Viewing America
Twenty-First-Century Television Drama

Christopher Bigsby explores the potential of television drama to offer a radical critique of American politics, myths and values.

Christopher Bigsby (Author)

9781107619746, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 October 2013

512 pages, 9 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.1 x 2.2 cm, 0.82 kg

'Bigsby makes a compelling case for twenty-first-century television drama as art to be viewed, studied, and appreciated … Highly recommended.' Choice

Something has happened in the world of television drama. For the last decade and a half America has assumed a dominant position. Novelists, screenwriters and journalists, who would once have had no interest in writing for television, indeed who often despised it, suddenly realised that it was where America could have a dialogue with itself. The new television drama was where writers could engage with the social and political realities of the time, interrogating the myths and values of a society moving into a new century. Familiar genres have been reinvented, from crime fiction to science fiction. This is a book as much about a changing America as about the television series which have addressed it, from The Sopranos and The Wire to The West Wing, Mad Men and Treme, in what has emerged as the second golden age of American television drama.

Introduction: television drama
New Jersey
1. The Sopranos
Washington
2. The West Wing
Baltimore
3. Homicide Life on the Street
4. The Corner
5. The Wire
Earth
6. Battlestar Galactica
Odessa
7. Friday Night Lights
New York
8. Mad Men
New Orleans
9. Treme.

Subject Areas: Television [APT], Film, TV & radio [AP], Theatre studies [AN]