TV Milestones Series – serie

The Rifleman is perhaps the most significant and intelligent of the TV westerns from the late 1950s - an era when the western was the dominant television genre. With its story of a single father raising a son in 1880s New Mexico, ""The Rifleman"" offered many alternatives to the conventions of the western. It also embodied many of the genre's contradictions, setting its ideas about domesticity and level-headedness alongside the gun violence adopted by westerns as central to the settling of the West and the creation of America. With its initial episodes written and directed by celebrated auteur Sam Peckinpah, and the overall series produced by veteran Dick Powell and the pioneering television production team of Jules Levy, Arthur Gardner, and Arnold Laven, ""The Rifleman"" is distinguished by its stewardship of some of the most talented minds of early television. In his succinct study of this television milestone, Christopher Sharrett uses television studies, psychoanalytic criticism, gender studies, and American studies to place ""The Rifleman"" within the TV western genre and early television culture. While discussing the intelligence and lasting value of this series, Sharrett also challenges the reader to consider the broader role of 1950s television in shaping the consciousness of the postwar generation. ""The Rifleman"" remains one of the great examples of the stalemates within American mass culture: the struggle between reason and violence.

The year 2004 marks the 50th anniversary of the Walt Disney Company's network television series Disneyland/The Wonderful World of Color. The series, part of Walt Disney's quest to re-create American entertainment, premiered October 27, 1954, on ABC and was the longest-lived program in television history. Over the years, Walt Disney's visions have evolved into family-oriented cinema, television, and theme parks. From the lovable Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck to magical places like Frontierland, Disney television generated some of the most popular fads of the era. In Disney TV, J. P. Telotte examines the history of the Disney television series while placing it in context - the film industry's reaction to television in the post-World War II era, the Disney Studios' place in the American entertainment industry, and Walt Disney's dream to create the modern theme park. Telotte's guiding principle in this examination is to illustrate how Disney changed the relationship between cinema and television and, perhaps more importantly, how it affected American culture. The conciseness of Telotte's book is a major advantage over other leading Disney scholarship. Detailed without including minutia, Telotte provides the reader with the key issues that surrounded the development of the Disney phenomenon. This book will attract a wide array of readers - scholars of television, media, and film studies, popular culture students, and all those touched by the magic of Disney.

One of the most innovative comedic programs to air on television, Monty Python's Flying Circus was a mix of the carnivalesque and the critical. The show has become famous for eschewing many of the conventions of situation comedy: the fully formed and coherent script, narrative closure, predictable characters, and the decorum associated with presentation. Its curious transatlantic popularity defied the assumption that comedy is regional and exclusive, and the show's cult status still lives on in the United States and United Kingdom through reruns, videos, DVDs, and continual reappearances by the show's now iconic stars. Most written accounts of Monty Python's Flying Circus focus solely on members of the Pythons, histories of the sketches, or the development of other Monty Python projects, leaving a dearth of scholarly and contextual analysis on the television show itself. Marcia Landy's book is one of the rare studies available examining the Flying Circus within the context of its time, analyzing the show's influence on 1960s and 1970s British television as well as British cultural influence on the show's legendary material. Landy explores not only why the series' complex form of comedy was important but also why it was so well received, citing the Pythons' amalgam of comedic material: the unruly treatment of sexuality, the mockery of religion and class, and the critique of the medium of television. The Flying Circus parodied both the lowbrow and the highbrow, throwing many previously untouchable topics into the ring, and here Landy deconstructs the impact of the show's risks and reception. As informative as it is engaging and entertaining, this book will appeal to film and media scholars, popular culture enthusiasts, and Monty Python fans alike.

Perry Mason was one of the most successful television programs from the 1950s and remains one of the most influential crime melodramas from any period. The show's influence goes far beyond its nine-year tenure (1957-66), the millions of dollars it generated for its creators and for CBS, and the definitive identification it provided its star, Raymond Burr. ""Perry Mason"" has become a true piece of Americana, evolving through a formulaic approach that law professors continue to use today as a teaching tool. In his examination of ""Perry Mason"", author Thomas Leitch looks at why this series has appealed to so many for so long and what the continued appeal tells us about Americans' attitudes toward lawyers and the law, then and now. Beginning with its roots in earlier detective fiction, stories of fictional attorneys, and the work of Erle Stanley Gardner (the show's creator), Leitch lays out the circumstances under which ""Perry Mason"" was conceived and marketed as a distinct franchise. The evolution of ""Perry Mason"" is charted here in an inclusive manner, discussing the show's broadcast history (ending with the series of two-hour tele-movies that aired nearly twenty years after the original series ended) alongside its generic nature and place within popular culture, the show's ideological dynamic, and issues of authorship in the context of television. This concise study is an excellent tool for television and media scholars as well as fans of the ""Perry Mason"" series.

