book asks what the Yo soy Betty,la fea/Ugly Betty phenomenon can tell us about the international circulation of locally produced TV fictions as the Latin American telenovela is sold to,and/or re-made-officially and unofficially-for different national contexts. The contributors explore what Betty has to say about the tensions between the commercial demands of multimedia conglomerates and the regulatory forces of national broadcasters as well as the international ambitions of national TV industries and their struggle in competitive markets. They also investigate what this international trade tells us about cultural storytelling and audience experience,as well as ideologies of feminine beauty and myths of female desire and aspiration.TV's Betty Goes Global features original interviews with buyers and schedulers,writers,story editors and directors,including the creator of Yo soy Betty, la fea, Fernando Gaitan

The complete and groundbreaking "The L Word" is now out on DVD and this book makes the perfect companion, covering the series in its entirety. "Loving The L Word" picks up where Reading "The L Word: Outing Contemporary Television" (I.B. Tauris, 2006) left off. With new, updated chapters by many of the same television writers and scholars who contributed to the first volume, as well as essays by some newcomers, "Loving The L Word" explores the series' quantum contribution to the ongoing evolution of queer television. Whether you loved "The L Word", hated it, or loved to hate it, this book recognizes that the show transformed the post-Ellen LGBT television landscape, fulfilling a long-neglected, visceral desire for lesbian stories and images. In the process, it reshaped the communities that follow and talk about queer television and care about the narratives and characters that drive it. Including complete Character/Actor, Film/TV and Episode guides, the book also proceeds from the understanding that while "The L Word' ended in 2009 it manages to live on - in the lives of its fans, as well as in a new reality spin-off, "The Real L Word".

The Doctor may have regenerated on many occasions, but so too has Doctor Who. Moving with the times, the show has evolved across fifty years...New Dimensions of Doctor Who explores contemporary developments in Doctor Who's music, design and representations of technology, as well as issues of showrunner authority and star authorship. Putting these new dimensions in context means thinking about changes in the TV industry such as the rise of branding and transmedia storytelling. Along with its faster narrative pace, and producer/fan interaction via Twitter, 'new Who' also has a new home at Roath Lock Studios, Cardiff Bay. Studying the 'Doctor Who Experience' in its Cardiff setting, and considering audience nostalgia alongside anniversary celebrations, this book explores how current Doctor Who relates to real-world spaces and times. New Directions of Doctor Who is the scholarly equivalent of a multi-Doctor story, bringing together the authors of Triumph of a Time Lord and TARDISbound, as well as the editors of Time and Relative Dissertations in Space, Impossible Worlds, Impossible Things, Torchwood Declassified and Doctor Who, The Eleventh Hour.It also features contributions from experts on TV brands, bioethics, transmedia and cultural icons. As 'new Who' creates ongoing mysteries and poses exciting questions, this collection demonstrates the vitality of Doctor Who studies.

Don and Betty Draper live in a picture-perfect world. He is a hard-living advertising executive - a 'mad man' - on the fast track. She's a Bryn Mawr graduate and former fashion model, now a suburban princess, mother of three children. If they've everything, why are they so unhappy? Why is their dream come true not enough? This book explores, analyses, celebrates the world of "Mad Men" in all its aspects, and includes an interview with it's Executive Producer and an episode guide. Every few years a new television program comes along to capture and express the zeitgeist. "Mad Men" is now that show. Since premiering in July 2007, it's won many awards and is syndicated across the globe. Its imprint is evident throughout contemporary culture, from features to fashions and online debate. Its creator Matthew Weiner, a former exec producer on "The Sopranos", has created again compelling, complex characters, this time in the sophisticated go-go world of Madison Avenue through the 1960s, with the excessive drinking and smoking, as well as the playing out of the prejudices and anxieties of an era long neglected in popular culture."Mad Men" is a zeitgeist show of the early twenty-first century, this book demonstrates, partly because its characters are an earlier, confused and conflicted version of ourselves, trying to make the best of a future unfolding at breakneck speed.

