Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and Beyond

by Janet McCabe, Kim Akass (Editor)

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.

Genres: Tv

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Rome · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was good, but obviously outdated, and I feel like so much more could’ve been done - shows like Lost and The Wire are mentioned, yet not given enough space to breathe as The West Wing, The Sopranos, and Twin Peaks. And part of that is because The Sopranos did change the game! But to not see The Wire ever examined shocked me completely, as it had been running for five years when this book was published. Similarly, Buffy, The X-files, Arrested Development, and Doctor Who are mentioned as cult classics, but we never dive into an actual detailed exploration any cult classics, unless maybe Twin Peaks, but even that is barely addressed. And maybe it’s because I’m a more contemporary reader so I’m expecting The Wire, Seinfeld, etc. to appear. Even Friends, which had long finished by 2007, is only mentioned a few times. And if we take this definition of quality tv which the book provides us, all of these shows could easily be argued to be this (well, maybe not Friends, but a talented author could make an argument for it. Not me, though, I have good taste). Part of this book’s failures I do think arise from the fact that 2008 would be a game changer - Breaking Bad and Mad Men start in 2008, but also mark a turning point technology wise. Streaming giants didn’t exist, save for Netflix (though, did they have their streaming service yet, or were they still just DVDs?), 2009 was when i first saw friends have an iPhone, so this book really couldn’t see just what would happen in the future. However, it did feel a bit like the Sopranos show too often with everything else falling to the wayside. It was interesting! But there was so much more to explore!