The classic situation comedy ""Bewitched"" chronicled the everyday lives of Samantha, a witch, and Darrin Stephens, her mortal husband, dramatizing the often-humorous troubles caused by their ""mixed marriage."" For much of its eight-year run, Bewitched enjoyed strong popularity because of its broad appeal. A parade of magical characters, animals, special effects, and gimmickry used to portray witchcraft ensured that the series appealed strongly to children, while its domestic tensions, feminist undertones, and hints at gay and lesbian subculture grabbed the attention of adult viewers. ""Bewitched"" also participated in industrial innovations, like the shift from black-and-white to color television production, and found itself caught in the political shift from Lyndon Johnson's Great Society to Richard Nixon's staunch conservatism. With all of these factors in mind, Walter Metz considers the series an important touchstone in 1960s and 1970s culture. Although ""Bewitched"" has been the subject of previous academic criticism, most studies discuss only a handful of episodes. This book considers the ""Bewitched"" series as a whole, demonstrating that the show can look very different depending upon which of its episodes are being examined. Metz draws several interlocking themes from the series, including the political identity conflicts that arise from the Stephenses' marriage, the significance of history raised by characters popping in and out of the past, the postwar surveillance culture represented by the fear of discovery of Samantha's secret, and the show's self-reflexive stance toward television itself. In addition, Metz situates ""Bewitched"" in television history, examining the ways that its production techniques, storylines, and characters both borrowed from the past and contributed their own innovations to the medium. A cult favorite that continues to air regularly more than forty years after it first premiered, ""Bewitched"" has claimed a prominent place in television history. Scholars of film and television studies, along with fans of the show, will appreciate Metz's careful look at the show's appeal and the serious issues raised by this beloved and deceptively simple sitcom.

This title analyzes the social, political, and institutional context of ""The Flip Wilson Show"", which ran on NBC between 1970 and 1974.When ""The Flip Wilson Show"" debuted on NBC in 1970, the major legislative victories of the civil rights movement had been won, but the broadcast airwaves were far from integrated. A handful of shows featured black leading characters, but none had quite reached the top spot of the Nielsen ratings. By 1971, however, Wilson's ""old-fashioned"" comedy-variety hour was a bonafide hit, and in January 1972 ""Time"" magazine declared Wilson ""TV's First Black Superstar."" In this volume, Meghan Sutherland examines how ""The Flip Wilson Show"" succeeded in the volatile racial and economic milieu of the early 1970s and how its success shaped the prevailing codes of black performance and political discourse on television.In particular, Sutherland examines the ambivalence that pervades discussions of Wilson's outlandish performance style - discussions that generally treat the question of whether his characters lampooned or simply reprised the stereotypes of minstrelsy as a problem for reception studies. Sutherland argues that this ambivalence was actually the basis of the show's wide appeal, and must thus be understood as an aesthetic strategy rather than as a mere effect of different viewers' interpretations. Along these same lines, she asserts that Wilson used the non-naturalistic aesthetics of variety performance in order to mount a critique of ""realist"" race sitcoms of the period, on the one hand, and the discourse of authentic masculinity that accompanied the rise of Black Power, on the other. Finally, she considers how the show used its integrated studio audience to stage the reconstitution of one, big, happy broadcast audience after the social, racial, and political upheavals of the late 1960s.""The Flip Wilson Show"" is the most detailed study of Wilson's variety show in its cultural and institutional context. This volume elucidates the characteristics of the variety genre that continue to make it a popular medium for political discourse in fractious social moments. In this way, it offers a fresh approach to understanding the enduring importance of the variety genre for black comedians - from Richard Pryor to the Wayans Brothers to Dave Chappelle - and for television in general. Scholars of film and television studies will appreciate this newest addition to the ""TV Milestones Series"".

This is an analysis of ""I Love Lucy"", one of the best loved sitcoms in the history of American television. ""I Love Lucy"" aired for six seasons between 1951 and 1957 as a top-rated weekly sitcom, and its characters appeared in thirteen hour-long specials between 1958 and 1960. In ""I Love Lucy"", author Lori Landay investigates the groundbreaking series and its highly charismatic stars, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, to consider the program's impact on the conventions of the sitcom, television culture, and wider postwar culture. In chapters that proceed chronologically through the life of the series, Landay takes an interdisciplinary cultural studies approach to understanding the wider phenomenon of ""I Love Lucy"", with an emphasis on a variety of issues as they arise from different phases of the show. She examines the program's efficient production system, compelling narrative formula, hilarious writing, and the technical genius behind the scenes that put it onto film. Landay also considers the show's clever plots within a familiar situation, magnificent comic performance, and the remarkable chemistry of its actors. In addition, she studies the end of the series and its continued place in popular culture. ""I Love Lucy"" is perhaps the most popular television show of all time, and its stars are some of the most recognizable in television history. For scholars of American television history as well as the series' many fans, ""I Love Lucy"" will be an enjoyable and informative read.