In his seminal book "Television's Second Golden Age", Robert Thompson described quality TV as 'best defined by what it is not': 'it is not "regular" TV'. Audacious maybe, but his statement renewed debate on the meaning of this highly contentious term. Dealing primarily with the post-1996 era shaped by digital technologies and defined by consumer choice and brand marketing, this book brings together leading scholars, established journalists and experienced broadcasters working in the field of contemporary television to debate what we currently mean by quality TV. They go deep into contemporary American television fictions, from "The Sopranos" and "The West Wing", to "CSI" and "Lost" - innovative, sometimes controversial, always compelling dramas, which one scholar has described as 'now better than the movies!' But how do we understand the emergence of these kinds of fiction? Are they genuinely new? What does quality TV have to tell us about the state of today's television market? And is this a new Golden Age of quality TV? Original, often polemic, each chapter proposes new ways of thinking about and defining quality TV.There is a foreword from Robert Thompson, and heated dialogue between British and US television critics. Also included - and a great coup - are interviews with W. Snuffy Walden (scored "The West Wing" among others) and with David Chase ("The Sopranos" creator). "Quality TV" provides throughout groundbreaking and innovative theoretical and critical approaches to studying television and for understanding the current - and future - TV landscape.

Premiering in 2006,Ugly Betty, the award-winning US hit show about unglamorous but kind-hearted Betty Suarez (America Ferrera),is the latest incarnation of a worldwide phenomenon that started life as a Colombian telenovela,Yo soy Betty,la fea, back in 1999. The tale of the ugly duckling has since taken an extraordinary global journey and become the most successful telenovela to date. This groundbreaking book asks what the Yo soy Betty,la fea/Ugly Betty phenomenon can tell us about the international circulation of locally produced TV fictions as the Latin American telenovela is sold to,and/or re-made-officially and unofficially-for different national contexts. The contributors explore what Betty has to say about the tensions between the commercial demands of multimedia conglomerates and the regulatory forces of national broadcasters as well as the international ambitions of national TV industries and their struggle in competitive markets. They also investigate what this international trade tells us about cultural storytelling and audience experience,as well as ideologies of feminine beauty and myths of female desire and aspiration.TV's Betty Goes Global features original interviews with buyers and schedulers,writers,story editors and directors,including the creator of Yo soy Betty, la fea, Fernando Gaitan

The complete and groundbreaking "The L Word" is now out on DVD and this book makes the perfect companion, covering the series in its entirety. "Loving The L Word" picks up where Reading "The L Word: Outing Contemporary Television" (I.B. Tauris, 2006) left off. With new, updated chapters by many of the same television writers and scholars who contributed to the first volume, as well as essays by some newcomers, "Loving The L Word" explores the series' quantum contribution to the ongoing evolution of queer television. Whether you loved "The L Word", hated it, or loved to hate it, this book recognizes that the show transformed the post-Ellen LGBT television landscape, fulfilling a long-neglected, visceral desire for lesbian stories and images. In the process, it reshaped the communities that follow and talk about queer television and care about the narratives and characters that drive it. Including complete Character/Actor, Film/TV and Episode guides, the book also proceeds from the understanding that while "The L Word' ended in 2009 it manages to live on - in the lives of its fans, as well as in a new reality spin-off, "The Real L Word".

The Doctor may have regenerated on many occasions, but so too has Doctor Who. Moving with the times, the show has evolved across fifty years...New Dimensions of Doctor Who explores contemporary developments in Doctor Who's music, design and representations of technology, as well as issues of showrunner authority and star authorship. Putting these new dimensions in context means thinking about changes in the TV industry such as the rise of branding and transmedia storytelling. Along with its faster narrative pace, and producer/fan interaction via Twitter, 'new Who' also has a new home at Roath Lock Studios, Cardiff Bay. Studying the 'Doctor Who Experience' in its Cardiff setting, and considering audience nostalgia alongside anniversary celebrations, this book explores how current Doctor Who relates to real-world spaces and times. New Directions of Doctor Who is the scholarly equivalent of a multi-Doctor story, bringing together the authors of Triumph of a Time Lord and TARDISbound, as well as the editors of Time and Relative Dissertations in Space, Impossible Worlds, Impossible Things, Torchwood Declassified and Doctor Who, The Eleventh Hour.It also features contributions from experts on TV brands, bioethics, transmedia and cultural icons. As 'new Who' creates ongoing mysteries and poses exciting questions, this collection demonstrates the vitality of Doctor Who studies.

