The short version: I just really love television! The slightly longer version is that, in my career, I’ve had a very unusual perspective on both entertainment and activism. My first jobs out of college were at companies like Lucasfilm and The Jim Henson company, where I saw first-hand just how important pop culture and fandom can be for audiences. And I also worked extensively on queer causes, eventually making activism my full-time job when I joined the team that brought marriage equality to the US Supreme Court. Through that work, I became more and more interested in the ways that pop culture – particularly television – has been a tool for advancing civil rights.
Along with Kathryn Montgomery’s book Target: Primetime, this book is a fascinating peek into the furious fights over sex and violence on television.
It shines a light on a mostly-invisible struggle between creators, executives, censors, and the public. I love how vividly this book is written; it really feels like you’re right there on the front lines.
And the fact that it was published in 1978 means that it’s possible now to see the repercussions of this fight, nearly fifty years later.
From Simon & Schuster, See No Evil is Geoffrey Cowan's fascinating exploration of the backstage battle over sex and violence in the television medium.
In See No Evil, Cowan offers a probing investigation into the history, impact, and politics of television censorship, examining network programming, and such controversial practices as the Family Hour.
I’m a professional screenwriter with a passion for story structure. I’ve worked on film & TV projects for more than 25 years – not only as a writer for independent producers and studios such as Warner and Universal – but also as a development exec and creative consultant. Over time, I was shocked to see how many talented storytellers felt stuck between prescriptive paradigms and a “seat-of-the-pants” approach. So I set out to fill that void and defined a more flexible yet powerful method in my first book, Screenwriting Unchained, which I’ve now enthusiastically applied to TV series. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
This is a short but excellent volume, dedicated to the design of a TV series.
It contains a brief history of U.S. Television, which in itself is enough to justify reading the book. As the title suggests, it focuses particularly on writing a pilot, a key part of any series project. William Rabkin is a veteran showrunner with hundreds of hours of produced shows under his belt, yet I really enjoyed the conversational tone in his book.
Make sure you get the most recent version, as the first edition of this classic dates back to 2011 and Rabkin has updated his book since.
When I finished Writing the Pilot a few years back, I figured I’d managed to cram everything I had to say on the subject in that little 90-page package. But that was 2011, and in the years that have passed, a lot has changed about the television business.And when I say “a lot,” I mean everything. The way series are bought. The way series are conceived. The way stories are told. The way series are consumed. The kinds of stories that can be told. The limitations on content at every level. The limitations on form at every level. And maybe…
I’ve always been fascinated by film and television. No matter how challenging life can be at times, we're forever united by what stories captivate us on the gold and silver screens. Whatever challenges the world may throw at this type of storytelling be it a world war, the internet, Covid, or TikTok, nothing beats sitting down on your sofa to enjoy the finest entertainment the world has to offer. Critically studying our most treasured past time might sound like the best way of sucking the life out of it. But I’m here to show you how this isn't the case. Join me on a quest through the best writings that can capture your imagination.
This is my biggest inspiration for becoming an author right here.
James has a fantastically infectious writing style. Let his enthusiasm wash over you as he works his way through a plethora of fun and entertaining dramas that laced our television sets to evoke the world of possibility offered by the swinging sixties.
James ditches a typically dry academic writing style to pin down what made flamboyant crime fighters of The Avengers, The Saint, and The Persuaders, delectably enjoyable and still continue to inspire a cult following.
Eccentric, ironic and fantastic series like The Avengers and Danger Man, with their professional secret agents, or The Saint and The Persuaders, featuring flamboyant crime-fighters, still inspire mainstream and cult followings. Saints and Avengers explores and celebrates this television genre for the first time. Saints and Avengers uses case studies to look, for example, at the adventure series' representations of national identity and the world of the sixties and seventies. Chapman also proves his central thesis: that this particular type of thriller was a historically and culturally defined generic type, with enduring appeal, as the current vogue for remaking them…
Since adolescence I’ve written scripts, stories, and songs. For ten years I wrote songs and sketches for NPR’s Morning Edition as “Moe Moskowitz and the Punsters.” Among my young-adult novels, my favorite remains Alex Icicle: A Romance in Ten Torrid Chapters, a literate howl of romantic obsession by an over-educated and under-loved madman. I think my funniest comedy novel is Who’s Killing the Great Writers of America?that not only kills off some famous writers, but simultaneously parodies their style. And, of course, Stephen King ends up solving the whole crazy conspiracy. I taught writing for many years, and I’m pleased to report that my students taught me more than anything I ever taught them.
The cover of this biography is J-O-S-H spelled out in huge theatrical lights—and Logan really was a Broadway legend as a director/producer/writer. The book chronicles his successes and failures, and he analyzes each show he worked on with an unsentimental and critical eye. He astutely argues for what audiences want to see, and what they reject. Particularly compelling are his personal portraits of Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers, and Oscar Hammerstein II.
Christina Crook is a pioneer and
leading voice in the field of digital well-being. She is the award-winning
author of The Joy of Missing Out: Finding Balance in a Wired
World, the harbinger of the global #JOMO movement, and Good
Burdens: How to Live Joyfully in a Digital Age. Christina regularly shares her
insights about technology and our daily lives in international media
including The New York Times, Psychology
Today, and Harper's Bazaar which called her "The Marie Kondo of Digital.”
We all dream
about it: a life free of scrolling, tweeting, liking, faving, streaming,
replying, apologizing for not replying, and other assaults on our poor,
saturated brains. But what would an analog world actually look like?
Award-winning writer, Chris Colin, paints a picture in his bedtime fantasy book
for adults titled Off: The Day the Internet Died.