This title examines the full run of ""Sex and the City"" and its production background, place in television history, innovations to the genre, and reception.With its bold depiction of four female friends navigating the pitfalls of Manhattan's dating scene, ""Sex and the City"", which aired on HBO from 1998 to 2004, was a unique television drama that evolved into a ubiquitous and widely debated cultural phenomenon. ""Deborah Jermyn's Sex and the City"" investigates the program's critical and popular success as well as its lasting cultural impact. To give readers a complete picture of ""Sex and the City"", Jermyn draws on close textual analysis of selected episodes, existing critical work on the program, testimonies from its stars and producers, and intertextual evidence ranging from the ""Sex and the City"" bus tour to fan guides and Web sites.In this volume, Jermyn explores the show's characters, its careful generic balance of comedy and drama, its mix of both fantasy and realism, and its dedication to the intricacies of women's friendships. Jermyn notes that in the course of its six seasons ""Sex and the City"" emerged as a kind of controversial shorthand to explore the zeitgeist among a generation of post-feminist TV audiences, each week considering issues surrounding femininity, feminism, sexuality, consumerism, and women's lifestyle choices. Jermyn argues that, in short, ""Sex and the City""'s success and wider cultural impact invite us not just to analyze the particular accomplishments of its writing, design, and performances but to recognize the contribution and significance that television can have on public debate and life outside 'the box.'With the 2008 release of a full-length - and long-awaited - feature film version of ""Sex and the City"", the series proves itself once again to be timely and relevant. Fans of the series as well as scholars of television history will enjoy Jermyn's insightful study.

This is a comprehensive account of ""Doctor Who"" as a television series and product of popular culture. ""Doctor Who"", the iconic British science-fiction series following a time-traveling alien scientist, was first broadcast November 23, 1963, on BBC Television. Though modestly conceived and produced, its depiction of the alien but strangely human 'Doctor' proved to be such a commercial success that the program was shown in more than forty countries over twenty-six seasons - from 1963 to 1989 - and returned successfully to television in 2005. In ""Doctor Who"", Jim Leach explores the reasons behind the original series' popularity and the ways it evolved during its long run. Leach analyzes in detail seven representative episodes from the original run of the series to trace the development of the seven 'regenerations' of the main character by different actors. In addition to detailing each actor's contribution to the role, he also tackles such issues as the show's self-reflexivity, its attitude toward science and technology, and its generic mix of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Leach considers ""Doctor Who"" as a 'fantastic' text, with its concept of regeneration and the complex experience of time that evolved during its run. He also looks at the series' manipulation of the medium of television and its broader cultural influences and implications. Leach concludes with a section that looks at the continuities and differences found in the new series. ""Doctor Who"" is an accessible and intriguing guide to one of the most popular series in television history. Film and television studies scholars, fans of the show, and general readers interested in popular cultural studies will enjoy this enlightening volume.

Following the phenomenal success of the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the WB Network, writers and producers Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt moved their character Angel to his own spin-off series in 1999. While Angel, which followed its namesake vampire with a soul who had become Buffy's tragic love interest, never quite matched the popularity of Buffy, the spin-off was notable for being specifically aimed at adult audiences and acquiring an intensely loyal following. In this in-depth study of Angel, Stacey Abbott demonstrates that producers of the show used the commercial convention of the spin-off not simply to repeat Buffy's successful formula but to create a complex televisual experience with its own distinct identity and creativity.Through close textual analysis of a range of individual episodes, this volume focuses on the series' unique visual style and the ways it experiments with the conventions and form of television programming. Abbott clearly situates Angel within traditions of the horror genre on television and in so doing addresses how the horror genre has evolved to suit the changing landscape of contemporary television. She also challenges the tendency to attribute the success of contemporary cult television to a sole auteur by examining the contribution of Angel's writing team and addressing how contemporary television is characterized by a collective creativity. Finally, while there has been a vast amount of scholarly interest in Angel's parent show in terms of feminist issues, this volume positions Angel as a key text within gender and feminist studies that offers a clever deconstruction of contemporary masculinity.In all, Abbott argues that Angel uses narrative, genre, visual style, and theme to create an ambiguous moral landscape in which characters struggle to negotiate the correct path when the consequences of their actions are unknown. Fans of Angel and students and scholars of film and television studies will enjoy this thought-provoking analysis of the series.

