American Science Fiction TV: Star Trek Stargate and Beyond 0819567388 (Paperback - Used)

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Science fiction TV and the American psyche. From The Next Generation and The X-Files to Farscape and Enterprise science fiction television shows have millions of devoted fans. American Science Fiction TV is the first full-length study of this popular genre. Writing with the clarity of a scholar and the enthusiasm of a fan Jan Johnson-Smith shows how science fiction television has displaced the Western in the American cultural imagination. As advances in special effects have made science fiction television technically feasible on a more lavish scale than ever before visual style has become as important as narrative--sometimes even more important--in expressing the meaning of the genre. The main part of the book uses case studies of several key science fiction series including Space: Above and Beyond StarGate SG-1 and Babylon 5 to exemplify particular narrative patterns and visual styles. The case studies explore themes such as politics ideology race and ethnicity gender difference militarism and the use of science fiction narratives as allegories of present-day social and political concerns. American Science Fiction TV opens an important new area of genre studies and will be of interest to scholars and fans alike.