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Part of Praeger's
Media and Society Series, this volume breaks new ground in television studies as the first booklength study of an individual television producer. Robert J. Thompson examines the work of Stephen J. Cannell, one of television's most prolific and successful producers. Thompson uses theories of film authorship revised for application to television texts and provides close analysis of Cannell's programs, including individual episodes of
The Rockford Files,
The A-Team, and
The Greatest American Hero.
Moving away from the notion that a television series is the creation of an individual author, the book begins with a look at the televisionmaker. Thompson probes the polyauthorial nature of the medium and introduces a new method of studying television authorship. The book then turns to Cannell and a study of his career, focusing on how he developed the formula for his many highly rated television series. Students and teachers of television and television criticism will find Adventures on Prime Time a source of stimulating ideas about the nature of the medium.
List of contents
Introduction
The Television Auteur
A Television Auteur
Adventures about Prime Time
Cannell's Adventures at Universal: An Apprentice in a Sausage Factory
Autobiographical Adventures: The Early Days of Stephen J. Cannell Productions
Beyond Autobiography: Manufacturing Television
The Further Adventures of Stephen Cannell
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the author
ROBERT J. THOMPSON is an Associate Professor at the State University of New York at Cortland, the Director of the Radio-TV-Film N.H.S.I summer program at Northwestern University, and an occasional visiting Professor at Cornell University. In addition to the present volume, he is the co-editor of two anthologies of essays entitled Television Studies: Textual Analysis (Praeger) and Making Television: Authorship and the Production Process (Praeger).