Few American television series are as deeply entrenched in twentieth-century popular culture as M*A*S*H, a Korean War medical comedy characterized by its dark tone and finesse in tackling serious social and political issues. By the end of its run, M*A*S*H had been a mainstream hit for several seasons and won fourteen Emmys, leading it to be called "the most popular pre-Seinfeld series in television history." In this comprehensive study of M*A*S*H, David Scott Diffrient analyzes the series’ contextual issues—such as its creation, reception, and circulation—as well as textual issues like its formal innovations, narrative strategies, and themes.While numerous episode summaries, cast interviews, trivia books, and even recipe guides have been inspired by M*A*S*H, only one other scholarly study of the series exists. Diffrient breaks new ground by fully addressing the wealth of complexities and contradictions in the series and exploring how they are rooted in the cultural ethos of the Vietnam War era. He examines the origins of M*A*S*H and the history surrounding its original broadcast, eventual syndication, and its reception, and he unpacks its narrative strategies, thematic motifs, and questions of identity and identification. In particular, Diffrient explores how the series was able to transcend the traditional boundaries of the sitcom and tackle issues like racial injustices, gender biases, bureaucratic mismanagement, and military snafus.In his exhaustive analysis, Diffrient draws extensively on archival materials including original scripts, memos, and personal correspondence of the show’s writers. He also considers the show’s links to antiwar fiction and its influential and critically overlooked representation of Koreans and the Korean War. Students and teachers of film and television studies, as well as readers interested in M*A*S*H will enjoy this installment in the TV Milestones Series.

An analysis of the under-studied sitcom Gilligan’s Island addressing key questions about American social life in the 1960s.

This title examines the cultural, historical, and artistic significance of the Honeymooners in the context of postwar American values. "The Honeymooners" chronicles the lives of New York City bus driver Ralph Kramden and his wife, Alice, as they search for domestic happiness inside a confining Brooklyn apartment. As a stand-alone television program, it ran for just thirty-nine weeks from 1955 to 1956, but its characters appeared in long-running sketches on Calvalcade of Stars and The Jackie Gleason Show and the program has lived on for generations in reruns and home video releases. David Sterritt investigates "The Honeymooners" as an enduring and valuable index of societal norms and televisual tastes in the 1950s - a project made all the more intriguing by the diverse ways in which "The Honeymooners" both reaffirms and diverges from the typical broadcast idioms of its day. With chapter headings borrowed from Honeymooners episode titles, this volume considers the program's cultural, historical, and artistic dimensions in connection with the values of postwar America at large.Sterritt traces the roots of The Honeymooners within the context of the golden age of television, demonstrating that the show was central to early television history in ways that surpassed most of its rivals. He also details the many distinctive features, relating to both comedy style and ideological import, that set "The Honeymooners" apart from other shows and made it profoundly influential on family-based situation comedies in later decades. Ultimately, Sterritt shows that the program's treatment of race, class, and gender was a revealing mirror of its time and that its characters, aesthetic qualities, and plot devices were more complex and sophisticated than they may have seemed. Scholars of film and television studies, fans of "The Honeymooners", and readers interested in 1950s American culture and television history will enjoy Sterritt's analysis of "The Honeymooners".

From its premiere in 1999, The Sopranos captivated viewers with its easily relatable protagonist who has troubles at work and home, and went on to be one of the most critically successful shows in television history. By demonstrating that TV could be at once artistic and profitable, complex and engaging, edifying and entertaining, the series also redefined the prime-time drama. In this volume, author Gary R. Edgerton delves into the entire run of The Sopranos, integrating the existing scholarly literature, while also going much further than any previous source in exploring the series' innovations and legacy.First, Edgerton describes and analyzes The Sopranos' enormous business and industrial significance within the context of HBO as a network, a diversified entertainment company, and an identity brand. In chapter 2, he examines the many autobiographical influences and work experiences of creator David Chase and the narrative antecedents that informed the series' beginnings. In chapter 3, Edgerton underscores The Sopranos' deeply evocative sense of place, honing in especially on the cultural geography of New Jersey as representative of the nation as a whole. Finally, in chapter 4, Edgerton highlights how The Sopranos marks ""A Midlife Crisis for the Gangster Genre"" by illustrating some of the most profound generic transformations that took place over the course of the show, while his conclusion summarizes The Sopranos' ongoing industrial, aesthetic, and cultural legacy.The Sopranos is widely recognized in both popular and scholarly literature as a turning point in the history and development of TV. Fans who want to learn more about the show and scholars of television history will enjoy this entertaining and educational volume.

