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The Outer Limits (Paperback)
Loot Price: R483
Discovery Miles 4 830
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The Outer Limits (Paperback)
Series: TV Milestones
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Loot Price R483
Discovery Miles 4 830
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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Provides a history and criticism of an important disrupting force
in early science-fiction television programming. Joanne Morreale
highlights the differences of The Outer Limits (ABC 1963-65) from
typical programs on the air in the 1960s. Morreale argues that the
show provides insight into changes in the television industry as
writers turned to genre fiction-in this case, a hybrid of science
fiction and horror-to provide veiled social commentary. The show
illustrates the tension between networks who wanted mainstream
entertainment and the independent writer-producers, Leslie Stevens
and Joseph Stefano, who wanted to use the medium to challenge
viewers. In five chapters, The Outer Limits makes a case for the
show's deployment of gothic melodrama and science fiction tropes,
unique televisual characteristics, and creative adaptation of any
cultural sources to interrogate the relationship between humans and
technology in a way that continues to influence contemporary debate
in such shows as Star Trek, The X-Files, and Black Mirror.
Underlying the arguments is the eerie notion of The Outer Limits as
a disruptive force on television at the time, purposely making
audiences uncomfortable. For example, in its iconic opening credit
sequence a disembodied "Control Voice" claims to be taking over the
television as images mimic signal interference. Other themes convey
Cold War paranoia, ambivalence about the Kennedy era "New
Frontier," and anxiety about the burgeoning
military-industrial-governmental complex. The book points out that
The Outer Limits presaged what came to be known as "quality"
television. While most episodes followed the lowbrow tradition of
televised science fiction by adapting previously published stories
and films, the series elevated the genre by rearticulating it
through themes and images drawn from myth, literature, and the art
film. The Outer Limits is lucid yet accessible, well researched and
argued, with enlightening discussions of specific episodes even as
it gives attention to broader television history and theory. It
will be of special interest to scholars and students of television
and media studies, as well as fans of science fiction.
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