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Television: A Biography
“The invention, or the quaint piece of furniture, wandered into our lives in the 1940s, as a primitive plaything, a clever if awkward addition to the household. It was expensive, unreliable and a bit of an invalid.” —Television, A Biography
In just a few years, what used to be an immobile piece of living room furniture, which one had to sit in front of at appointed times in order to watch sponsored programming on a finite number of channels, morphed into a glowing cloud of screens with access to a near-endless supply of content available when and how viewers want it. With this phenomenon now a common cultural theme, a writer of David Thomson’s stature delivering a critical history, or “biography” of the six-decade television era, will be a significant event which could not be more timely. With Television, the critic and film historian who wrote what Sight and Sound's readers called “the most important film book of the last 50 years” has finally turned his unique powers of observation to the medium that has swallowed film whole.
Over twenty-two thematically organized chapters, Thomson brings his provocatively insightful and unique voice to the life of what was television. David Thomson surveying a Boschian landscape, illuminated by that singular glow—always “on”—and peopled by everyone from Donna Reed to Dennis Potter, will be the first complete history of the defining medium of our time.
In just a few years, what used to be an immobile piece of living room furniture, which one had to sit in front of at appointed times in order to watch sponsored programming on a finite number of channels, morphed into a glowing cloud of screens with access to a near-endless supply of content available when and how viewers want it. With this phenomenon now a common cultural theme, a writer of David Thomson’s stature delivering a critical history, or “biography” of the six-decade television era, will be a significant event which could not be more timely. With Television, the critic and film historian who wrote what Sight and Sound's readers called “the most important film book of the last 50 years” has finally turned his unique powers of observation to the medium that has swallowed film whole.
Over twenty-two thematically organized chapters, Thomson brings his provocatively insightful and unique voice to the life of what was television. David Thomson surveying a Boschian landscape, illuminated by that singular glow—always “on”—and peopled by everyone from Donna Reed to Dennis Potter, will be the first complete history of the defining medium of our time.
575 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 13, 2016
13 people are currently reading
564 people want to read
About the author
David Thomson
66 books152 followersDavid Thomson, renowned as one of the great living authorities on the movies, is the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fifth edition. His books include a biography of Nicole Kidman and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. Thomson is also the author of the acclaimed "Have You Seen . . . ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Born in London in 1941, he now lives in San Francisco.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
did-not-finish
April 25, 2024As a kid I spent too many hours watching television. Mornings often began with Bugs Bunny cartoons, there were reruns of Gilligan's Island and Brady Bunch waiting for us after school, and most nights there was a 'favorite' show or something that had to be watched. Sunday nights we visited my Grandma, and often we watched television (especially if it was cold outside). But as an adult, I mostly avoid watching. It's not that I'm against TV, but with hindsight I can see that while it's sometimes entertaining, it's also a significant time-waster.
Still, I couldn't help but be interested in this 'biography' of television. David Thomson looks at it in 2 parts: first, the "climate of TV" and second, the messages: "news, drama, live TV, police shows, comedies, documentary, and so on" (pg 24) in each chapter. And while he is often very insightful, he's also incredibly sarcastic. For one who professes to love television, he seems to approach it as any critic would - and by 'critic' I mean someone who's obviously seen way too much of it. His is a jaded view that mirrors the cover quote calling TV a "vast wasteland." Nonetheless, he tells us what he thinks was good television, and it's more often than not British.
But for me it's his jaded sarcasm that gets in the way of his message. He's certainly got a way with words, but even though I don't necessarily disagree with him, it all begins to feel a bit too much. Negativity might be fine for some folks, but it began to weigh heavily on me and I certainly didn't look forward to picking up the book again. In fact, I'm putting it back on the shelf for the time being, having only made it half-way so far.
Still, I couldn't help but be interested in this 'biography' of television. David Thomson looks at it in 2 parts: first, the "climate of TV" and second, the messages: "news, drama, live TV, police shows, comedies, documentary, and so on" (pg 24) in each chapter. And while he is often very insightful, he's also incredibly sarcastic. For one who professes to love television, he seems to approach it as any critic would - and by 'critic' I mean someone who's obviously seen way too much of it. His is a jaded view that mirrors the cover quote calling TV a "vast wasteland." Nonetheless, he tells us what he thinks was good television, and it's more often than not British.
But for me it's his jaded sarcasm that gets in the way of his message. He's certainly got a way with words, but even though I don't necessarily disagree with him, it all begins to feel a bit too much. Negativity might be fine for some folks, but it began to weigh heavily on me and I certainly didn't look forward to picking up the book again. In fact, I'm putting it back on the shelf for the time being, having only made it half-way so far.