Hogan's Heroes originally aired between 1965 and 1971 on CBS, corresponding to the most uncertain years of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. In an era when attitudes about the military, patriotism, and authority were undergoing a sea change, Hogan's Heroes did not offer direct commentary on the conflict, but instead explored incompetent military leaders, draft dodging, and perpetual war in an absurd storyline about Allied saboteurs inside a World War II German prisoner of war camp. In Hogan's Heroes, author Robert Shandley argues that the series reveals much about the parameters of comedy on militarism and war before the popularity of comedic social realism that would define later programs, like the more critically acclaimed M*A*S*H.In three chapters, Shandley investigates the significance of Hogan's Heroes to social, cultural, and television history. First, Shandley places Hogan's Heroes within its generic and television history contexts, providing background on the genre of "uniform sitcoms" that were popular in the mid-60s. In the second chapter, he places the series within the historical, filmic, and televisual discourses surrounding World War II, including the fact that several of its actors were refugees from the racial politics of Nazi Germany. Finally, Shandley demonstrates how the series uses its generic framework to engage in debates about the conflict in Vietnam and American militarism and shows that Hogan's Heroes laid the groundwork upon which M*A*S*H would build. Since the storyline and characters in Hogan's Heroes do not significantly progress throughout the run of the show, Shandley primarily analyzes the show at the episode level to make the most of specific performances and content.While it was moderately successful in its network run between 1965 and 1971, Hogan's Heroes has enjoyed constant play in syndicated re-release since its cancellation. Fans of this well-loved show and scholars of television history will appreciate this insightful study of Hogan's Heroes.

There may be no more iconic image of mid-1980s network television than Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs speeding down Biscayne Boulevard in Crockett’s sleek black Ferrari on Miami Vice. With its unprecedented $1.3 million-per-episode budget and executive producer Michael Mann at the helm, Miami Vice brought feature film production values to prime time and redefined the television police drama. In Miami Vice author Steven Sanders argues that the show’s themes, narratives, visual realization, and sound design created a new standard of crime television that has its roots in classic film noir and neo-noir.In chapter 1 Sanders describes the social, political, and cultural background that led Anthony Yerkovich, creator of Miami Vice, and Mann to use Miami and its beaches not merely as a backdrop but as a character in its own right. Along with the show’s visual aspects, Sanders identifies themes of ambiguity, alienation, personal identity, and irony that came to define the distinctive ""TV noir"" style of Miami Vice. In chapter 2, Sanders discusses four key episodes to examine the existentialist and postmodern themes that can be found in their story lines and visual style. In chapter 3, Sanders considers questions of authenticity, redemption, and politics in Miami Vice, with reference to episodes that demonstrate the show’s attention to the political corruption and intrigue surrounding the war on drugs. In the final chapter, Sanders offers a novel explanation of why Miami Vice matters to film and video scholars.Miami Vice’s visual and musical appeal, cultural resonance, and topicality made it absorbing entertainment in its own day; Sanders proves that its exploration of social, moral, political, and philosophical issues make it worth watching twenty-five years later. Fans of the show and scholars of television history and American popular culture will appreciate this illuminating look at Miami Vice.

A social, cultural, historical, and institutional analysis of the classic original series, The Fugitive.

With its fast and furious dialogue, crackling wit, and political savvy, The West Wing became appointment TV for millions during its seven-season run between 1999 and 2006. The behind-the-scenes ensemble drama about Washington politics premiered on the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, was the first series to respond to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and concluded in the closing years of the Bush administration. Its subject matter was ambitious and germane, its cast star-studded, its production team acclaimed. In this volume, Janet McCabe explores The West Wing as both a space for political and social discourse and a force that reshaped contemporary television.McCabe begins by examining the series' broadcasting history, including its scheduling in the United States and around the world, and how the show defines channels and television markets. McCabe goes on to explore the role of the show's creator Aaron Sorkin as a TV auteur and investigates the program's aesthetic principles, including the distinctive look, feel, and sounds of the series. McCabe concludes by considering the political discourse of The West Wing, as the show spoke back to a U.S. culture divided by politics, race, and gender as well as the trauma of 9/11 and anxieties over terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.McCabe's analysis of The West Wing provides an intriguing look at the institutional, formal, and cultural politics of television. Fans of the series as well as students and teachers of television history will enjoy this detailed volume.

While supernatural events have become fairly commonplace on daytime television in recent decades, Dark Shadows, which aired on ABC between 1966 and 1971, pioneered this format when it blended the vampires, werewolves, warlocks, and witches of fictional Collinsport, Maine, with standard soap opera fare like alcoholism, jealousy, and tangled love. In this volume, author Harry M. Benshoff examines Dark Shadows, both during its initial run and as an enduring cult phenomenon, to prove that the show was an important precursor-or even progenitor-of today's phenomenally popular gothic and fantasy media franchises like Twilight, Harry Potter, and True Blood.Benshoff demonstrates that viewers of all ages responded to the haunted world of Dark Shadows, making unlikely stars out of the show's iconic characters-reluctant vampire Barnabas Collins, playboy werewolf Quentin Collins, vengeful witch Angelique DuVal, and vampire hunter Dr. Julia Hoffman. Benshoff explores the cultural and industrial contexts of the mid-1960s that gave rise to Dark Shadows and how the show adapted nineteenth-century gothic novels and twentieth-century horror films into a televised serial format. Benshoff also examines the unique aspects of the show's casting and performance modes, its allure as a camp cult text, and the function of the show's many secondary and tertiary texts-including novels, records, games, comic books, and the two feature films, House of Dark Shadows (1970) and Night of Dark Shadows (1971).In the years since its cancellation, Dark Shadows' enduring popularity has led to a prime-time NBC remake in the early 1990s, recent talk of a Tim Burton and Johnny Depp feature film, and a popular ongoing fan convention. Benshoff's timely study of Dark Shadows will appeal to fans of the show and all film and television history scholars who are interested in the roots of one of today's most popular genres.

