Overview

Torchwood started its life on television as a spin-off from Doctor Who, bringing Captain Jack to join new colleagues in a television series that quickly established itself as fresh and watchable television. It's fourth series, subtitled 'Miracle Day', continued its move from the niche channel of BBC3 to metamorphose into an international production between the BBC and the US network Starz. Torchwood has continued to entertain, provoke and attract large audiences and an expanding fandom. This is the first critical celebration of Torchwood across it four series, considering issues of representation, the fandom that surrounds the show and its complex, institutional contexts. Focusing in particular on how the meanings and understandings of cult television have shifted and become subject to technological, industry and marketing changes in recent years, Torchwood Declassified explores topics including the show's aesthetics and branding, its use of tropes from the horror genre, vast tie-in merchandise, status as a spin off, the nature of a celebrity that is both cult and mainstream, as well as the use of sound and music and of cult writers, and Torchwood's connection to place and location. The book will appeal to fans of the series, researchers and scholars, and anyone interested in ongoing questions over what cult television is, what it means, and why it continues to be of importance.

Full Product Details

Author:   Rebecca Williams (University of South Wales, Wales)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   I.B. Tauris
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 1.40cm , Length: 13.80cm
Weight:   1.560kg
ISBN:  

9781780761787

ISBN 10:   1780761783
Pages:   256
Publication Date:   17 September 2013
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Contents Rebecca Williams -Torchwood: Bridging the mainstream/cult rift. Section 1: Media institutions, branding & multi-platforming Access Denied: Intertextual Barricades and Public Service Broadcasting in Torchwood - Ross P. Garner 'Cool But High Quality': Torchwood, BBC America and Transatlantic Branding, 1998-2011 - Gareth James Cult Yet? The 'Miracle' of Internationalization - Benjamin W. L. Derhy From Spin-off to Tie-in: Torchwood's Transmedia Storytelling in 'Old' Media - Matt Hills Section 2: Torchwood, aesthetics and televisuality 5. Lost boys and the fantasy of Empire Torchwood - Children of Earth - Karen Lury 6. Crisis of Authority / Authoring Crisis: Decision and Power in Torchwood: Children of Earth - Martin Griffin & Rosanne Welch 7. Walking Corpses, Regenerating Dead, and Alien Bodies: Monstrous Embodiment in Torchwood - Stacey Abbott Section 3: Torchwood, place and location 8. 'When you see Cardiff on film, it looks like LA' (John Barrowman): Space, Genre and Realism in Torchwood' - Stephen Lacey 9. 'Tonight's the Night with...Captain Jack? John Barrowman: Celebrity/subcultural celebrity/localebrity - Rebecca Williams Section 4: Torchwood's reception and audiences 10. Love Captain Jack or Hate Him: How Torchwood Has Polarized the Doctor Who Fandom - Lindsay Bryde 11. Quaint Little Categories: Gender and Sexuality in Torchwood and its Importance to the Fandom - Jeannette Vermeulen 12. The Shape-shifter: Fluid Sexuality as Part of Torchwood's Changing Generic Matrix and 'Cult' Status - Craig Haslop Select Bibliography List of Television Series & Films Index

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Author Information

Rebecca Williams is Lecturer in Communication, Cultural and Media Studies at the University of Glamorgan. She has written widely on contemporary cult television and published in journals including Critical Studies in Television, Popular Communication, Continuum, Television and New Media, and Media History.

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