Delivered in a pitch-perfect, tongue-in-cheek biblical style, this little book imagines an alternate reality that will hit home in our tech-addled worlds. Un-barraged by celeb gossip and political news, we begin to notice nature again. Rinee Shah’s playful illustrations perfectly capture the absurdity of life reflected in our screens. Whether you’re addicted to tech or not, you’ll see something of yourself when you put down your phone and pick up this smart, funny book.
Off is “So funny and so necessary. For humanity to stay sane, this must be read like the…
We all dream about it: a life free of scrolling, tweeting, liking, faving, streaming, replying, apologizing for not replying, and other assaults on our poor, saturated brains. But what would an analog world actually look like? Chris Colin, author of What to Talk About, paints a picture that's a little Edenic and a little demented. Un-barraged by celeb gossip and political news, we begin to notice nature again. We take walks, stare at the clouds, and listen to podcasts consisting of our own thoughts. Snapchatting gives way to endless rounds of Go Fish. Minecraft is a game involving sticks and…
I grew up watching Formula 1 as a fan, and have been lucky enough to turn my passion into my career as a journalist. I’ve covered F1 races since the early 1990’s, travelling around the world and getting to know many of its biggest stars. One of my proudest moments was winning a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for my contribution to motorsport journalism. Even though F1 has changed over the years – especially becoming a lot more commercial – I think the fundamentals remain: it's of the very best drivers in the very best cars going at it wheel-to-wheel in that all out quest for victory. That’s why I love it.
The status of Formula 1 legends is not just reserved for drivers, because there have been other big personalities involved in grand prix racing who became household names too.
One of those was commentator Murray Walker, who became the voice of F1 on both television and radio. I grew up listening to Walker on the BBC, so it was little wonder that this mini-autobiography Bedside Wheels became such a big hit for me.
In it he recounted some of his funniest moments covering the sport, as well as offers insight into just why he became famous for his commentary gaffes – which he insists throughout are not gaffes, but predictions that are immediately proved wrong!
I’m a professional screenwriter with a passion for story structure. I’ve worked on film & TV projects for more than 25 years – not only as a writer for independent producers and studios such as Warner and Universal – but also as a development exec and creative consultant. Over time, I was shocked to see how many talented storytellers felt stuck between prescriptive paradigms and a “seat-of-the-pants” approach. So I set out to fill that void and defined a more flexible yet powerful method in my first book, Screenwriting Unchained, which I’ve now enthusiastically applied to TV series. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
This is the companion book for Des Doyle's acclaimed documentary with
the same title (also highly recommended).
Described as “the first ever
feature-length documentary to explore the world of U.S. television
showrunners and the creative
forces they employ”, the documentary is an insightful overview of the
TV creative process, featuring interviews with some of the best
showrunners in the business.
There is simply nothing that beats this if
you want to get a sense of how the industry works
and measure the stakes, the energy, the pressure, the creativity, the
professionalism, and the humor experienced or displayed by these
awe-inspiring storytellers.
The book features a foreword by Hart Hanson
(Showrunner of
Bones, The Finder, Backstrom), an introduction by Doyle, and expands on the interviews featured in the documentary.
Showrunners is an insider's guide to creating and maintaining a hit show in today's golden age of television. The official companion to the documentary Showrunners, this highly informative book features exclusive interviews with such acclaimed and popular showrunners as Joss Whedon, Damon Lindelof, Ronald D.Moore, Terence Winter, Bill Prady, and Jane Espenson.
My kid side loves robots and the possibilities they bring! My author side enjoys exploring what makes a reader “care” for a character that’s human, animal, and machine alike. And my parent side is ever interested in childhood with technology – the bad AND the good. Childhood today is very different from the childhood I experienced, but that doesn’t mean my experience was better, more correct, or even healthier. It’s just different! Kids today will remember their childhoods just as fondly as I remember mine. I aim to celebrate kids today and not to demonize the reality of their tech-infused world. I believe this list does just that!
I included this book to counterbalance all the machinery and tech in my list. And while I am super intrigued by robots being robots, it’s also okay to go against expectations like the character in this book does! This robot actually unplugs (against his parent’s will) to explore what’s lies beyond his digital world.
**Check out the Doug Unplugs animated series on Apple TV!**
It's easy being a robot, if you play by all the rules—but when Doug gets curious, he decides to unplug and forge his own path. And he discovers a whole world of what's possible.
Doug is a robot. His parents want him to be smart, so each morning they plug him in and start the information download. After a morning spent learning facts about the city, Doug suspects he could learn even more about the city by going outside and exploring it. And so Doug . . . unplugs. What…
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.
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.
Dunleavy explores what complexity means for contemporary ‘quality’ TV. She focusses on the narrative structures, creative strategies, and style of contemporary television.
For me, what stands out about this book is how it explores the interrelationship between recent technological changes and what we understand as television. This results in a redefinition of television.
When writing the second edition of my book, I found the different ways people have conceptualized contemporary television especially important.
This book examines the creative strategies, narrative characteristics, industrial practices and stylistic tendencies of complex serial drama. Exemplified by shows like HBO's The Sopranos, AMC's Mad Men and Breaking Bad, Showtime's Dexter, and Netflix's Stranger Things, complex serials are distinguished by their conceptual originality, narrative complexity, transgressive lead characters and serial allure. As a drama form that continues to expand and diversify in today's television, HBO's Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones, Netflix's Orange Is the New Black and Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale provide further examples. Dunleavy investigates the strategies that underpin the innovations, influence and success of complex serial…
