Here are 70 books that Complex Serial Drama and Multiplatform Television fans have personally recommended if you like
Complex Serial Drama and Multiplatform Television.
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I like understanding television as culturally situated. Television is constructed along a number of sites: cultural, institutional, ideological, historical, or via the different ways audiences understand it. Interrogating television and what it does as a medium was historically relevant because it was a mass medium. But how can we evaluate the medium in times of highly fragmented audiences? Because of this, exploring Netflix as a new form of ‘television’ has become so important to me. The authors all try to get to terms with how television has changed over its short existence. This helps us understand the medium better, as well as our current moment.
This is one of my favorite books about contemporary television.
It deals with the processes that changed how television was viewed following the changes in HBO-style ‘quality’ television. It also critically explores the ways legitimization and associated words like ‘quality’ work as an ultimately classist system where television works as cultural capital.
Netflix established itself on the back of this legitimization, using HBO-style ‘quality’ TV series like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. But HBO also used DVDs to ‘filter’ the individual program out from the ‘flow’ of television, which helped Netflix to establish itself as television.
Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status explores how and why television is gaining a new level of cultural respectability in the 21st century. Once looked down upon as a "plug-in drug" offering little redeeming social or artistic value, television is now said to be in a creative renaissance, with critics hailing the rise of Quality series such as Mad Men and 30 Rock. Likewise, DVDs and DVRs, web video, HDTV, and mobile devices have shifted the longstanding conception of television as a household appliance toward a new understanding of TV as a sophisticated, high-tech gadget.
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
I like understanding television as culturally situated. Television is constructed along a number of sites: cultural, institutional, ideological, historical, or via the different ways audiences understand it. Interrogating television and what it does as a medium was historically relevant because it was a mass medium. But how can we evaluate the medium in times of highly fragmented audiences? Because of this, exploring Netflix as a new form of ‘television’ has become so important to me. The authors all try to get to terms with how television has changed over its short existence. This helps us understand the medium better, as well as our current moment.
Warner’s book is especially important to understand how colorblind casting works in contemporary television, allowing for television to use the visual signifier of race without necessarily narrativizing marginalization.
I love this book for the way it critically analyses the practice of colorblind TV casting, which until recently was understood as a way television can achieve diversity, but that is only visual diversity and doesn’t allow us to learn about the various barriers Black people in the USA face.
This book fills a significant gap in the critical conversation on race in media by extending interrogations of racial colorblindness in American television to the industrial practices that shape what we see on screen. Specifically, it frames the practice of colorblind casting as a potent lens for examining the interdependence of 21st century post-racial politics and popular culture. Applying a 'production as culture' approach to a series of casting case studies from American primetime dramatic television, including ABC's Grey's Anatomy and The CW's The Vampire Diaries, Kristen Warner complicates our understanding of the cultural processes that inform casting and expounds…
I like understanding television as culturally situated. Television is constructed along a number of sites: cultural, institutional, ideological, historical, or via the different ways audiences understand it. Interrogating television and what it does as a medium was historically relevant because it was a mass medium. But how can we evaluate the medium in times of highly fragmented audiences? Because of this, exploring Netflix as a new form of ‘television’ has become so important to me. The authors all try to get to terms with how television has changed over its short existence. This helps us understand the medium better, as well as our current moment.
This is a short book in which Newman explores the changes in what the term ‘video’ means.
The term is closely intertwined with the history of television, describing first television broadcasts and then how taping was used to bridge the time differences between the American east and west coasts. The term then described the ways home video revolutionized how video was used in the private sphere. Today, we receive videos as the digital snippets we see on YouTube or the short clips we post on social media.
I like Newman’s work in general. But this book tells us so much about TV history in the US; I find it an incredibly fascinating work.
Since the days of early television, video has been an indispensable part of culture, society, and moving-image media industries. Over the decades, it has been an avant-garde artistic medium, a high-tech consumer gadget, a format for watching movies at home, a force for democracy, and the ultimate, ubiquitous means of documenting reality. In the twenty-first century, video is the name we give all kinds of moving images. We know it as an adaptable medium that bridges analog and digital, amateur and professional, broadcasting and recording, television and cinema, art and commercial culture, and old media and new digital networks. In…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I like understanding television as culturally situated. Television is constructed along a number of sites: cultural, institutional, ideological, historical, or via the different ways audiences understand it. Interrogating television and what it does as a medium was historically relevant because it was a mass medium. But how can we evaluate the medium in times of highly fragmented audiences? Because of this, exploring Netflix as a new form of ‘television’ has become so important to me. The authors all try to get to terms with how television has changed over its short existence. This helps us understand the medium better, as well as our current moment.