December 5, 2016
A wide ranging look at television from the brilliant and idiosyncratic author of "Have you seen--?" and "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film." Some may not like Thomson's snark, but it works for me, and even when I disagree with him I greatly enjoy the force of his well stated arguments. Screens are everywhere, and in one way or another most glue ourselves to them for great swathes of each day. What has that meant? Thomson makes for an entertaining and thoughtful guide.
Geoff Dyer puts it neatly in a back-jacket quote: "The greatest writer about the big screen has now written a defining book about the small screen."
Geoff Dyer puts it neatly in a back-jacket quote: "The greatest writer about the big screen has now written a defining book about the small screen."
January 3, 2017
Unfocused musings, many loose links and rickety connections, but reads mostly as engaging, open, conversational, if ultimately not of as much consequence as it wants to be. Extra 1/2 star for wonderful design; the photos, layout, font, and even paper stock added a rare degree of tactile engagement beyond the words.
March 21, 2022
Didn't expect a straightforward history of TV from Thomson, but definitely expected richer insights and less repetition. (It's like he made a bet with that he could can cram in more Brian Williams references than any author before or since.) Really good on the pre-history of TV, gets shallow and uninteresting as it moves on to the late 20th century.
October 12, 2016
Not a biography, not a history -- let's face it, either of those would be too big for a single book. Instead, what David Thomson has done is to apply his movie-watching muscles to watching TV and the book consists of some long essays on the subject. This is the first book I have read of Thomson's, after hearing for many years of his excellent writing on movies. He reminds me of Clive James, whose most recent work is coincidentally Play All, about binge watching various TV series. I can never resist Clive James, even though his frequent digressions on the attractiveness of this actress or that can become tiresome. Thomson also has this quirk. Still, I kept thinking about Thomson's discussions of All in the Family, Bill Cosby (the man and the show), The Fugitive, the early years of television drama (most of which were not recorded or were recorded over to save money), even days and now weeks after finishing the book.
June 28, 2021
The book is well written and contains a lot of interesting information and pithy observations. It's marred, however, by a lot of pop psychology and citationless pontificating.
For instance, in the chapter "By the Numbers", he says: "A very frightening prospect in a culture of electronic screens is the power going *off*, depriving us of all those comforting services in on-ness. How long would such a breakdown last before panic set in?" I suspect the power has gone out for an extended period of time somewhere in the developed world. How did people react to their TVs being inaccessible for a long duration? That's a question with an empirical answer.
Elsewhere he writes, in the chapter "Commercials":
"In many countries that say they have state-authorized broadcasting,...the media have become distorting instruments of propaganda, or worse. This has not happened in Britain, despite anxieties and pressure from people as varied as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch, who felt the system [of the BBC] was unfair."
This may or may not be true, but he provides no sources on this assertion. What studies have been done regarding the possible slants or biases of the BBC? I have a hard time believing any institution doesn't have some kind of bias, but I can't check the background here because he cites nothing.
Nevertheless, the book does have poignant observations. For example, in the chapter titled "Gently 'On': A New Age of Television People", he writes: "So, the business says, well, the case of the single mother who loses her car and then her house is not really entertaining or constructive. Understood, but then ask yourself carefully about the honesty or responsibility in offering other, fanciful stories for *her* entertainment (in the halfway house, if she's lucky). And then recognize how deeply this kind of entertainment is bound up with the economy that has turned this woman into a victim, simply by virtue of the advertising that sustains the shows. Yes, we are expected to separate the one from the other, but how are we to do that without enforcing unreal divisions in our own experience?"
This is an excellent point about the distorting effect that the narratives television chooses to tell can have on our perception. Although, again, he doesn't cite actual studies or monographs fleshing this out further. Surely some sociologists or psychologists have actually studied the effects of TV - and surely these studies could have informed or bolstered the author's jeremiads.
Finally, I found it irritating that his "Note on Sources" was little more than a brief assurance that they, in fact, exist...somewhere...perhaps over the rainbow? Sometimes he lists books he considers to be solid in one way or another (although not how a particular book was incorporated into his own work), but other times he waxes poetic when that is just not called for. When discussing sources for his chapter "Policeman, Save My Life," he references some books, but spends most of the paragraph listing *fiction* as "the best commentary on crime and police, murder and justice" - citing Dickens and Dostoyevsky. It may well be that these titans of the past have not been bested in their portrayal of the police, but that has little to do with *how police are portrayed on the television screen*. Books discussing the specific history of cop shows, their political influence, their psychological influence, their accuracy, their production, their propaganda value...these are sources to be discussed. The greats of 19th century fiction have no place here.
