Summary: Publisher Summary 1 "Shimpach's canny book shows how these uncertain times reveal a cultural and corporate desire-in on-screen heroies and industrial antics alike-to `save' television... even as it transforms before our very eyes." John Hartley, author of Television Truths (Wiley-Blackwell) "With trenchant insight and far-reaching interpretation, Shawn Shimpach confronts transformations in the media landscape that are dramatically changing the fundamental experience of TV today. Most impressively, he demonstrates richly productive ways to combine industry analysis with close reading of individual programs in order to account for continuities and breaks in what television now means in our everyday life. This is destined to be a major work in television studies." Dana Polan, Cinema Studies, New York University, author of The Sopranos and Julia Child's the French Chef "Shimpach has written a smart and savvy book that connects the new industrial configurations of American television to the texts it produces. He examines aesthetics, narrative, and genre while accounting for the ideological workings of gender and incorporating an international perspective." Roberta Pearson, University of Nottingham "Shimpach eloquently describes the impact of new global business forces in the TV industry through an insightful examination of four different kinds of heroes. His analysis reveals new ways to think about what stories TV can tell about heroism in the 2000s." Sharon Ross, Columbia College Chicago From a few national broadcasters to hundreds of digital channels and from a box in the living room to screens of every Size, everywhere, television looks and feels very different now. Today television programming must "translate" to different nations, cultures, broadcast systems; different formats, distribution outlets, and screen sizes, while simultaneously attracting and sustaining audience interest over the time it takes to travel through these spaces. Blending institutional and textual analyses, Television in Transition examines the return to action narratives with individual (super) heroes intended to navigate this new, international, multi-channel universe. Case studies of Highlander: The Series, Smallville, 24, and Doctor Who call up new questions of political, economic and cultural citizenship, crossing borders, splitting affinities, and pushing boundaries through reinterpretations of long-time televisual represenatational themes (white masculinity, heroism, nation, genre, etc.) within this era of transformation and perceived industry crisis. Television in Transition examines the narrative and institutional paradigms of textual afterlife to offer a highly original explanation of how innovation takes place within the television industry's management of predictability, risk, and familirity.   Publisher Summary 2 Combining an exciting methodology alongside high-interest case studies,聽Television in Transition聽offers students of television a guide to a medium that has weathered the challenges of first-run syndication, a multi-channel universe, netlets, major media conglomerates, deregulation, and globalization--all in the space of twenty years. Examines a return in television programming to action narratives with individual (super) heroes intended to navigate this new, international, multi-channel universeExplores how television programming "translates" to new spatial geographies: different nations, cultures, broadcast systems; and different formats, distribution outlets, and screen sizesLooks at the value of a program's "afterlife," the continued circulation, repackaging and repurposing of programming beyond its initial iterationBlends institutional and textual analyses in case studies聽of聽Highlander: The Series, Smallville, 24,and Doctor Who