This book came out a few months after the first edition of my book, and I remember being really frustrated because it added so many important ideas.
I still find its interrogation of interfaces and how they interact, open as different tabs, intriguing. Johnson focusses on how online TV functions within an internet ecosystem. This leads to interesting ideas about what TV distributed via the internet means.
With growth in access to high-speed broadband and 4G, and increased ownership of smartphones, tablets and internet-connected television sets, the internet has simultaneously begun to compete with and transform television. Online TV argues that these changes create the conditions for an emergent internet era that challenges the language and concepts that we have to talk about television as a medium.
In a wide-ranging analysis, Catherine Johnson sets out a series of conceptual frameworks designed to provide a clearer language with which to analyse the changes to television in the internet era and to bring into focus the power dynamics of…
Kimberly Potts is a TV and pop culture journalist and author who believes television is not only the ultimate entertainment medium, but is also the ultimate cultural common denominator. She has written for The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Vulture, The Hollywood Reporter, TV Guide, The Los Angeles Times, Yahoo, Variety, People.com, US Weekly, E! Online, Thrillist, Esquire.com, AOL, Movies.com, and The Wrap. Kimberly also co-hosts the Pop Literacyand #Authoring podcasts, and is a member of the Television Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, Authors Guild, and American Society of Journalist and Authors.
The most important aspect of television history is, of course, the shows. And though there have been hundreds, at least, more series that will need to be added to the book since it was published in 2015, it is a gorgeously designed collection of viewing suggestions. And like any great guidebook, it’s also just a fun way for any TV fan to revisit the best series of the past, arranged by decades, and including American and international programming.
The most groundbreaking and important must-see shows from the 1950s to today’s golden age of television. This latest addition to the best-selling and highly acclaimed 1001 series showcases the best programs produced for television from its inception to the bumper crop of great shows being produced in today’s era of original cable programming and digital streaming. Offering a critical evaluation of the most important and groundbreaking TV programs ever created, this book tracks television’s evolution through decades of social, cultural, and stylistic change. Included are shows that broke new ground, influenced the future, and left a lasting mark, ranging from…
Becoming a mother reshaped me in ways I’m still wondering at now, two decades on. I’ve had to find ways to resist the repressive cultural mythology surrounding motherhood—the pressure I felt to suddenly become a perfect, self-sacrificing vessel for my children’s optimized development. When I read stories about flawed mothers—women, queer and straight, struggling beneath the magnitude of the job, yet fiercely loving their children all the way through—I felt I could breathe a little bit, could handle the task with a little more good humor and forgiveness, for myself, my partner, and my kids. Read a book, bust a myth, go hug your mom.
I devoured Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet (four novels that trace a lifetime friendship between two women living in a deeply patriarchal mid-twentieth-century Italy) in a single summer a few years back, and when I got to the end of those few thousand pages, I felt as though I wanted to start right over at the beginning again. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay is the third novel in the series, and I name it here because it’s the novel in which Elena—the book’s protagonist, and a writer herself—becomes a mother. Elena has a modern marriage compared to her friend Lina’s, but still, she finds the expectations and demands of motherhood difficult to reconcile with her own creative ambitions. Ferrante represents that central struggle with arresting honesty—a captivating read.
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
My mother called me a “television junkie.” In graduate school, where TV was not yet considered a worthwhile scholarly endeavor, I became enthralled by Twin Peaks and Roseanne. Rebelliously, I thought both had so much to say about gender studies and theories of postmodernism. Absent of an official curriculum, I started reading and writing about television history, medium specificity, genre theory and seriality. I got my PhD and published articles on film, TV, and my book. Since 1992, I have developed several television studies courses for our small media studies department: Crime Drama, Reality TV, Gender and Genre on Television, Transmedia Adaptations, and Media Rituals.
I was curious about the differences between British and U.S. crime dramas. Sure, some of them were obviously connected to the differences in justice systems and police infrastructures, but this book explores not only the historical development of the two countries’ crime dramas but also why each resulted in different gender representations and aesthetic formats, along with different avenues towards viewer engagement.
