Popular Television Drama

This collection of essays examines landmark British television programs of the last forty years, from Doctor Who to The Office, and from The Demon Headmaster to Queer As Folk. Contributions from prominent academics focus on the full range of popular genres, from sitcoms to science fiction, gothic horror and children's drama, and reconsider how British television drama can be analyzed. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in many academic disciplines that study television drama.

This widely-respected history of British television drama is an indispensable guide to the significant developments in the area; from its beginnings on the BBC in the 1930s and 40s to its position in the twenty-first century, as television enters a multichannel digital era. Embracing the complete spectrum of television drama, Lez Cooke places programmes in their social, political and industrial contexts, and surveys the key dramas, writers, producers and directors. Thoroughly revised and updated, this second edition includes new images and case studies, new material on British television drama before 1936, an expanded bibliography and a substantial new chapter that explores the renaissance in the quality, variety and social ambition of television drama in Britain since 2002. Comprehensive and accessible, this book will be of value to anyone interested in the rich history of British television and modern drama.

An engaging and provocative study of the contemporary prime-time 'quality' serial television format, this book gives a timely account of prominent programmes such as 24, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ER, The Sopranos and The West Wing and explores their influential position within the television industry. Divided into the areas of history, aesthetics and reception, the text provides an illuminating overview of an increasingly hybrid television studies discipline. Chapters consider the formal and aesthetic elements in the contemporary television serial through approaches ranging from those concerned with issues of gender and sexuality, national identity, and reception to industry history and textual analysis. The book also includes British examples of 'quality' serial television emphasizing not only their cultural specificity but also the transnational context in which these programmes operate. Features*Section introductions provide student-friendly explanations of the various approaches and methodologies employed in the book*Chapters are written by an international team of experts in the field of television studies*Ideal for use as a textbook on courses in contemporary television taught at undergraduate level

Featuring leading scholars of British television drama and noted writers and producers from the television industry, this new edition of British Television Drama evaluates past and present TV fiction since the 1960s, and considers its likely future.

First published in 1990. This book is the first specifically about television drama from within a cultural studies perspective and as such examines the active agency of both viewers and media practitioners. The author examines dominant and counter-myths as they circulate in popular culture, discussing soap opera, science fiction, sitcom, cop series and 'authored' drama among its examples. It works within an ethnographic framework, he looks in detail at both the production and reception of TV drama. The overall aim of the book is to examine television representation as part of an historically positioned and differentiated social formation in which knowledgeable actors work in every institutional arena (whether media industry, academia or domestic household) to make their meanings.

On British television drama in the 1980's