History & Criticism

The CW's hit adaptation of Supergirl is tailor-made for pop culture criticism and scholarship in the post-#MeToo era. The series features a new take on the classic DC character of Supergirl, updating it for a new audience and the modern moment. With a...

Bette Davis as a madam. Orson Welles hosting The Twilight Zone. Mae West voicing a cartoon character. Shirley Temple playing a social worker. While Hollywood stars like Lucille Ball, Loretta Young and Donna Reed successfully transitioned to television in...

What do Euphoria, Normal People, Atlanta, Ramy, Vida, I May Destroy You, Stranger Things, and Lovecraft Country have in common? In the 2016-2020 time period they were created, these TV shows exemplified one (or more) of four noteworthy trends:...

When the Television Food Network launched in 1993, its programming was conceived as educational: it would teach people how to cook well, with side trips into the economics of food and healthy living. Today, however, the network is primarily known for...

Male-female detective pairings often exhibit offbeat, dark humor and considerable chemistry as they investigate crimes. They have proven to be both entertaining and alluring on screen and television. This work reveals an evolutionary progression in...

For more than 30 years, Lifetime has aired a broad range of programming, including original movies, sitcoms, dramas and reality shows. As other networks dedicated to women have come and gone, Lifetime continues to thrive in an ever-expanding cable...

This collection of new essays focuses on The CW network's hit television series Arrow--based on DC Comic's Green Arrow--and its spin-offs The Flash, DC's Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl. Comic book adaptations have been big business for film studios...

One of the most original shows in the history of television, Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a beloved cult hit built on the back of another cult phenomenon: the bad movie. The show's premise involved a man and some robots watching cheesy movies and...

One of the first full-length academic projects on the television series Smallville, this collection of new essays explains why the WB/CW series is important to understanding contemporary popular culture. The essays are presented in four sections covering...

During its 33-season run, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968-2001) left an indelible mark on millions of children and their caregivers. Perhaps no series in the history of children's television has done more to develop the identity and ethics of the...

From 1963 to 1989, the BBC television program Doctor Who followed a time-traveling human-like alien called ""The Doctor"" as he sought to help people, save civilizations, and right wrongs. Since its 2005 revival, Doctor Who has become a pop culture...

Ever since the premiere of the small-screen incarnation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 1997, the television worlds of Joss Whedon--which have grown to include Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse--have acquired a cult following of dedicated fans and inspired...

The Golden Girls, Designing Women, Living Single, Sex and the City, Girlfriends, Cashmere Mafia and Hot in Cleveland stand out as some of America's favorite television series. Their lovable ""female foursome"" characters engage in witty banter as they...

A powerful, behind-the-scenes look at some of America's all-time favorite television programs during their darkest hours, this study examines how various hit series have absorbed the death of a lead actor during production. Although each television...

Since the early days of television, well before most households had a set, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has been handing out honors for the industry's best efforts. Now fans can read about their favorites--and perhaps rediscover some...

The "live era" or "golden age"of television drama originating from New York, 1946 through 1951, was an exciting time of creative and commercial accomplishment. This is a complete history and reference guide to the live dramas that aired during those...

Westerns have featured prominently in films almost since motion pictures were first produced at the end of the nineteenth century and when televisions invaded American homes in the late 1940s and early '50s, Western programs filled the small screen...

Popular Culture and the Future of Politics: Cultural Studies and the Tao of South Park argues that progressives should conceive the connections between media, policy, and culture beyond the limits of 'politics' and 'news.' With sustained analyses of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780807843741Author Robert C. AllenFormat PaperbackPage Count 428Imprint The University of North Carolina PressPublisher The University of North Carolina...

Although television critics have often differed with the public with respect to the artistic and cultural merits of television programming, over the last half-century, television hits have indubitably influenced popular culture and vice versa. No matter...

The worlds of Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and other modern epics feature the Chosen One--an adolescent boy who defeats the Dark Lord and battles the sorrows of the world. Television's Buffy the Vampire Slayer represents a different kind of epic--the...

This work examines the change from live to filmed television dramas during the period 1952-1958 and the characteristics and programs that are most associated with filmed television drama. Along with many technical changes that had to be made in the...

This collection of new essays examines how the injection of supernatural creatures and mythologies transformed the hugely popular crime procedural television genre. These shows complicate the predictable and comforting patterns of the procedural with...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer earned critical acclaim for its use of metaphor to explore the conflicts of growth, power, and transgression. Its groundbreaking stylistic and thematic devices, boldness and wit earned it an intensely devoted fan base--and as...

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report have attracted much interest in recent years from popular audiences as well as scholars in various disciplines. Both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have been named on Time magazine's list of the...

Created around the world and available only on the web, internet "television" series are independently produced, mostly low budget shows that often feature talented but unknown performers. Typically financed through crowd-funding, they are filmed with...

Lost has received widespread acclaim as one of the most innovative, intelligent, and influential dramatic series in television history. Central to Lost's success has been its capacity to evoke audience interpretations of its mysteries, undiminished...

Joss Whedon once identified himself as an "angry, hard-line atheist" who is nevertheless "fascinated by the concept of devotion." While organized religion seems to hold no satisfactory answers for Whedon, his dedication to exploring the meanings of...

The fictionalized Los Angeles of television's Angel is a world filled with literature--from the all-important Shansu prophecy that predicts Angel's return to a state of humanity to the ever-present books dominating the characters' research sessions...

From automatons to zombies, many fantastic elements have been cross-pollinated with the western genre. This Second Edition of the A-to-Z Encyclopedia of the Weird Western includes numerous new entries covering film, television, animation, dime novels,...

Soap operas have captured loyal, often lifelong viewers since the first daytime serial debuted in 1949. In this collection of 29 new and five classic essays and recollections, authors and soap opera insiders delve into the passion for television...

This collection analyzes twenty-first-century American television programs that employ temporal and narrative experimentation. These shows play with time, slowing it down to unfold narrative through time retardation and compression. They disrupt the...

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...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781476688015Author Jonathan F BassettFormat PaperbackPage Count 175Imprint McFarland & Co IncPublisher McFarland & Co Inc

The award-winning television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988-1999) has been described as ""the smartest, funniest show in America,"" and forever changed the way we watch movies. The series featured a human host and a pair of robotic puppets...

While the American soap opera is known primarily for its marketing value, producers, health professionals, politicians, and rebels elsewhere focus on the serials' potential for social change: African, Indian and South American serials offer...

Much has been written about the Walt Disney Company's productions, but the focus has largely been on animation and feature film created by Disney. In this essay collection, the attention is turned to The Disney Channel and the programs it presents for a...

In many pop culture texts, "monsters" can be read as metaphors for marginalized Others in U.S. culture. This book applies the philosophical lens of Michel Foucault's normalizing and bio-powers to zombies, vampires, magicians, genetic mutants...

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...

Launched in 1977 by the Christian Broadcasting Service (originally associated with Pat Robertson), the ABC Family/Freeform network has gone through a number of changes in name and ownership. Over the past decade, the network--now owned by Disney--has...