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During its five-year run from 1997 to 2002, the popular TV show Ally McBeal engaged viewers in debates over what it means to be a woman or a man in the modern workplace; how romance factors into the therapeutic understanding of relationships; what value eccentricity has and how much oddity society should tolerate; and what utility fantasy has in the pragmatic world. In addition to these social concerns, however, Ally McBeal stood out for being well-constructed, narratively complex, and stylistically rich—in short, beautiful TV.

Starting from the premise that much of television today is "drop-dead gorgeous" and that TV should be studied for its formal qualities as well as its social impact, Greg M. Smith analyzes Ally McBeal in terms of its aesthetic principles and narrative construction. He explores how Ally's innovative use of music, special effects, fantasy sequences, voiceovers, and flashbacks structures a distinctive fictional universe, while it also opens up new possibilities for televisual expression. Smith also discusses the complex narrative strategies that Ally's creator David E. Kelley used to develop a long-running storyline and shows how these serial narrative practices can help us understand a wide range of prime-time TV serials.

By taking seriously the art and argument of Ally McBeal, Beautiful TV conclusively demonstrates that aesthetic and narrative analysis is an indispensable key for unlocking the richness of contemporary television.

Recounts the early development of TV science fiction as it shaped how American audiences looked at television in an increasingly mediated world.

Long before Star Trek became synonymous with televised science fiction, a generation of space operas and anthology programs laid the groundwork for the genre’s cultural legitimacy. With Before Trek, J. P. Telotte reexamines the formative decades of science fiction television, the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, when both the medium and genre were defining themselves. At a moment when science fiction was often dismissed as juvenile escapism, early programs such as Captain Video, Space Patrol, Tales of Tomorrow, and Science Fiction Theatre worked to reshape audience and industry expectations, establishing the genre as a vehicle for serious storytelling.

Tracing the evolution of the genre through The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and ultimately Star Trek, Telotte reveals how television and science fiction developed in tandem, each helping to articulate the technological anxieties of the postwar era. These programs offered viewers new ways of seeing: approaches to social critique, political tension, and cultural change that conventional broadcasting often could not accommodate. By situating early televised science fiction within broader debates about media, modernity, and what Guy Debord termed the “Society of the Spectacle,” Telotte reclaims a largely overlooked body of work and demonstrates its foundational role in shaping both contemporary television and the imaginative vocabulary of modern culture.

Examining Netflix’s global influence through its complex global-local dynamics in Korean media.

Korea is a global entertainment powerhouse, thanks in no small part to Netflix. Analyzing the artistry and industry behind Netflix-produced Korean hits like Squid Game, The Glory, and Narco-Saints, Benjamin Han argues that Korea is ground zero for an emerging “Netflix Paradigm.” The US-based streaming platform generates massive profits by erasing boundaries of foreign and domestic production, even as it underscores the resilience of the national media within global popular culture.

Beyond Squid Game breaks down the intricate and often ambivalent relationship between Netflix and the Korean media business, drawing on interviews with creative workers navigating the streaming giant’s ever-increasing economic and cultural power. Challenging narratives that present Netflix as a revolutionary disruptor, Han shows how the company has replicated abroad the precarious labor conditions and tensions over intellectual property from which US studios have long benefited. At the same time, Beyond Squid Game underscores the complex dynamics of a globalized media industry in which cultural imperialism thrives on localization and perceived authenticity.

Black and Blue TV explores the ways television productions have responded to the Black Lives Matter movement. Television programs’ engagement with BLM was common before George Floyd’s murder sparked international protests in the summer of 2020, at which point it became nearly unavoidable for many series. Images of police using violence against Black Americans fueled criticisms of the role of television—especially cop shows—in perpetuating “copaganda,” highlighting the fact that television’s cops are nearly always the good guys, even when they break the law and use excessive force. Black and Blue TV identifies trends and anomalies in television’s engagement with BLM but also investigates the people who influence what those representations look like. Pairing textual criticism with interviews with television creatives, executives, and media activists, author Laurena Bernabo traces shifts in how these individuals understand their role in televisual culture and the cultural forum of narratives that are produced and distributed as a result.