This is detail history of television from its inception through 2017. Thorough as you can get. It is loaded with interviews with the major innovators like Ken Burns, Stephen Bocho, Vince Gilligan, David E. Kelley, Carl Reiner and the list goes on and on. Fun trivia facts about ratings and firsts for controversial subjects pepper this researched to death book. The analysis and impact from “All in the Family” to “Breaking Bad” is astounding. ( )

David Bianculli’s latest book, The Platinum Age of Television, provides a comprehensive history of how TV has evolved from its previous “golden age” to what he considers is now its “platinum age.” He tells this evolutionary story by choosing specific genres and then describing how a few shows contributed to the positive progress in this genre while telling about other key shows of the period.
What makes the book special are the in-depth interviews with many of the people who created the best TV shows, starting with people like Mel Brooks and Carol Burnett. The interviews are remarkably personal with stories about how TV influenced them as kids. As a result, there seem to be lots of stories about sugar consumption on Saturday mornings. The interviews also reveal the remarkable cross-fertilization between shows.
Another special aspect of the book is the discussion of the final episodes of many of our favorite series. Because he is not writing immediately after the series ended, Bianculli is free to explain the wider impacts of how the creators chose to end their series as well as the thinking that went into the final episodes themselves.
In one of his previous books, Teleliteracy, Bianculli argues that knowing TV shows is essential to be considered culturally literate in today’s world. He argues that more people can name the four bothers from Bonanza than can name the four Brothers Karamazov. For those people, like myself, who have not seen a lot of TV in the past few years, the book is a way to improve their cultural literacy.
Finally, people that are familiar with him from NPR’s Fresh Air or from his TV columns, will be happy to know that David Bianculli’s love of bad puns is not been tamed. This makes for an entertaining read interrupted occasionally with some head-slapping after a few really bad puns. ( )

This is a great overall view of how modern television came to be. All shows and their creators are organized by category and there is a nice diversity of shows that the author covers, with both in depth reviews and smaller segments.

Free review copy. ( )