So, overall it was a very frustrating book to read because the author is a very talented writer with an interesting perspective who obviously has spent a lot of time studying television, but the work itself proved little more than a pile of opinions. Having an opinion is unavoidable, but throwing it out into the public in a work of nonfiction requires evidence, which this book sorely lacked.
For instance, in the chapter "By the Numbers", he says: "A very frightening prospect in a culture of electronic screens is the power going *off*, depriving us of all those comforting services in on-ness. How long would such a breakdown last before panic set in?" I suspect the power has gone out for an extended period of time somewhere in the developed world. How did people react to their TVs being inaccessible for a long duration? That's a question with an empirical answer.
Elsewhere he writes, in the chapter "Commercials":
"In many countries that say they have state-authorized broadcasting,...the media have become distorting instruments of propaganda, or worse. This has not happened in Britain, despite anxieties and pressure from people as varied as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch, who felt the system [of the BBC] was unfair."
This may or may not be true, but he provides no sources on this assertion. What studies have been done regarding the possible slants or biases of the BBC? I have a hard time believing any institution doesn't have some kind of bias, but I can't check the background here because he cites nothing.
Nevertheless, the book does have poignant observations. For example, in the chapter titled "Gently 'On': A New Age of Television People", he writes: "So, the business says, well, the case of the single mother who loses her car and then her house is not really entertaining or constructive. Understood, but then ask yourself carefully about the honesty or responsibility in offering other, fanciful stories for *her* entertainment (in the halfway house, if she's lucky). And then recognize how deeply this kind of entertainment is bound up with the economy that has turned this woman into a victim, simply by virtue of the advertising that sustains the shows. Yes, we are expected to separate the one from the other, but how are we to do that without enforcing unreal divisions in our own experience?"
This is an excellent point about the distorting effect that the narratives television chooses to tell can have on our perception. Although, again, he doesn't cite actual studies or monographs fleshing this out further. Surely some sociologists or psychologists have actually studied the effects of TV - and surely these studies could have informed or bolstered the author's jeremiads.
Finally, I found it irritating that his "Note on Sources" was little more than a brief assurance that they, in fact, exist...somewhere...perhaps over the rainbow? Sometimes he lists books he considers to be solid in one way or another (although not how a particular book was incorporated into his own work), but other times he waxes poetic when that is just not called for. When discussing sources for his chapter "Policeman, Save My Life," he references some books, but spends most of the paragraph listing *fiction* as "the best commentary on crime and police, murder and justice" - citing Dickens and Dostoyevsky. It may well be that these titans of the past have not been bested in their portrayal of the police, but that has little to do with *how police are portrayed on the television screen*. Books discussing the specific history of cop shows, their political influence, their psychological influence, their accuracy, their production, their propaganda value...these are sources to be discussed. The greats of 19th century fiction have no place here.
So, overall it was a very frustrating book to read because the author is a very talented writer with an interesting perspective who obviously has spent a lot of time studying television, but the work itself proved little more than a pile of opinions. Having an opinion is unavoidable, but throwing it out into the public in a work of nonfiction requires evidence, which this book sorely lacked.
Read
September 7, 2023DNF
I tried getting into this book as it was the only one I could find in the library that seemed to have anything pertaining to the history of television itself (I was mainly seeking for anything regarding its infancy years, but I was down for any kind of crash-course). It’s a beautifully printed book with a few neat images here and there, but the formatting, the staging of the images and the writing itself suggested (and, from what I’ve read of it, confirmed) that it seemed nothing more than a think-piece about the medium and how it has “reshaped us” - the book’s use of Heather O’Rourke reaching out to the TV screen from Poltergeist is anything but subtle or unintentional.
Not that I totally disagree with some of David Thomson’s assessments, mind - the idea of television being this heavily-manufactured and normalized medium before any of us even knew the changes of habit it would eventually affect on us in the future is a fascinating one to consider - but as previously mentioned it was ultimately not the kind of information I was looking for. On top of that, I didn’t get far into this thing before thinking to myself, Man, I should just watch Network again. Glad I made that decision (some movies really do get better on the second viewing).
