College grad Clare Devoux is tired of playing third wheel and rotting in a dead-end job. Bright and imaginative as a kid—complete with an imaginary friend named Melinda—she's clueless and disconnected as an adult. She just wants to matter to someone in real life. But then the not-so-imaginary Melinda reappears with an offer of a better existence. A world where Clare matters.Now she has to decide to either play it safe or follow the inscrutable Melinda to an unknown place filled wit...

One touch was all it took to change everything.Seventeen-year-old Veronica Simon has the ability to see—thoughts, memories, and even secrets—when she touches people. She hides this power from everyone, even herself, but most of all, the cult-like Faith Fellowship Congregation her dad drags her to every Sunday. Everything changes when she sees a disturbing vision of her estranged mom as she accidentally touches a Faith Fellow. Between that and her father's uncharacteristic behavior,...

Seventeen-year-old Veronica Simon has the ability to see—thoughts, memories, and even secrets—when she touches people. And one touch changed everything.Veronica thinks she's found the answers she's been seeking, but the cost is higher than anticipated. Alienated from her new friends, especially Chris, a dad who's changed once again, and even more questions about what happened to her mom, Veronica tries to navigate a world that feels more upside-down than usual.The more she ...

A light take on the darkly comic show The Good Place and its lasting impact on American television culture."Pobody's nerfect" - or whatever the saying might be! As humans we are constantly worried about how our actions may come back to haunt us. The Good Place (2016–2020) is a high-concept American sitcom that brought light to the dark topic of the afterlife, and the show tackled this worry head-on. Although it had a life span of only four seasons...

Appropriately for protagonist—a time traveler—there is perhaps no series of any genre that spans as much actual time as Doctor Who. From its debut the day after the Kennedy assassination, through the rise and subsequent break-up of The Beatles, Thatcher’s long reign as prime minister, the Falklands War, the moon landing, and the Tiananmen Square uprising, the classic version of the series persisted. It is odd to think of a television series being around for more historical events than I ha...

Charts the evolution of musicals on television from song-based showsto the notorious musical episodeThe musical genre has a fraught history on US television, remembered too frequently for spectacular failures than stellar performances. While the first written-for-TV musical aired in 1944, prime-time musical performances on US television were often airings of Broadway shows, made-for-tv adaptations, and occasionally original pieces or the popular variety shows of th...

A fun and engaging overview of the popular television series Community as the show fulfills its own prophecy of concluding with six seasons and a movie.Sitcoms are unique to television. In many respects, they define US television from I Love Lucy to Superstore. Given sitcom's longevity and adaptability, the only surprise is that it took until 2009 for someone to create a series that both skewers and honors the sitcom genre: Community

Following its meteoric rise, the Emmy award-winning series Schitt’s Creek (2015-2020) has become a cultural force with its catchphrases and meme-able moments. In Class, Identity, and Finding the Right Wine in Schitt’s Creek: A Place To Love, contributors focus on three central themes explored in the series: love, place, and identity. While considering the intersections of these themes, chapters analyze the representation of class, sexuality, community, self-growth, fashio...

The idea of metatextuality is frequently framed as a recent television development and often paired with the idea that it represents genre exhaustion. US television, however, with its early “live” performances and set-bound sitcoms, always suggested an element of self-awareness that easily shaded into metatextuality even in its earliest days. Meta Television thus traces the general history of US television’s metatextuality throughout television’s history, arguing that TV’s self-aw...

Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, the Amazon Prime series, Good Omens, quickly gained a cult following after debuting in May of 2019. Contained in this story of looming Armageddon are explorations of grief, friendship, good and evil, the Bible, Milton, God and what it means to be human. This book provides thirteen essays that center on various aspects of the show, including theology, fan culture, female gaze, textual elements and more. Also examining Gaiman's ...

A captivating exploration of the television phenomenon that is Supernatural**, with insights into characters, plots, and the show’s impact on pop culture.**When Supernatural first aired on the CW in 2005, it was dismissed by many for being “pretty guys fighting demons.” Yet Supernatural persisted for 15 seasons to become the anchor of the network’s line-up and the longest running genre series in US television history....

This book analyzes Jewish tropes in popular science fiction ranging from Star Trek and Marvel to other prominent franchises. Sometimes the representation is subtle and thought-provoking; other times, it is limited to cliché and oversimplification of characters. The chapters in this collection examine the representation of Jewish characters in films and franchises including Superman, Lord of the Rings, The Mandalorian, The Twilight Zone, and more to shed light on the broad range of represen...