Investigating the leading drama genres of different television eras in both Britain and the US, this book traces the evolution of television drama from the 'high culture' aspirations and technical limitations of its early days to the intense commercial competition that informs the creation of television drama today.
'Two decades ago the idea of a world television culture seemed unlikely; the medium's range, influence, and genres were largely local and national. The appearance of a book like Television Drama: Form, Agency, Innovation by Trisha Dunleavy, a preeminent scholar of the small screen in her native New Zealand, stands as an index of a new global unity in its examination of seminal British and American programming. In a careful, discerning, erudite but accessible study of drama in a variety of forms, Dunleavy does more than just bridge boundaries and splice key series and shows; she brings the television she knows so well to life on the page, transforming TV texts into words and ideas, giving us a book as smart and multi-faceted as the contemporary medium itself.' - David Lavery, Co-Founding Editor of Critical Studies in Television: Scholarly Studies for Small Screen Fictions