I loved Turnbull’s foundational text for its clarity, breadth, and readability.
This title maps the development of the crime drama on international television. The television crime drama has been a constant of the television landscape since it first migrated from film and radio onto the small screen in the 1950s. Since then, from Dixon of Dock Green to The Wire, from Minder to The Sopranos or Cracker to Dexter, the crime drama has continued to attract large audiences even as the depiction of the crime, the perpetrators and the investigators has changed. This book provides an historical analysis of the TV crime series as a genre by paying close attention not…
My novel choices were part of the Afterschool Literacy & Building Modules for an organization called LitShop. It encourages growth in literacy, making, building, and leadership in girls ages 10-15 in St. Louis, Missouri. I’m honored to lead the writing classes. All of the LitShop books feature strong girls who believe they can make and build their way to a better world, and I aim to include similar characters in my stories. Stories can provide us with motivation, inspiration, and companionship, and all of these books have done just that… for the girls of LitShop as well as myself.
To be honest, I first picked up this book because I loved this author’s character in Orange Is the New Black. But I quickly realized that Ms. Guerrero has her own story to tell, and it is equally, if not more, powerful than fiction. This memoir manages to find that sweet spot of sincerity and honesty coupled with quirky sarcasm and humor. The author’s account of struggling with mental health was particularly relevant and memorable to me.
Before landing a spot on the megahit Netflix show Orange is the New Black; before wow-ing audiences as Lina on Jane the Virgin; and before her incredible activism and work on immigration reform, Diane Guerrero was a young girl living in Boston. One day, while Guerrero was at school, her undocumented immigrant parents were taken from their home, detained, and deported. Guerrero's life, which had been full of the support of a loving family, was turned upside down.
Reflective of the experiences of millions of undocumented immigrant families in the United States, Guerrero's story in My Family Divided, written with…
I’m obsessed with the exploration of what it means to be a human being. We’re coming into an era where we see more characters who aren’t good or evil but both—they possess the potential to save someone from jumping off a bridge one day and beating someone the next. We’re all capable of the greatest acts of kindness and the most abominable atrocities imaginable. I believe we need to be reminded of that fact so that when there comes a time when we can decide whether to hurt or to help someone, we become the better version of ourselves and make the right decision.
Carey followed up the wildly popular zombie epic The Girl With All The Gifts with this book about a ghost story in a women’s prison. It’s smart horror based on an assembly of compelling characters, and Carey uses language beautifully.
Another example of an author who has versatility is how he can handle different genres simply through his skill as a storyteller who knows how to craft compelling characters and twists on common themes. Do you like Orange is the New Black and might be up for some supernatural elements? This is your book.
A haunting and heart-breaking new thriller from the author of the word-of-mouth bestseller The Girl With All the Gifts
Fellside is a maximum security prison on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. It's not the kind of place you'd want to end up. But it's where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life.
It's a place where even the walls whisper.
And one voice belongs to a little boy with a message for Jess.
Will she listen?
Discover M. R. Carey's powerful new novel - a chillingly atmospheric tale filled with tension, action and emotion that's set…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
For almost fifty years, we have been chronicling American television, tracking its history, and following its transformation from the era of three networks to the cornucopia of choices now available through streaming. Along the way, we have appreciated and learned much from other TV books that look at the industry from multiple angles. When we started, there were precious few on this topic. Now, there is a surplus. These are the ones we treasure for their well-told stories.
Rod Serling’s fantasy anthology (where he was narrator and chief writer) was a favorite of ours back then and still is. Despite a skimpy production budget, the show’s quality scripts, acting, and imaginative themes usually transcended the sparse settings.
Having seen most episodes several times, we still turn to Zicree’s handy book to refresh our memories of the show. This was one of the first of the “companion” books to document a memorable TV series, presenting each episode with cast and crew information, airdate, sample photo, the text of Serling’s intro and outro narration, plot summary and revealing analysis, and background details. The expanded 3rd edition (from 2018) also covers the various later revivals of the series.
The Twilight Zone Companion is the complete show-by-show guide to one of television's greatest series. Zicree's well-written account is fascinating reading for even the casual fan. Coverage of each episode includes a plot synopsis, Rod Serling's opening narration, behind-the-scenes stories from the original artists who created the series, and a complete list of cast and credits.
