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How I Love Lucy Invented the Modern Sitcom

I Love Lucy changed television production forever. Desi Arnaz insisted the show be filmed in Hollywood with three cameras on 35mm film before a live a...

The Golden Age of Live Anthology Drama

In the 1950s live anthology drama flourished: teleplays by Rod Serling, Paddy Chayefsky, and Reginald Rose, directed by John Frankenheimer and Sidney ...

The Miniseries Boom: Roots to Band of Brothers

The miniseries format peaked from 1977 to 1995. Roots drew the largest audiences in tv history, Shogun and The Winds of War followed, and British impo...

British Sitcoms and Their Global Influence

British sitcoms travel on strangeness and structure. Monty Python rewired sketch comedy and colonized American campuses. Fawlty Towers set the twelve ...

From Hill Street to The Sopranos: Prestige TV

Hill Street Blues serialized the cop drama in 1981. Twin Peaks brought surreal authorship to prime time in 1990. Oz proved HBO could do hour drama in ...

How Syndication Built the Classic TV Business

The classic tv business ran on reruns. A series that reached roughly 100 episodes could be stripped: aired five nights a week in syndication and sold ...