This collection of essays examines landmark British television programs of the last forty years, from Doctor Who to The Office, and from The Demon Headmaster to Queer As Folk. Contributions from prominent academics focus on the full range of popular genres, from sitcoms to science fiction, gothic horror and children's drama, and reconsider how British television drama can be analyzed. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in many academic disciplines that study television drama.

A collection of essays that examine landmark popular television drama from the last forty years, from 'Doctor Who' to 'The Office'. Contributors focus on programmes across the range of popular genres, from sitcoms to science fiction, gothic horror and children's drama

Breaking onto the scene in 1982 with Diner, which was hailed by one critic as a masterpiece of observation, Academy Award-winner Barry Levinson has since become recognized as one of the preeminent writer/directors of our time. Diner was set in Levinson's native Baltimore, during the late 1950s of his youth, and is, as Pauline Kael wrote in the New Yorker, "that rare autobiographical movie made by someone who knows how to get the texture right."...With Tin Men Levinson returned to richly detailed middle class milieu of Baltimore and introduced another group of characters -- the "tin men" who make their living hard-selling aluminum siding to unsuspecting homeowners...In Avalon Levinson continues his cycle of Baltimore stories.

In 2011, Showtime premiered Shameless, a comedy-drama about the audacious behaviors of the Gallaghers, a white, working-class family living in Chicago’s South Side. In 2020, the series headed into the production of its eleventh and final season, making it the longest-running original scripted program in Showtime’s history. Shameless explores topics such as poverty, alcoholism, teen pregnancy, and mental illness. The series has been credited with “reinventing working-class TV” and for humanizing groups that are typically “othered” or simply laughed at. However, others have critiqued the show for relying on and promoting stereotypes, and for the cavalier ways in which it portrays controversial social issues like rape and abortion. Shameless Sociology: Critical Perspectives on a Popular Television Series offers a critical eye toward topics such as gentrification, pregnancy and abortion, racial and gender inequality, and homophobia, and illustrates the ways in which Shameless sometimes confronts and topples stereotypes, yet, at other times, serves to reinforce and perpetuate them. Given the broad appeal of the show and the diverse topics it covers, this book will appeal to the general public, as well as researchers of media, culture, and social inequalities, and undergraduate and graduate students at institutions of higher education.