A definitive study of David Milch’s HBO series Deadwood in the context of the television western as a genre and the intersection of capital and violence in American history.

At a time when television offered limited opportunities for women, Donna Reed was an Oscar-winning Hollywood actress who became both producer (though largely uncredited) and star of her own television show. Distinct from the patriarchal family sitcoms of the era, The Donna Reed Show’s storylines focused on the mother instead of the father, and its production brought a cinematic aesthetic to television situation comedy. In The Donna Reed Show, author Joanne Morreale illustrates how the program pushed the boundaries of the domestic sitcom at a time when the genre was evolving and also reflected the subtle shifts and undercurrents of unrest in the larger social and political culture. Morreale begins by locating Donna Reed in relation to her predecessors Gertrude Berg and Lucille Ball, both of whom were strong female presences in front of and behind the camera. She also explores the telefilm aesthetics of The Donna Reed Show and argues that the series is a prime example of the emergent synergy between Hollywood and the television industry in the late fifties. In addition, Morreale argues that the Donna Stone character’s femininity acts as a kind of masquerade, as well as provides a proto-feminist model for housewives. She also examines the show’s representation of teen culture and its role in launching the singing careers of its two teenaged stars. Finally, Morreale considers the legacy of The Donna Reed Show in the representation of its values in later sitcoms and its dialogue with contemporary television texts. Morreale illustrates the interplay of gender, industry, and culture at work in the history of this classic TV series. Fans of the show, as well as students and teachers of television history, will enjoy this close look at The Donna Reed Show.

Frequently described by creator David Simon as a novel for television, The Wire redefined the police serial format by unfolding its narrative across many episodes, constructing themes for each of its seasons, and refusing to portray individual crimes outside of their social context. While it never achieved spectacular ratings or won an Emmy during its 2002-2008 run on HBO, the show was honored with several awards and has been described by critics as the best show on television. In this volume, author Sherryl Vint takes a close look at several episodes of The Wire to argue that the series challenges our understanding of the relationship between entertainment and social critique.Informed by recent work on race, poverty, and the transformation of the American inner city through neoliberalism, Vint provides a compelling analysis of The Wire in four chapters. First, she examines the season 1 episode ""The Buys"" as an example of the ways in which The Wire diverges from the police procedural format. She continues by considering season 2's ""All's Prologue"" and season 3's ""Middle Ground"" to explore in more detail The Wire's critique of the exclusions of the capitalist economy. In the final two chapters, she looks at ""Final Grades,"" the fourth season finale, to highlight the problems with institutional inertia and show both the need for and barriers to reform, and uses the season 5 episode ""Clarifications"" to consider the failure of the media to adequately reflect the social issues depicted in The Wire.One of the landmark series of recent television history, The Wire is ripe for research and discussion. Fans of the series and those interested in social commentary and the media will appreciate Vint's new analysis in this volume.

ABC’s action-comedy series Batman (1966–68) famously offered a dual address in its wildly popular portayal of a comic book hero in a live action format. Children uncritically accepted the show’s plots and characters, who were guided by lofty ideals and social values, while adults reacted to the clear parody of the values on display. In Batman, author Matt Yockey argues that the series served as a safe space for viewers to engage with changing attitudes about consumerism, politics, the Vietnam war, celebrity, race and gender during a period when social meaning was increasingly contested in America.Yockey examines Batman’s boundary pushing in four chapters. In "Bat-Civics" he analyses the superhero as a conflicted symbol of American identity and considers the ways in which the Batman character parodied that status. Yockey then looks at the show’s experimentation with the superhero genre’s conservative gender and racial politics in "Bat-Difference" and investigates the significance of the show’s choices of stars and guest stars in "Bat-Casting". Finally, he considers how the series’ dual identity as straightforward crime serial and subversive mass culture text set it up for extratextual production in "Bat-Being".The superhero is a conflicted symbol of American identity - representing both excessive individualism and the status quo - making it an especially useful figure for the kind of cultural work that Batman undertook. Batman fans, from popular culture enthusiasts to television history scholars, will enjoy this volume.