Promoted as a 'disturbingly perfect' and 'deeply shallow' television drama and created by Ryan Murphy, who is also behind the teen musical show Glee, Nip/Tuck has been one of the most popular and controversial shows on cable TV. The misadventures and soap opera-esque entanglements of the lives of plastic surgeons Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) and Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) won Golden Globes and boycotts from the American Family Association. Yet, as this first full critical examination of Nip/Tuck shows, ironically the show is an examination of the American family and its many definitions, anxieties and complications of gender and sexuality, and the class issues and illusions surrounding the American dream. It is also revealed as a glorious televisual melodrama, full of Gothic tropes and contemporary sensationalism and at the same time, a deeply misanthropic satire on the American dream with a sometimes highly problematic portrayal of women and minorities. The book also features an interview with frequent Nip/Tuck director Elodie Keene and an episode guide.

Premiering in 2006,Ugly Betty, the award-winning US hit show about unglamorous but kind-hearted Betty Suarez (America Ferrera),is the latest incarnation of a worldwide phenomenon that started life as a Colombian telenovela,Yo soy Betty,la fea, back in 1999. The tale of the ugly duckling has since taken an extraordinary global journey and become the most successful telenovela to date. This groundbreaking book asks what the Yo soy Betty,la fea/Ugly Betty phenomenon can tell us about the international circulation of locally produced TV fictions as the Latin American telenovela is sold to,and/or re-made-officially and unofficially-for different national contexts. The contributors explore what Betty has to say about the tensions between the commercial demands of multimedia conglomerates and the regulatory forces of national broadcasters as well as the international ambitions of national TV industries and their struggle in competitive markets. They also investigate what this international trade tells us about cultural storytelling and audience experience,as well as ideologies of feminine beauty and myths of female desire and aspiration.TV's Betty Goes Global features original interviews with buyers and schedulers,writers,story editors and directors,including the creator of Yo soy Betty, la fea, Fernando Gaitan

The complete and groundbreaking "The L Word" is now out on DVD and this book makes the perfect companion, covering the series in its entirety. "Loving The L Word" picks up where Reading "The L Word: Outing Contemporary Television" (I.B. Tauris, 2006) left off. With new, updated chapters by many of the same television writers and scholars who contributed to the first volume, as well as essays by some newcomers, "Loving The L Word" explores the series' quantum contribution to the ongoing evolution of queer television. Whether you loved "The L Word", hated it, or loved to hate it, this book recognizes that the show transformed the post-Ellen LGBT television landscape, fulfilling a long-neglected, visceral desire for lesbian stories and images. In the process, it reshaped the communities that follow and talk about queer television and care about the narratives and characters that drive it. Including complete Character/Actor, Film/TV and Episode guides, the book also proceeds from the understanding that while "The L Word' ended in 2009 it manages to live on - in the lives of its fans, as well as in a new reality spin-off, "The Real L Word".

Bada bing! What drama. "The most important work of American popular culture in fifty years" is how the "New York Times" describes "The Sopranos". Critically-acclaimed, award-winning, and the most watched show on HBO, the mobster drama swirls around the middle-aged Mafioso, Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini). Having to negotiate two families, both at home and at work, is it any wonder he is suffering an epic midlife crisis involving Prozac and visits to a therapist? The series quickly became compulsory watching when it first screened back in 1999 and has since gone on to become an international hit and subject of intense discussion. Coinciding with the sixth and penultimate series, "Reading The Sopranos" offers a timely response to one of the most talked about shows on television. This book explores how "The Sopranos" has rewritten the rules of television drama and changed attitudes about television itself. Contributors present fresh perspectives on psychotherapy and dreams; racism and the Italian-American community; Carmela and post-feminism; "The Sopranos" as an HBO brand; racism; the full cast of 'gangsters Italianate' that people Sopranos' New Jersey; and much more.Reading "The Sopranos" also features a timeline, character list and complete episode guide, as well as editor David Lavery's up to date 'Intertextual Moments and Allusions on The Sopranos'.

