So it’s getting down to the wire, and you don’t know what gift to get your couch potato? Think those hand-held TVs are impractical? Can’t quite swing for a flat-screen TV, a DVD player, or some other newfangled electronic device? Well, why not buy your spud-butt a book? Yes, a book. Are they a die-hard fan of Barney Fife (Don Knotts) from The Andy Griffith Show? Wild about Three’s Company? An honorary member of the Halliwell coven in Charmed? Believe it or not, there’s a fan book for nearly every show that cracked the top 100 in the Nielsen ratings. Contemporary shows are usually the easiest to find, but a search through your favorite online bookstore may turn up some unexpected surprises.
Deciding which one is better — an official “companion to …” or an unofficial one — is a matter of taste. Official versions are often sanctioned by the series’ production company and creators and reveal exactly what they want viewers to know. The unofficial ones can run the gamut from rehashings of old episodes (which can be helpful) to dishy tomes that spend as much time speculating on off-camera dramas as they do on the featured series.
Here is a rundown of some TV books I think are “must-haves.”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher’s Guide (Pocket Books, $16, paper) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher’s Guide Volume 2 (Pocket Books, $17.95, paper). Yes, I’m a 41-year-old fan of Buffy and Angel. Both these volumes offer character profiles, actor profiles, off-camera goings-on, and interviews with cast and production staff. Especially useful are the season outlines (volume one covers the first two seasons, while volume two goes into seasons three and the pivotal fourth season). This is especially helpful to someone like me, who came to the Buffy-verse late, but I think even a series-long fan would enjoy the books. The mythology of Buffy (and Angel) is dense, and these books are great road maps. Related books include The Essential Angel, The Monster Book, and The Sunnydale High Yearbook. I may add the Angel and Monster book to my library, but even I have to draw the line at the yearbook, which is too juvenile for my taste. Get the calendar instead.
The Sopranos: A Family History (Signet, $40, hard). Written by Allen Rucker, who wrote the TV documentary Family Values: The Mob and the Movies and co-authored The History of White People in America with Martin Mull, this Sopranos book curiously (and with great skill) manages to maintain the fiction of the series. Unlike the Buffy books, which deal with Buffy as fiction, the Sopranos book carefully pieces together the Sopranos‘ back story with “interviews” with friends, relatives, and unnamed FBI agents doing surveillance on the Sopranos family. A Q&A interview with series creator David Chase makes for a smooth transition to the “real world” profiles of the actors in the series.
The Pocket Essential series. Though this series of “chapbooks” (each about $5) mostly concerns itself with film and filmmakers, there are some exceptions. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, David Lynch (covering his forays into TV), and The Simpsons are three of the TV-related books in the series.
The Open Media Pamphlet Series. This fabulous series is for the more serious media watcher. These pamphlets offer concise, well-written, introductory information on a variety of media issues. Series titles include Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy (Seven Stories Press, $5.95, paper), It’s the Media, Stupid (Seven Stories Press, $10, paper), and The Progressive Guide to Alternative Media and Activism (Seven Stories Press, $10, paper), to name a few.
Teleliteracy: Taking Television Seriously (Syracuse University Press, $19.95, paper). This near-ecstatic defense of television by David Bianculli is the polar opposite of anti-television diatribes, like Jerry Mander’s Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. Bianculli’s “Teleliteracy Test” is both amusing and troubling — depending on the importance of knowing classic poetry as well as TV theme-song lyrics. Two sample questions from the book: “Provide the next line from the following … “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree …” and “Come listen to a story / ’bout a man named Jed …” Published by Syracuse University as part of their television series.
TV Creators, Conversations With America’s Top Producers of Television Drama (Syracuse University Press, $45, hard). Another book from Syracuse University Press’ television series. Includes interviews with Dick Wolf, David Chase, Nancy Miller, Brenda Hampton, and others.
Iron Chef Alert!
The Food Network promises an Iron Chef Marathon on New Year’s Day, featuring the “best of” episodes, according to an online poll. If you never thought you could get into a cooking show, believe me — Iron Chef is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It’s the only place on TV that brings together the cheesy pomp and flash of smackdown wrestling with foodie sensibilities. It’s the ultimate food fight. The marathon starts at 11pm in Austin. Check local listings.
More Simpsons Chatter
This thoughtful e-mail comes from Seth Nesen:
“You know what? I’m a Simpsons fan, too, and a Seinfeld fan, and I loved the old Fox 7 schedule as much as everyone else did, but aren’t you pulling a ‘Felicity’ here? I mean, c’mon, if you’re really a fan of the ‘happy hour,’ why not tape it? You get paid to watch TV and comment on it — surely you’re no stranger to our household friend of 20-plus years, the VCR. How about this — if you’re still not convinced, I’ll buy you a video tape and set up your friggin’ VCR for you, all right? But really, stop standing up for a show’s time slot and start standing up for the show. You’ll find that if you tape the shows at 6pm, you can watch them at 10pm where you used to, conveniently missing 3rd Rock, and finish up in time for M*A*S*H …”
While Mr. Nesen’s advice is soberingly sensible, and I’m so very tempted to take him up on his offer to set up my VCR, I think he misses the point of the grousing. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that he misses the difference between a modern TV viewing sensibility and what I would call the “console” viewing sensibility. In the latter, a viewer, consciously or unconsciously, finds as much pleasure in watching a program — same time, same channel — as they do in the program itself. It’s the same reason some of us get all giddy when we take in an afternoon movie matinee during the work week. The experience is heightened because it’s a stolen moment, a moment we should be devoting to some sensible part of our lives. Because we’re procrastinating or just downright tired of the weekly grind, we take time out of the pre-fab work week to take in a movie, or, in this case, that adult cartoon hour composed of The Simpsons and Seinfeld. Taping the show and watching it when you want — or worse, when you really have the time (yeah, right) — deflates the pleasure.
I think the new TV technology that allows the tapeless recording, storing, and programming of many hours of TV will better facilitate Mr. Nesen’s suggestion. Besides, isn’t the VCR becoming the 8-track tape of television viewing? So, if Mr. Nesen, or anyone else, wants to drop a TIVO or some interactive television viewing device in my holiday stocking, come on by!
As always, stay tuned.
This article appears in December 22 • 2000.