Cult TV: The Essential Critical Guide by Jon E. Lewis
My rating: ****
Jon E. Lewis, Cult TV: The Essential Critical Guide, Pavilion Books, 1994.
I noticed a few months ago that Google appears to have acquired Goodreads, a social networking and book cataloguing site to which I subscribe. At least that is my explanation for why Goodreads reviews are now listed on the relevant book pages on Google books. Given this higher degree of internet exposure, I decided that my reviews needed tidying up and updating. Most of my Goodreads reviews are already included on this blog, but a few of the more lightweight reviews (not books!) are not. Time to remedy that absence…
Jon E. Lewis’ book on Cult TV is a really useful and nicely put together reference book for TV fans. It is composed of encyclopedia style entries accompanied by black and white photos on a whole host of cult TV series from the birth of television in the 1950s to the time of publication in 1994. It covers a range of genres: science fiction, crime, westerns, children’s programmes, melodrama, adventure and comedy.
I have spent many a happy evening browsing the entries, discovering new series and gathering information on ones already seen. This book was written in the days when fandom really was a specialised subculture before it was quasi mainstreamed by the internet and as such displays the friendly approach that goes along with addressing a relatively small group.
Refracted Input 