Author: CSTonline

Ten years ago, I published a Television A-Z (Miller, 2002). A cute conceit, I thought, and one likely to attract attention. It didn’t. Complete failure. Hopeless joke, Toby. I tried revised versions a couple of times (Miller,...

So Mad Men is coming to these shores next week? I should be glad, of course I should. The return of one of the best shows to come out of America since The Sopranos should be celebrated. In New York, the fifth season has...

BBC4 is featuring interviews at the moment, examining this most basic taken-for-granted of TV. They’re doing the inevitable extracts series; rescreening samples from the archives; putting up classics on their website; getting...

Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries Research Seminars 2011/12 5-6pm, Wednesday 14 March Zen Room, The ATRiuM, 86-88 Adam Street, Cardiff CF24 2FN Dr Lez Cooke (Royal Holloway University of London) – The...

Dateline: the “What is Television?” event in Portland, Oregon. This marvelous conference is under the benign and brilliant direction of Janet Wasko, a trusted leader in the field. On this opening morning, I’m sitting between Dan...

With business seemingly everywhere on television, from the risks of the retail and restaurant trade to pitching for investment or competing to become the next ‘apprentice’, The Television Entrepreneurs draws upon...

So My Big, Fat, Gypsy Wedding is under attack for being racist? This week’s outcry over Channel 4’s advertising campaign smacks of a certain hypocrisy and no small amount of double-dealing in my eyes. Accused of stereotyping...

I first saw Melancholia (von Trier, 2011) on my TV during the day while home alone. A few weeks later I saw it again at the cinema with friends.  It’s a film about two sisters Justine (Kirsten Dunst) a chronic depressive, and...

Remember when ITV’s new flagship current affairs programme Exposure (26 September 2011, 22.35) was itself exposed for using videogame footage, claiming it showed IRA members trying to shoot down a British army helicopter in...

http://www.fox.com/alcatraz/ takes you to Alcatraz, a new series that began on Gringo TV last month. Fox says this about the show: From executive producer J.J. Abrams (FRINGE, “Lost,” “Star Trek,” and the recent blockbuster...

January 2009. “I am a believer in evolution not revolution.” “Things are changing and its really important that we make sure that as they change, they change for the better and Dr. Horrible was just a little...

Passion and passion in its profoundest, is not a thing demanding a palatial stage whereon to play its part. Down among the groundlings, among the beggars and rakers of the garbage, profound passion is enacted. And the...

Recent CST blogs have taken up the ‘end of TV theme’, arguing that timeshift viewing, video-on-demand and box-set bingeing is the end of broadcast TV. It’s more complicated than that, surely. Consider these bits of argument: 1....

I’ve left Mexico and moved back to my beloved, benighted, lonesome home of LA. Improbably, in balmy temperatures, there are skaters on the Pershing Square rink that I look down on from my loft. It’s some distance from Coyoacán...

Steven Peacock’s recent observation that many academic analyses of television too often become ‘systematic, determined to “solve” the text’s engagement with a specific subject’  is a timely reminder that our evaluation of ...

I had never been a particular fan of Dennis Potter, but this was different. The film noir atmosphere, the unreliable narrator, ambiguous events and characters, the explicit play with the genres of fiction, both popular and...

What to make of Boardwalk Empire? HBO’s costume drama set in the USA during Prohibition reminds me of one of those fascinating objects that often crop up on Antiques Roadshow. One can admire from afar the detailed textures and...