The Greatest Cult Television Shows of All Time

by Christopher J. Olson, CarrieLynn D. Reinhard

Reaching back to the beginnings of television, The Greatest Cult Television Shows offers readers a fun and accessible look at the 100 most significant cult television series of all time, compiled in a single resource that includes valuable information on the shows and their creators.While they generally lack mainstream appeal, cult television shows develop devout followings over time and exert some sort of impact on a given community, society, culture, or even media industry. Cult television shows have been around since at least the 1960s, with Star Trek perhaps the most famous of that era. However, the rise of cable contributed to the rise of cult television throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and now, with the plethora of streaming options available, more shows can be added to this categorization

Reaching back to the beginnings of television, the book includes such groundbreaking series as The Twilight Zone and The Prisoner alongside more contemporary examples like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Hannibal. The authors provide production history for each series and discuss their relevance to global pop culture. To provide a more global approach to the topic, the authors also consider several non-American cult TV series, including British, Canadian, and Japanese shows. Thus, Monty Python’s Flying Circus appears alongside Sailor Moon and Degrassi Junior High. Additionally, to move beyond the conception of “cult” as a primarily white, heteronormative, fanboy obsession, the book contains shows that speak to a variety of cult audiences and experiences, such as Queer as Folk and Charmed.

With detailed arguments for why these shows deserve to be considered the greatest of all time, Olson and Reinhard provide ideas for discussion and debate on cult television. Each entry in this book demonstrates the importance of the 100 shows chosen for inclusion and highlights how they offer insight into the period and the cults that formed around them.

Genres: Nonfiction

314 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 29, 2020

About the author

Christopher J. Olson received his MA in Media and Cinema Studies from DePaul University in Chicago, IL in 2014. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Media, Cinema, and Digital Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. Previously, he worked as an Adjunct Professor at Dominican University in River Forest, IL, where he taught classes on masculinity and interracial communication. He also taught classes on film as art at Harry S. Truman College in downtown Chicago, and an online class on game studies at Governors State University in Chicago’s Southland.

Since 2014, Christopher has served as co-host of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, which he co-created with his partner, Dr. CarrieLynn Reinhard of Dominican University. Together, they co-wrote the book Possessed Women, Haunted States: Cultural Tensions in Exorcism Cinema (Lexington Books, 2016), which examines how exorcism films reflect, reinforce, or challenge prevailing anxieties regarding women, people of color, and the nonheteronormative. They also co-edited the book Making Sense of Cinema: Empirical Studies into Film Spectators and Spectatorship (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), as well as Heroes, Heroines, and Everything in Between: Challenging Gender and Sexuality Stereotypes in Children's Entertainment Media, a collection of essays that examine depictions of gender and sexuality in children’s entertainment. Most recently, Christopher published the book 100 Greatest Cult Films (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).

Reviews

[Lori Pitchford · Rating 2 out of 5]

Books about TV and TV history are some of my favorites to curl up with and relax. I own many. The only reason I finished this book was that it consistently helped me fall asleep every night. I'm not sure what this book is trying to be. It's too dry to be something you read cover to cover, but it's not thorough enough to be a good reference book. Add to that an inexcusable amount of typos and misinformation (Gillian Anderson was not in Community) and I don't think I can recommend this book.

Each show was given a synopsis and commentary, which were clearly written separately because they often covered a lot of the same information. I also agree with the reviewer who said that the out-of-context quotes didn't add anything.

Also, while I know "cult show" is always going to be a bit subjective, I still found their definition rather broad. Star Trek? Cult show. Scrubs? I'm not so sure. It seemed to me that the more modern the show, the less objectivity there was. Shows listed from the 1960s (The Avengers, Dr. Who, Monty Python's Flying Circus, to name a few) are unquestionably cult classics. I'm not sure that in sixty years we will consider Supernatural to have had the same lasting impact.

With all due respect to the authors, if you like this sort of book, there are so many better choices. Don't bother with this one.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was...boring. It's laid out like an encyclopedia and reads like one *yawn*. The production recaps and commentary were so repetitive, sometimes with each other and certainly across shows of similar genres. Every other show is "outrageous," "absurd," "surreal," and "riotously" funny.

I think this would have been far more interesting (and less repetitive) if done in a different format. Maybe by genre (animation, sketch comedy, space operas, paranormal fantasy, teen shows, etc.) or by era or network grouping. The "commentary" aspect could likely be deepened and made far more interesting by being able to look at influences, trends, and development over time or within genres, ya know? As it is, the encyclopedia-style entries literally could have just been ripped from Wikipedia tbh.

Lastly, I have real questions about how they selected shows as being "cult" television. South Park is a cult TV show?!?! And why so many sketch comedy shows?!? Do they really all have fan bases whose Venn diagram wouldn't just be circles stacked on top of each other?? I'm skeptical. There were also a number of shows that I was surprised weren't included, such as Merlin, Pushing Daisies, and (maybe?) Fringe.

[Jessi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read a lot of cookbooks, and there are times when I mark one as DNF because of the language. There's a certain Midwestern conservative-feeling church lady vocabulary that pops up in cookbooks, and no matter how good or enticing the recipes might seem, I just can't get around the mental block: zesty, zippy, "in a snap" all send me into a sour mood that takes me away from what I am reading and makes the words on the page so much less enjoyable.
This book is the entertainment version of those cookbooks.
Wacky, zany, sassy....all these overused words that remind me of my grandma, honestly. I deeply love so many of the shows in this book, but there is no reverence or professional respect here. It's like listening to an elderly lady in a doctor's office waiting room try to tell you about a funny email forward she received. Or a stale meme. I want more trivia, not half-assed synopses that feel like inside jokes I'm not a part of (and some of these are from scripts I have memorized. Trust me, I'm in on the joke, but not in on the delivery.) I want something like an oral history, an understanding of the show's place in the zeitgeist or its lasting cultural impact. It was all so bland. And sad. Do yourself a favor and read just the introduction to any of the Wikipedia articles about these shows instead. At least that might lead you down an interesting internet rabbit hole.

[Patricia Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like lists. You can get some good ideas sometimes from reading them. The thing about this kind of list is it's someone else's opinion. Many of the TV programs on this list aren't great or even good according to me. I think some of them are here because they were (and maybe still are) popular. Maybe the authors didn't watch TV in the 50's. Unfortunately few of the shows are even from the 60's or 70's and nothing earlier than 1961 (The Avengers, which should be on everyone's to watch list). Although I disagree with the authors' opinions on some of their television choices, they are summarized well and there is variety including drama, sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, horror, and kids' programs. Also, they aren't all American. It gave me some suggestions for a few shows to watch for the first time or watch again. Sometimes we loved something decades ago, but just don't understand the appeal today. Also sometimes we just don't "get it" until later. Anyway, if you like watching TV (or reading about it), you might enjoy this book.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

The chapters are organised in alphabetical order, and then the shows within the chapters are alphabetical as well.
However, all the shows just melt together. There is no obvious break just flow, and it had this reader's dyslexia go haywire.
I had to go to the contents page to make sure I didn't miss anything.
MORE pictures.
Despite this, great to see some shows that are my favourites and aren't normally known.

[Heather McC · Rating 3 out of 5]

An encyclopedic view of television, I found some of the shows referenced as 'cult' to be more of a mainstream hit given their ratings history. Skimming may be the best practice for reading this text.

[julieta]

Quite an uneven selection.