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Want to understand today's television? Then binge this book. A more richly rewarding analysis of how neoliberal capitalism intersects with serial TV does not exist. Nor does a more thorough examination of every important step in the development of the medium's dramatic and comedic forms.-- (11/30/2018) Broe's book is scholarship that matters: he diagnoses our addictive era of 'binge TV' while highlighting possibilities for resistance. Connecting multiple aspects of the current television industry-from its pumped-up levels of sex and violence to its influence on neural and relational patterns-to the rise of the neoliberal state, Broe dismantles the illusion that television's 'post-network era' offers new freedom to the consumer. The genius of this book comes in its dizzying sweeps from one medium to another: he convinces us that serial narrative is one of the dominant narrative forms in Western mass culture, charts its aesthetic and industrial complexity, and celebrates television auteurs like Joss Whedon, J.J. Abrams, and Jane Campion, whose progressive serial narratives provide us with 'a more social and more coherent representation of an ever more perilous reality.'-- (11/30/2018) Dennis Broe's Birth of the Binge is a groundbreaking nuanced corrective to one-dimensional portrayals of contemporary serial television as a new golden age of popular culture. He situates the advent of digital TV--especially its addictive character--in relation to problematic changes in American political, economic and social life. Grounded in critical theory and extensive research, the book's original analysis of the production and subtext of leading serial programs will be of interest to both communication scholars and the television-viewing public.-- (11/30/2018)

Broe's book is an important beginning for an analysis of binge watching as part of the new pattern of work and leisure.--Frederick Wasser International Journal of Communication (02/06/2020) Broe's book is scholarship that matters: he diagnoses our addictive era of 'binge TV' while highlighting possibilities for resistance. Connecting multiple aspects of the current television industry-from its pumped-up levels of sex and violence to its influence on neural and relational patterns-to the rise of the neoliberal state, Broe dismantles the illusion that television's 'post-network era' offers new freedom to the consumer. The genius of this book comes in its dizzying sweeps from one medium to another: he convinces us that serial narrative is one of the dominant narrative forms in Western mass culture, charts its aesthetic and industrial complexity, and celebrates television auteurs like Joss Whedon, J.J. Abrams, and Jane Campion, whose progressive serial narratives provide us with 'a more social and more coherent representation of an ever more perilous reality.'-- (11/30/2018) Want to understand today's television? Then binge this book. A more richly rewarding analysis of how neoliberal capitalism intersects with serial TV does not exist. Nor does a more thorough examination of every important step in the development of the medium's dramatic and comedic forms.-- (11/30/2018) Dennis Broe's Birth of the Binge is a groundbreaking nuanced corrective to one-dimensional portrayals of contemporary serial television as a new golden age of popular culture. He situates the advent of digital TV--especially its addictive character--in relation to problematic changes in American political, economic and social life. Grounded in critical theory and extensive research, the book's original analysis of the production and subtext of leading serial programs will be of interest to both communication scholars and the television-viewing public.-- (11/30/2018)

Author Information

Dennis Broe has taught at the Sorbonne and is the author of Maverick, Class, Crime and International Film Noir, and Film Noir, American Workers, and Postwar Hollywood. His television series TV on TV is broadcast from Paris on Art District TV.

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