"The L Word" captured international attention when it first appeared on American screens in January 2004. The groundbreaking primetime drama from Showtime is about a group of lesbian and bisexual friends living and loving in Los Angeles, and challenges traditional notions of relationships, queer life styles, gender identities, race and ethnicity and sex and sexuality. "Reading the L Word" is the first book about this television phenomenon. With an introduction by Sarah Warn, the founder of premier lesbian entertainment website, AfterEllen.com, and a foreword by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, the collection brings together leading academics, feminist critics, scholars and award-winning journalists to discuss "The L Word". There is also a complete episode guide, as well as a series of interviews with the actors Erin Daniels, Katherine Moennig, and the writer, Guinevere Turner. Analytical, often humorous and sometimes provocative, "Reading the L Word" uncovers what makes this show both so compelling and groundbreaking.

'Everyone has a little dirty laundry.' The darkly comic series about the secret lives of the ladies living on Wisteria Lane became an instant breakthrough hit for ABC. 21 million viewers tuned in for the first episode and this figure has steadily grown as audiences from around the globe have switched on to the shenanigans in suburbia. "Desperate Housewives" was subject to a backlash in America, where advertisers on the ABC network were lobbied by Christian groups and Parents' Associations. But the sponsorship withdrawal that resulted did little to dampen the enthusiasm of its legions of fans. Recipient of several awards including the People's Choice Award and Golden Globe for Best Television - Musical or Comedy, "Desperate Housewives" is a hit. "Reading Desperate Housewives" offers a critical response to one of the most talked about shows on contemporary television. Leading scholars and writers dissect the appeal of "Desperate Housewives", tapping into early reactions and controversy. They consider the American sex wars, contemporary feminism, Republican politics and the rise of the Right, gender and femininity, motherhood and marriage - and that Vanity Fair shoot.The book includes an episode guide tracing all those goings-on beyond that white picket fence.

Apart from its brilliance as television, it's amazing what "Deadwood" gets away with. This acclaimed series from HBO, which premiered in 2004, is set in the teeming outlaw camp of 'Deadwood'. It has been described by "Variety" as 'a vulgar, gritty, at times downright nasty take on the Old West brimming with all the dark genius that series creator and sceenwriter extraordinaire David Milch has at his fingertips'. All this and more. The international cast of authoritative contributors assess "Deadwood's" many facets: its profane language, its characters, from Al Swearengen (who lives up to his name) and Calamity Jane, to B.B. Farnham and Mr. Wu, its place in the western genre, "Deadwood" and serial fiction, prostitution, the making of American civil society, "Deadwood's" Chinese, the opening credits, Reverend Smith and much more. Episode and character guides complete the book - the "Deadwood" companion for fans and students to swear by.

The sexual politics of television culture is the territory covered by this ground-breaking book - the first to demonstrate the ways in which third wave feminist television studies approaches and illuminates mainstream TV. Leading voices in third wave feminism focus on innovative US television shows, including "The Sopranos", "Oz", "Six Feet Under", "The L Word" and the reality-TV show "The Bachelor" to take a closer look at the contradictions and reciprocities between feminism and television, engaging as they go in theoretical and critical conversations about media culture, third wave feminism, feminist spectatorship, the sex wars, and the politics of visual pleasure. The book offers an exuberant and accessible discussion of what television has to offer today's feminist fan. It also sets a new tone for future debate, turning away from a sober, near-pessimistic trend in much feminist media studies to reconnect with the roots of third wave feminism in riot grrrl culture, sexradical feminism, and black feminism, tracing too the narratives provided by queer theory in which pleasure has a less contested place.

