By dramatizing the intersection of self-interested capitalism and foundational violence in a mining camp in 1870s South Dakota, the HBO series Deadwood reinvented the television Western. In this volume, Ina Rae Hark examines the groundbreaking series from a variety of angles: its relationship to past iterations of the genre on the small screen; its production context, both within the HBO paradigm and as part of the oeuvre of its creator and showrunner David Milch; and its thematics. Hark's comprehensive analysis also takes into account the series' trademark use of language: both its...

At a time when television offered limited opportunities for women, Donna Reed was an Oscar-winning Hollywood actress who became both producer (though largely uncredited) and star of her own television show. Distinct from the patriarchal family sitcoms of the era, "The Donna Reed Show"'s storylines focused on the mother instead of the father, and its production brought a cinematic aesthetic to television situation comedy. In "The Donna Reed Show," author Joanne Morreale illustrates how the program pushed the boundaries of the domestic sitcom at a time when the genre was evolving and also...

The highest-rated network program during its first three seasons, comedy-variety show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In (NBC, 1968-1973) remains an often overlooked and underrated innovator of American television history. Audiences of all kinds-old and young, square and hip, black and white, straight and queer-watched Laugh-In, whose campy, anti-establishment aesthetic mocked other tepid and serious popular shows. In Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, author Ken Feil presents the first scholarly investigation of the series whose suggestive catch-phrases "sock it to me," "look that...

One of the most successful series of its time, Have Gun-Will Travel became a cultural phenomenon in the late 1950s and made its star, Richard Boone, a nationwide celebrity. The series offered viewers an unusual hero in the mysterious, Shakespeare-spouting gunfighter known only as -Paladin- and garnered a loyal fan base, including a large female following. In Have Gun-Will Travel, film scholar Gaylyn Studlar draws on a remarkably wide range of episodes from the series' six seasons to show its sophisticated experimentation with many established conventions of the Western....

Airing on CBS for fourteen seasons (1979-93), Knots Landing was a spinoff of the popular drama Dallas, but ultimately ran longer and took a very different tone on domestic, social, and economic issues than its predecssor. In the first full-length scholarly study of Knots Landing, Nick Salvato situates the series in its economic and industrial contexts, addresses its surprisingly progressive relationship to the American politics of its period, offers close formal interpretations of noteworthy episodes, and unpacks the pleasures of the program's sensuous...

Airing on ABC from 1957 to 1962, " Maverick" appeared at a key moment in television Western history and provided a distinct alternative to the genre's usual moralistic lawmen in its hero, Bret Maverick. A non-violent gambler and part-time con man, Maverick's principles revolved around pleasure and not power, and he added humor, satire, and irony to the usually grim-faced Western. In this study of "Maverick, "author Dennis Broe details how the popular series mocked, altered, and undermined the characteristics of other popular Westerns, like "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza." Broe highlights the...

Although the iconic television series "Father Knows Best" (CBS 1954-55; NBC 1955-58; CBS 1958-60) has enjoyed a long history in rerun syndication and an enduring fan base, it is often remembered as cultural shorthand for 1950s-era conformism and authoritarianism. In this study of "Father Knows Best, "author Mary R. Desjardins examines the program, its popularity, and its critical position within historical, industrial, and generic contexts to challenge oversimplified assumptions about the show's use of comedy and melodrama in exploring the place of family in mid-twentieth-century American...

The Dick Van Dyke Show (CBS 1961-66) was a uniquely self-reflexive sitcom that drew on vaudevillian tropes at a time when vaudeville-based comedy variety was disappearing from television. At the same time, it reflected the liberal politics of the Kennedy era and gave equal time to home and work as it ushered in a new image of the sitcom family. In The Dick Van Dyke Show, author Joanne Morreale analyzes the series' innovative form and content that altered the terrain of the television sitcom.

Morreale begins by finding the roots of The Dick Van Dyke...

Premiering in 1993 on FOX Network, The X-Files followed the investigations of two FBI special agents, Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully as they pursued the supernatural, the bizarre, and the alien, as well as the government conspiracies at work to conceal the truth of their existence. For nine seasons, Chris Carter's series broke new ground in complex narrative television by integrating science fiction and horror with the forensic investigation of the detective genre. Shaped by the conspiracy films of the 1970s, the series had the ability to comment on the contemporary political...

Although it lasted only four seasons and just forty-four episodes, The Killing attracted considerable critical notice and sparked an equally lively debate about its distinctive style and innovative approach to the television staple of the police procedural. A product of the turn toward revisionist "quality" television in the post-broadcast era, The Killing also stands as a pioneering example of the changing gender dynamics of early twenty-first-century television. Author John Alberti looks at how the show's focus shifts the police procedural away from the idea that...