The Revolution Was Televised: How The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Lost, and Other Groundbreaking Dramas Changed TV Forever

by Alan Sepinwall

Overview

A phenomenal account, newly updated, of how twelve innovative television dramas transformed the medium and the culture at large, featuring Sepinwall’s take on the finales of Mad Men and Breaking Bad.

In The Revolution Was Televised, celebrated TV critic Alan Sepinwall chronicles the remarkable transformation of the small screen over the past fifteen years. Focusing on twelve innovative television dramas that changed the medium and the culture at large forever, including The Sopranos, Oz, The Wire, Deadwood, The Shield, Lost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 24, Battlestar Galactica, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad, Sepinwall weaves his trademark incisive criticism with highly entertaining reporting about the real-life characters and conflicts behind the scenes.

Drawing on interviews with writers David Chase, David Simon, David Milch, Joel Surnow and Howard Gordon, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and Vince Gilligan, among others, along with the network executives responsible for green-lighting these groundbreaking shows, The Revolution Was Televised is the story of a new golden age in TV, one that’s as rich with drama and thrills as the very shows themselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476739670
Publisher:	Gallery Books
Publication date:	05/21/2013
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	388
Sales rank:	515,608
Product dimensions:	5.64(w) x 8.24(h) x 0.96(d)

About the Author

Alan Sepinwall has been writing about television for close to twenty years. Formerly a TV critic for the Newark Star-Ledger (Tony Soprano's hometown paper), he currently writes the popular blog What’s Alan Watching? on HitFix.com. Sepinwall's episode-by-episode approach to reviewing his favorite TV shows, "changed the nature of television criticism," according to Slate, which called him, "the acknowledged king of the form." Visit AlanSepinwall.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Prologue: Let's be careful out there … The shows that paved the way 7

Chapter 1 What we were don't matter … Oz blazes a trail 19

Chapter 2 All due respect … The Sopranos changes everything 32

Chapter 3 All the pieces matter … The Wire as the Great American Novel for television 69

Chapter 4 A lie agreed upon … The profane poetry of Deadwood 96

Chapter 5 I'm a different kind of cop … The Shield takes anti-heroism to the limit 130

Chapter 6 Do you want to know a secret? … The perfect storm of Lost 154

Chapter 7 She saved the world. A lot … Buffy the Vampire Slayer gives teen angst some fangs 191

Chapter 8 Tell me where the bomb is! … 24 goes to war on terror, boredom 218

Chapter 9 So say we all … The thinking man's sci-fi of Battlestar Galactica 243

Chapter 10 Clear eyes, full hearts … Friday Night Lights goes deep 272

Chapter 11 It's a time machine … AMC gets into the game with Mad Men 301

Chapter 12 I am the one who knocks! … Breaking Bad gives the recession the villain it deserves 336

Epilogue: Don't stop believing … The lasting legacy of the revolution 373

Where are they now? 381

Acknowledgments 387