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