The sexual politics of television culture is the territory covered by this ground-breaking book - the first to demonstrate the ways in which third wave feminist television studies approaches and illuminates mainstream TV. Leading voices in third wave feminism focus on innovative US television shows, including "The Sopranos", "Oz", "Six Feet Under", "The L Word" and the reality-TV show, "The Bachelor" to take a closer look at the contradictions and reciprocities between feminism and television, engaging as they go in theoretical and critical conversations about media culture, third wave feminism, feminist spectatorship, the sex wars, and the politics of visual pleasure. The book offers an exuberant and accessible discussion of what television has to offer today's feminist fan. It also sets a new tone for future debate, turning away from a sober, near-pessimistic trend in much feminist media studies to reconnect with the roots of third wave feminism in riot grrrl culture, sexradical feminism, and black feminism, tracing too the narratives provided by queer theory in which pleasure has a less contested place.

When "24" exploded onto TV screens in 2001, "Time" magazine called it one of the 'Best Television Events of the Decade'. "24" has gone on to establish itself as groundbreaking and controversial entertainment that has changed the face of television. Each season of "24" traces the events of a single day in the life of CTU Field Agent Jack Bauer. Racing against the clock, Bauer battles assassination attempts, germ warfare and terrorist factions to 'save the day'. "24" presents the nail-biting events of each day through its use of split-screen and 'real-time' devices. Dramatically explosive and visually dynamic, "24" taps into a global sense of uncertainty and suspicion with its provocative depiction of America's role on the world stage and of terrorist activity and political double-dealing. "Reading '24'" is the first book to bring together critical discussions of "24" from a wide range of perspectives. Entertaining and illuminating, the book looks in detail at the creative and controversial features of "24". It considers, for example, "24"'s stylistic innovations, its engagement post 9/11 with the 'War on Terror', and its masking of identities.The pioneering spirit of the show is matched by the original arguments on display here, celebrating and censuring "24" - TV on the edge.

With the explosion of reality television onto screens and schedules worldwide, this timely and original book explores makeover tv, the ubiquitous reality format that has received little critical attention to date. Top writers and scholars take discussion of reality tv to the next level with lively examination of a wide range of contemporary makeover shows, such as "Extreme Makeover", "The Swan", "Faking It", "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", and "The Apprentice", that ultimately speak to television's own enduring ability to reinvent itself. The book is organized around the overarching argument that contemporary makeover programming provides the paradigmatic example of reality television's far-reaching prominence and mass appeal, an appeal that lies in "powers of transformation' or televisual performance that tries not only to capture reality but to intervene in it, with the ultimate aim of remodelling reality.They examine how makeover programming annexes the private space of the home, transforms the body through surgery and rigorous discipline, recreates aspects of social identity and consumer lifestyle, and changes ordinary persons into celebrities and celebrities into ordinary persons.

This is what we know, this is the truth: CSI is a global television phenomenon. It began in 2000 with "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation", a dark procedural drama about forensic science set within the neon escapism of Las Vegas, in which Grissom and his team search within the very vitals of the murder victims they investigate. Nearly 17 million viewers tuned in each week and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" fast became America's number one show. The success of the series moved it into franchise territory, continuing in 2002 with the body beautifuls and dismembereds of "CSI: Miami" (now the world's biggest television show) and again in 2004 extending the francise to the melancholic noir of post-9/11 New York with "CSI: NY". "Reading 'CSI'" pieces together the evidence in order to understand what the CSI shows mean to contemporary television culture, both in America and beyond.The varied, intellectually curious and often polemic responses to CSI from critics, journalists and industry professionals focus on a range of issues from the pornographic quality of the CGI effects, the relationship of characters to their narratives, and the reaction of the fans, to the semiotics of Horatio Caine's sunglasses. This in depth, compulsive read also includes a full episode guide.