Prestige Television explores how a growing array of 21st century US programming is produced and received in ways that elevate select series above the competition in a saturated market. Contributing authors demonstrate that these shows are positioned and understood as comprising an increasingly recognizable genre characterized by familiar markers of distinction. In contrast to most accounts of elite categorizations of contemporary US television programming that center on HBO and its primary streaming rivals, these essays examine how efforts to imbue series with prestigious or elevated status now permeate the rest of the medium, including network as well as basic and undervalued premium cable channels. Case study chapters focusing on diverse series, ranging from widely recognized examples such as The Americans (2013-2018) and The Knick (2014-15) to contested examples like Queen of the South (2016-2021) and How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014), highlight how contributing authors extend conceptions of the genre beyond expected parameters.
Introduction
SETH FRIEDMAN AND AMANDA KEELER
Part I The Fringes of Prestige TV: Genre and Markers of Distinction
1 Spies Like Us: Genre Mixing, Brand Building, and Reagan’s 1980s in The Americans
DAVID R. COON
2 Disrupting the Pattern of Prestige TV: Fringe
AMANDA KEELER
3 “But Is It Star Trek?”: Prestige, Fandom, and the Return of Star Trek to Television
MURRAY LEEDER
4 Negotiating Prestige on The CW: Is Roswell, New Mexico “Another Show about Teenagers Getting F-cked Up and Having Sex” or a Sophisticated Exploration of Racial and Gender Politics?
CATHERINE MARTIN
Part II How Contemporary Programming Met Prestige TV: Unconventional Depictions of Cultural and Televisual Norms
5 Prestige Adaptation by Design: The Commercial Appeal of Latinx Tropes in Queen of the South
JAVIER RAMIREZ
6 “Tell Them We Are Gone”: Imperial Narratives, Indigenous Perspectives, and Prestige in The Terror
JUSTIN O. RAWLINS
7 Prestige Comedy: Contemporary Sitcom Narrative and Complexity in How I Met Your Mother
ANDRE W J. BOTTOMLEY
Part III Top of the Media Hierarchy: Cinematization and Television’s Elevation
8 Running The Knick Show: Transfusing Steven Soderbergh’s Authorial Persona into the Prestige Medical Series
SETH FRIEDMAN
9 Legitimating Top of the Lake: Jane Campion, the Film Fest, and the Miniseries
W. D. PHILLIPS
10 Specters of Serling: Authorship, Television History, and Inherited Prestige in The Twilight Zone (2019–2020)
JOSIE TORRES BARTH
Acknowledgments
Selected Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index
