Adventures on Prime Time : The Television Programs of Stephen J. Cannell (Media and Society Series)
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Thompson usefully surveys the anomalies of TV auteurism, establishing its characteristic `recombinance' and the `hyphenate' (writer-producer). Happily Stephen Cannell's Hardcastle provides a definition for auteurism: `Criminals commit the same crime over and over again' (p.118). But as he is less a critical analyst than a journalist, Thompson's goal is misdirected: `to juxtapose biographical information about Cannell with the texts he wrote and produced and to examine the fit.' Thompson diminishes Cannell's works by centripetally reading them as `autobiography' instead of exploring wider themes. For example, in The Greatest American Hero the magical suit (with lost directions) more interestingly alludes to runaway technology (nuclear or otherwise) than it represents the lack of clear rules for successful TV writing. With unsettling imprecision Thompson uses `autobiography' for `TV career,' `hubris' for `authorial vanity,' and `Trojan horses' for `disguise.' Thompson's `autobiographical' parallels do not establish Cannell as working in `metatelevision' as Moonlighting did. Variations on formulas do not make the Cannell canon `a history of his career in television,' nor does his casting of a stock company foreground `the artificiality of the presentation'--not for Cannell, not for Ingmar Bergman, not for John Ford. Nonetheless, Thompson does prove that this writer-producer has stamped a distinctive tone as well as recurrent concerns and strategies on his wide range of TV series. One suspects that Cannell's art would sustain more ambitious explication than Thompson undertakes.”–
Book Description
This volume breaks new ground in television studies as the first booklength study of an individual televisionmaker. Thompson examines the work of Stephen J. Cannell, one of television's most prolific and successful producers. Thompson uses theories of film authorship, revised to take into account the polyauthorial nature of the medium, for application to television texts and provides close analysis of Cannell's programs including individual episodes of The Rockford Files, The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero and Hunter.
Adventures on Prime Time : The Television Programs of Stephen J. Cannell (Media and Society Series)
Adventures on Prime Time : The Television Programs of Stephen J. Cannell (Media and Society Series),Robert J. Thompson,Praeger Publishers,027593330X,Cannell, Stephen J,Cannell, Stephen J.,Communication,Criticism and interpretation,Language Arts & Disciplines,Pop Arts / Pop Culture,Production and direction,Reference,Television,Television - General,Television Plays And Programs,Television programs,United States,Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication
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