The highest-rated network program during its first three seasons, comedy-variety show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In (NBC, 1968–1973) remains an often overlooked and underrated innovator of American television history. Audiences of all kinds - old and young, square and hip, black and white, straight and queer - watched Laugh-In, whose campy, anti-establishment aesthetic mocked other tepid and serious popular shows. In Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, author Ken Feil presents the first scholarly investigation of the series whose suggestive catch-phrases ""sock it to me,"" ""look that up in your Funk’n’Wagnalls,"" and ""here comes the judge"" became part of pop culture history.In four chapters, Feil explores Laugh-In’s newness, sophisticated style, irreverence, and broad appeal. First, he considers the show’s indulgence of ""bad taste"" through a strategy of deliberate ambiguity that allowed audiences to enjoy countercultural, anti-establishment transgression and, reassuringly, conveyed the sense that it represented the establishment’s investment in containing such defiant delights. Feil considers Laugh-In’s camp, otherness, and ""open secrets"" as well as the show’s conflicted positions on the ""private"" issues of taste, sexuality, lifestyle, and politics. Sexual swingers, stoned hippies, empowered African Americans, feminists, and flamboyantly ""nellie"" men all filled Laugh-In’s routine roster, embodied by cast members Jo Anne Worley, Lily Tomlin, Chelsea Brown, Alan Sues, Johnny Brown, and Judy Carne, along with regular guests Flip Wilson, Sammy Davis Jr., and Tiny Tim. Related to these icons, Laugh-In reflected on hotly politicized current events: militarism in Vietnam, racist discrimination in the U.S., Civil Rights and Black Power, birth control and sex, feminism, and gay liberation.In its playful put-ons of the establishment, parade of countercultural types and tastes, and vacillation between identification and repulsion, Feil argues that Laugh-In’s intentional ambiguity was part and parcel of its inventiveness and commercial prosperity. Fans of the show as well as readers interested in American television and pop culture history will enjoy this insightful look at Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.

In January 2004, Showtime debuted The L Word, the first prime-time commercial drama to centre around lesbian characters. Over the course of six seasons, the show depicted the lives and loves of an evolving circle of friends in West Hollywood, California, and was widely read as evidence of changing social attitudes toward gay people. Building on immediate critical attention, the show reigned as Showtime's most popular for its first three seasons and earned a large and enthusiastic audience. In The L Word, author Margaret T. McFadden argues that the show is important for its subject matter, its extended and deeply literate commentary on the history of representation of lesbians in popular media, and the formal innovations it deployed to rewrite that history.McFadden shows that the programme’s creators, led by executive producer Ilene Chaiken, were well aware of the assumptions and expectations that viewers would bring to it after a history of stereotypical depictions of lesbians on television. They sought to satisfy a diverse group of viewers who wanted honest and appealing portrayals of their lives while still attracting a large enough mainstream audience to make The L Word commercially viable. In five chapters, McFadden explores how the show tackled these problems of representation by using reflexivity as a strategy to make meaning, undertaking a complicitous critique of Hollywood, skillfully using a soap-drama format to draw in its audience and ultimately creating its own complex representation of a lesbian community.While deconstructing the history of misrepresentation of lesbians, The L Word’s new modes of storytelling and new perspectives made many aspects of lesbian experience, history and culture visible to a large audience. Fans of the show as well as readers interested in cultural studies and gay and lesbian pop cultural history will enjoy this astute volume.

For eight seasons between 2001 and 2010, Fox’s 24 garnered critical accolades and became one of the most watched and discussed shows in primetime. In an innovative premise, the show’s hour-long episodes were meant to represent a real-time hour of the story, so that each twenty-four-episode season depicts a single day in the life of its characters. Influential as a popular hit, 24 was also closely linked with the “culture of fear” that dominated the post-9/11 period. In this insightful study, author John McCullough demonstrates that the series was not only unique and trendsetting, but also a complex creative response to its historical context.In three chapters, McCullough looks at 24’s form, style and overarching themes and meanings. He argues that although the series is driven by the political and cultural shifts brought on by the War on Terror, it is routinely out of step with real history. Using Linda Williams’s distinction between the melodramatic mode and melodrama as a genre, McCullough explores 24’s use of the action-adventure and spy thriller forms with particular attention paid to the series’ hero, Jack Bauer, who is depicted as a tragic hero perpetually in search of a return to innocence. Ultimately, McCullough finds that the series’ distinction lies less in its faithful re-creation of the history of the WOT than in its evocation of the sense of crises and paranoia that defined the period. McCullough also analyses 24 as a response to television culture in the “post-network” age, characterised by reality TV’s populist appeal and visceral content, on the one hand, and sophisticated boutique cable programming (“quality TV”), on the other.McCullough demonstrates that 24 engaged not only with the most pressing issues of world history and the geopolitics of its time, including terrrorism, neoliberalism and the state of exception, but, on the strength of its form and style, also represents significant global trends in television culture. Fans of the show and media history scholars will appreciate this thorough study.

