Books by "M. Keith Booker"
4 books found
Prime time soaps are often revered long after their runs on television have ended, as Dallas, Twin Peaks, and Beverly Hills 90210 readily demonstrate. Due to their profound impact, it's easy to forget how recently the genre itself was born. Dallas premiered in 1978, and was originally intended to air solely as a five-part mini-series. Then, in 1981, producer Aaron Spelling stepped in and introduced his own ultra-glitzy entry Dynasty. Between these two mega-hits, the era of the nighttime soap was born. Soaps soon spun off into non-traditional avenues as well, in sitcoms like Filthy Rich and the supernatural drama Twin Peaks. Then, with the arrival of the more youth-oriented Fox Network, producers were able to hook an entirely new generation on programs such as Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place, and Party of Five. Pay-cable channels have also stepped into the picture and now act as trendsetters with hits like Sex and the City, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, and The L Word. Now, from the spiritually themed 7th Heaven to the naughty neighbors of ABC's Desperate Housewives, soaps dominate prime time. Prime Time Soaps covers all the major shows within the soap-opera genre, and also investigates all the ways that soaps have contributed to the development of more general television trends. Interviews with producers, actors, and other artistic collaborators also supplement this revealing and entertaining account. Even outside of their genre, these shows continue to influence current programming. Few series on TV today are purely episodic, instead containing on-going storylines involving the personal dilemmas of their characters. Another very recognizable contribution from soaps occurred on the evening of March 21, 1980, when Dallas finished out its third year with J.R. Ewing being shot by an unknown assailant, leaving fans to wait until the fall for the resolution. This was the beginning of the cliffhanger endings that are now implemented by just about every series on television. Prime Time Soaps covers all the major shows, and also investigates all the ways that soaps have contributed to the development of more general television trends. Interviews with producers, actors, and other artistic collaborators supplement this revealing and entertaining account.
Crime dramas have been a staple of the television landscape since the advent of the medium. Along with comedies and soap operas, the police procedural made an easy transition from radio to TV, and starting with Dragnet in 1952, quickly became one of the most popular genres. Crime television has proven to be a fascinating reflection of changes and developments in the culture at large. In the '50s and early '60s, the square-jawed, just-the-facts detectives of The Untouchables and The FBI put police work in the best light possible. As the '60s gave way to the '70s, however, the depictions gained more subtle shading, and The Streets of San Francisco, The Rockford Files, and Baretta offered conflicted heroes in more complex worlds. This trend has of course continued in more recent decades, with Steven Bochco's dramas seeking a new realism through frank depictions of language and sexuality on television. In chronicling these developments and illustrating how the genre has reflected our ideas of crime and crime solving through the decades, author Douglas Snauffer provides essential reading for any fan. This work provides a comprehensive history of detective and police shows on television, with, among other elements, production histories of seminal programs, and interviews with some of the most important writers and producers of crime television. Besides the shows listed above, this volume will also discuss such programs as: Peter Gunn, The Mod Squad, Hawaii Five-O, Columbo, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Magnum P.I., Miami Vice, T.J. Hooker, Remington Steele, Cagney and Lacey, Murder, She Wrote, The Commish, Homicide: Life on the Street, Monk, and many more.
'Since at Least Plato...' and Other Postmodernist Myths surveys the fields of theories of postmodernism and criticizes some of the most common claims found in them about philosophy, science, and the relationship and literary techniques to metaphysics, epistemology, and political ideologies. Devaney finds the accounts offered by these theories of concepts ranging from the law of noncontradiction to relativity and the Uncertainty Principle to be as ill-informed as they are pervasive. Devaney shows how the use to which these accounts have been put in constructing the story of the progression from realism to postmodernism to modernism flattens out both the history of ideas and the history of literature.
Science fiction, because of its links to science and technology, is the consummate literary vehicle for examining the perception and cultural impact of the modernization process in Brazil. Because of the centrality of the role played by the military dictatorship (1964-85) in imposing industrialization and economic development policies on Brazil, this book examines the genre in the periods before, during, and after the dictatorship, encompassing the years 1960-2000. The analysis shows that a reading of Brazilian science fiction based on its use of paradigms of Anglo-American science fiction and myths of Brazilian nationhood provides a unique look into Brazil's modern metamorphosis as it finds itself on the periphery of the globalized world.