Remotely: Travels in the Binge of TV

The city is under lockdown, a time of plague and anxiety. David Thomson and his wife, Lucy Gray, explore the evolving world of streaming media and its impact on society in their book "Entertainment: A History of the American Screen." They argue that television is not just a collection of shows but a weather system in which we are lost pilgrims searching for answers.

Format: Hardback
Length: 280 pages
Publication date: 23 January 2024
Publisher: Yale University Press

The city at night, under lockdown, a time of plague and anxiety. It is an exciting new age of television, the light that flickers in every cell in the city. But no one seems to be asking: What is the endless stream doing to us?

In a remote corner, the most innovative writer on film and screens ponders what happened to us as we sought solace under lockdown by becoming a society of binge-watching creatures. From Candid Camera and I Love Lucy to Ozark, Succession, and Chernobyl, David Thomson and his wife, Lucy Gray, wander through shows old and new, trying to pin down the nature and justification for what we call "entertainment." Funny, mysterious, and warm, at last, here is a book that grasps the extent to which television is not just a collection of particular shows—hits and misses—but a weather system in which we are lost pilgrims searching for answers.

Television is not just a collection of particular shows; it is a weather system in which we are lost pilgrims searching for answers. David Thomson and his wife, Lucy Gray, wander through shows old and new, trying to pin down the nature and justification for what we call "entertainment." Funny, mysterious, and warm, at last, here is a book that grasps the extent to which television is not just a collection of particular shows—hits and misses—but a weather system in which we are lost pilgrims searching for answers.

Weight: 522g
Dimension: 166 x 242 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780300261004