Airing on ABC from 1957 to 1962, Maverick appeared at a key moment in television Western history and provided a distinct alternative to the genre’s usual moralistic lawmen in its hero, Bret Maverick. A non-violent gambler and part-time con man, Maverick’s principles revolved around pleasure and not power, and he added humor, satire, and irony to the usually grim-faced Western. In this study of Maverick, author Dennis Broe details how the popular series mocked, altered, and undermined the characteristics of other popular Westerns, like Gunsmoke and Bonanza. Broe highlights the contributions made by its creators, its producer, Roy Huggins, and its lead actor, James Garner, to a format that was described as “the American fairy tale.” Broe describes how Garner and Huggins struck blows against a feudal studio system that was on its last legs in cinema but was being applied even more rigidly in television. He considers Maverick as a place where multiple counter-cultural discourses converged—including Baudelaire’s Flaneur, Guy DeBord’s Situationists, and Jack Kerouc’s Beats—in a form that was acceptable to American households. Finally, Broe shows how the series’ validation of Maverick’s outside-the-law status punctured the Cold War rhetoric promoted by the “adult” Western. Broe also highlights the series’ female con women or flaneuses, who were every bit the equal of their male counterparts and added additional layers to the traditional schoolteacher/showgirl Western dichotomy. Broe demonstrates the progressive nature of Maverick as it worked to counter the traditional studio mode of production, served as a locus of counter-cultural trends, and would ultimately become the lone outpost of anti–Cold War and anti-establishment sentiments within the Western genre. Maverick fans and scholars of American television history will enjoy this close look at the classic series.

Premiering in 1993 on FOX Network, The X-Files followed the investigations of two FBI special agents, Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully as they pursued the supernatural, the bizarre, and the alien, as well as the government conspiracies at work to conceal the truth of their existence. For nine seasons, Chris Carter’s series broke new ground in complex narrative television by integrating science fiction and horror with the forensic investigation of the detective genre. Shaped by the conspiracy films of the 1970s, the series had the ability to comment on the contemporary political climate one week and poke fun at its own self-seriousness the next. Responding to its cinematic visual style, haunting score, complex and nuanced writing, witty dialog, and the exceptional acting of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, who elevated the show with their chemistry, fans embraced The X-Files, making it one of the most beloved cult television series to this day.The aim of this book is to provide the reader with several points of entry into the television series, with social, cultural, and political analyses framed by the examination of the show’s many overlapping genres. Divided into chapters highlighting the episodic standalones known as the ""monster-of-the-week"" (MOTW) and the serial mythology or ""mytharc,"" the first section of the book explores the ways the MOTWs represented social differences in stories of fantastic, supernatural beings both strange and estranged. Through comparative analyses and detailed discussions of individual episodes, it becomes clear that the MOTWs were less concerned with the alien than with alienation, using the figure of the ""monster"" to focus on a range of ethnic, racial, and social outsiders. The latter half of the book turns to the serialized mythology, examining both the arc of the alien conspiracy as well as the fan-driven relationship between Mulder and Scully. While the romance subplot was powered in part by the show’s fans, the alien-government conspiracy mythology was Carter’s unique vision. This volume argues that The X-Files was a milestone because it employed the generic tropes of science fiction to call our attention to contemporary global politics and the history behind them. Specifically, Theresa Geller maps the ways the series used the mytharc not to predict the future, but to unbury the violence and injustice of our own past.With its return to television as an ""event series"" in 2016, this volume offers a timely assessment of the show’s cultural relevance and social significance. Fans of the show, as well as readers interested in cultural studies, genre criticism, race and ethnicity, fan studies, social commentary, and gender studies will appreciate this insightful examination of the series.

Although the iconic television series Father Knows Best (CBS 1954–55; NBC 1955–58; CBS 1958–60) has enjoyed a long history in rerun syndication and an enduring fan base, it is often remembered as cultural shorthand for 1950s-era conformism and authoritarianism. In this study of Father Knows Best, author Mary R. Desjardins examines the program, its popularity, and its critical position within historical, industrial, and generic contexts to challenge oversimplified assumptions about the show’s use of comedy and melodrama in exploring the place of family in mid-twentieth century American society.Desjardins begins by looking at Father Knows Best within media and production contexts, including its origin on radio, its place in the history of Screen Gems telefilm production, and its roots in the backgrounds and creative philosophies of co-producer Eugene Rodney and star-producer Robert Young. She goes on to examine the social contexts for the creation and reception of the series, especially in the era’s emphasis on family togetherness, shared parenting by both father and mother, and generational stages of the life cycle. Against this background, Desjardins also discusses several Father Knows Best episodes in-depth to consider their treatment of conflicts over appropriate gender roles for women. She concludes by exploring how the series’ cast participated in reevaluations of the Anderson family’s meaning in relation to “real families” of the fifties, through television specials, talk show appearances, magazine and book interviews, and documentaries.Blending melodrama and comedy, naturalistic acting, and stylized cinematic visuals, Father Knows Best dramatized ideological tensions in the most typical situations facing the American family. Scholars of mid-century American popular culture and film history as well as fans of the show will appreciate Desjardin’s measured analysis.