TV Drama in Transition reflects upon changing dramatic forms on television in the context of broad cultural shifts over the past two decades. Analyses of a wide range of series (from Heartbeat to Middlemarch and Our Friends in the North; from NYPD Blue to Twin Peaks to The X-Files) are interspersed with accounts of new technologies, viewing dispositions and the political economy of culture. This book is generally concerned as much with the condition of culture in the 1980s and 1990s, as specifically with TV drama.
Dedication - Acknowledgements - Key to Abbreviations - Introduction - From Electronic Theatre to... Cyberspace? Technology and Televisual Form - Flexi-narrative from Hill Street to Holby City - Dislocations of Postmodernity. The Political Economy of a Culture in Transition - Signs of the Times: Heartbeat and Baywatch - TV Drama Forms: Tradition and Innovation. Gradual (un)realizations - Framing 'the Real': Oranges, Middlemarch, X-Files - The Public Stock of Harmless Pleasure: Pleasures, Meanings, Responsibilities - Radical Tec(h)s: NYPD Blue, Between the Lines, The Singing Detective - For What It's Worth. Problematics of Evaluation and Cultural Value - CODA: Twin Peaks and Our Friends in the North - References - Appendix A - Index
