Compare Breaking Bad and Cracker.

This essay is a comparative study of an American and a UK television program. Remakes of the program are not eligible. If you are not sure about your topic e-mail me.

You should watch at least one episode of each program. Describe it for your reader. Do not only summarize the narrative. Pay attention to camera work, editing, sound and other aspects of the program including: changes in the TV industry, production (including budget), genre or form of television, relation between television and society, including critical examination of the ideas underlying the show.

Include academic publications on your shows (or the type of show). Newspaper and magazine articles, and Wikipedia entries may also be used and included in your list of sources.

The Library at Trent in Durham has DVD sets (see course outline for a full list)
Coronation Street (UK) and The Goldbergs (USA)
Foyle’s War (UK) and Band of Brothers (USA)
Shameless (UK) and Treme (USA)

SAMPLE TOPICS

Compare Breaking Bad and Cracker. (Breaking Bad is on Netflix; Cracker is available on DVD at Trent in Durham Library. Be sure to view the UK original production of Cracker.)
READING:
Angela Restive, Breaking bad and cinematic television. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. Trent Library e-book.
Glen Creeper (2002) Old Sleuth or New Man? Investigations into rape, murder and masculinity in Cracker (1993-1996), Continuum, 16:2, 169-183. Trent e-journal.

Compare Julia Child The French Chef and any UK cooking program by Gordon Ramsay. (Julia Child is available online and on DVD at Trent in Durham Library. Be sure to choose a UK television program by Gordon Ramsay.)
READING:
Dana Poland, Julia Child’s The French Chef. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. Trent Library e-book.
Raymond Boyle, The celebrity entrepreneur on television, Celebrity Studies Vol.1 (2010). Trent Library e-journal.

Compare Top Gear and any American or Canadian home-improvement show
READING:
Frances Bonner, Top Gear: Why does the world’s most popular programmed not deserve scrutiny? Critical Studies in Television 5/1 (Trent Library e-journal)
Brett Mills, Invisible television: the programmers no-one talks about even though lots of people watch them, Critical Studies in Television 5/1 (Trent Library e-journal)
Jean Bruce, Home Improvement Television, Canadian Journal of Communication (2009). Trent Library e-journal.
Amy West, Dream Home (Land) Anxious Fantasies of Settlement in Home Improvement Television (academic paper available online)

Compare an episode of Shameless (UK) with an episode of Trireme (HBO) box sets available at Trent library behind check-out desk. (Both programs deal with issues of systemic inequality.)
READING:
David Morley, Mediated classifications: Representations of class and culture in contemporary British television, European Journal of Cultural Studies 2009 12: 487 (Trent library e-journal)
Glen Creeper ‘The truth is out there! Not!’:Shameless and the moral structures of contemporary social realism, New Review of Film and Television Studies, 2009. (Trent library e-journal)
Television and New Media (2012) – Special issue on Theme (Trent library e-journal)
Dean J. Define, The HBO Effect (2014).

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