And the search goes on…
I tried getting into this book as it was the only one I could find in the library that seemed to have anything pertaining to the history of television itself (I was mainly seeking for anything regarding its infancy years, but I was down for any kind of crash-course). It’s a beautifully printed book with a few neat images here and there, but the formatting, the staging of the images and the writing itself suggested (and, from what I’ve read of it, confirmed) that it seemed nothing more than a think-piece about the medium and how it has “reshaped us” - the book’s use of Heather O’Rourke reaching out to the TV screen from Poltergeist is anything but subtle or unintentional.
Not that I totally disagree with some of David Thomson’s assessments, mind - the idea of television being this heavily-manufactured and normalized medium before any of us even knew the changes of habit it would eventually affect on us in the future is a fascinating one to consider - but as previously mentioned it was ultimately not the kind of information I was looking for. On top of that, I didn’t get far into this thing before thinking to myself, Man, I should just watch Network again. Glad I made that decision (some movies really do get better on the second viewing).
And the search goes on…
June 26, 2017
4.5 stars, rounded down rather than up in this case, just to make sure no one thinks this book is perfect. But it's pretty great - the best Thomson I've read outside of his "Biographical Dictionary of Film" and "Have You Seen?" I haven't watched network series in years, and I don't have cable. But the book covers shows that long predate my birth and highlights programs that aired (mostly on pay TV) after I stopped watching. The fact that Thomson's observations land over and over again despite all that is surely the sign of some shared appreciation of the medium and its cultural impact, even when I didn't agree with Thomson's overall verdict on a series. ("Friends"? Really? I *still* don't get that show's appeal - it took off right as I tuned out of most network TV - and I guess I never will.)
October 19, 2024
It must be beyond doubt that television counts among the most important inventions of all time, and this book discussed many things that can be talked about various shows on (british and american) television. Consisted of two parts, the first part discussed the mediums while the second part discussed the messages conveyed through television through the ages. Various formats of television shows and their significance were described in a rather musing, personal and roundabout way that I lose my focus reading this book most of the time, the condition that made worse by the fact I only watched few of the shows mentioned, and disliked watching most of the others. In the end, I finished this book due to the fact I started it and decided that this book is not exactly my cup of tea.
August 1, 2017
At 100 pages in, I finally gave up on this book. I thought maybe it was a slow starter... nope, turns out it was a boring book. The author thought he was amusing and clever, but he was just far too wordy.
August 8, 2018
A lot of research went into this. It was very good bringing back info from a lot of the old shows but it was more philosophical than I would have liked.
February 8, 2019
Probably closer to a 3.5, but reading this with Nixonland made for an interesting pair.
April 28, 2019
A lot of words are used to say absolutely nothing.
May 19, 2021
Classic Thomson. Really an extended, very thoughtful essay/meditation about the medium.
February 12, 2017
The less I watch TV the more I am interested in it. After reading the book, I realize how much we have evolved with it. TV has defined culture to this point, with Trump punctuating it. The internet will have similar effects in 50 years.
September 13, 2016
Idiosyncratic and fascinating; and if it seems to wander here and there, well, doesn't television do that itself?
March 27, 2017
I like television, when I am not otherwise engaged in some other pursuit. In fact I grew up watching way too much television.
This was only somewhat interesting for me. The author grew up in the UK and is obviously heavily influenced by his early viewing habits. This book was not the pop culture revisit I was expecting. For me, it was only an okay read.
Have a GoodReads.
This was only somewhat interesting for me. The author grew up in the UK and is obviously heavily influenced by his early viewing habits. This book was not the pop culture revisit I was expecting. For me, it was only an okay read.
Have a GoodReads.
April 22, 2017
The author didn't like regular TV programming, or specials or documentaries or ads. That made for some interesting and rather cynical commentary but that wears thin. A rather scattershot approach to the coverage with a heavy dose of BBC analysis. Okay in spots but not very cogent so better for browsing.
Read
October 12, 2017Critic Thomson tackles the history of tv. The focus is on US television with a nod to Britain where the author spent his early years. He's good when comparing tv with movies (he's a movie critic) pointing out that compared to movies characterization is flattened out in tv to suit a longer running medium. Chapters on the effect of tv on politics and politicians and the effect of live tv on society are especially sharp. Thompson is tough in his judgement of PBS saying the network has long been emasculated by its reliance on forms of government funding. In general he's of the opinion that the recent era of long-form series on cable is the best tv ever but makes a case for the live drama from the early 1950s too. Thompson is his own stylist. His wit is appreciated but when he riffs on the greater meaning of television as he does in the introduction and epilog I'm not always sure what point he's making but the reading getting there can be invigorating.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews