Pandora’s Box

A binge-worthy book * Economist *
Thoroughly entertaining… Pandora’s Box is essential viewing -- Rebecca Nicholson * Guardian *
Biskind is the perfect person to chronicle how we got here … The writers and showrunners are compelling figures, and Biskind’s story is larded with stories of their triumphs, creative crises, neuroses and episodes of appalling behaviour * Financial Times *
Pandora’s Box explains, in punchy, propulsive prose, how we went from Tony Soprano to Ted Lasso … Biskind is skilled at the quick character sketch … [and] lays out a sprawling, amoral ecosystem with the dispassion of an omniscient narrator * New Yorker *
Peter Biskind's Pandora's Box is not only a richly detailed and colorful account of how TV has defiantly superseded the cinema in the last thirty years, but also an important historic document. Biskind brilliantly maneuvers his way through a panoply of cinematic and television endeavor with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. A gripping and compulsive read -- Brian Cox
Peter Biskind has always been the most rigorous and amusing Hollywood historian we have, taking on the great men of the past--and now with his trademark cheeky intelligence he takes on the giants of the present age of television-as-cinema. Despite my having lived much of the book's arc, Biskind offers a fresh perspective on the new Wild West of home entertainment -- Lena Dunham
This brisk, blistering overview of how streaming has changed where we put our eyeballs is classic binge-worthy reading. I had no idea the people who created culture-altering shows are as entertaining as the shows themselves, but Peter Biskind did, and you'll never look at them same way again -- Steven Soderbergh
Peter Biskind takes on a wild, whirlwind tour of the birth, life, death, and rebirth of cable and streaming services, introducing us to the people behind them who turn out to be as ferociously nutty as the characters they put on the screen -- David Nasaw, author of The Last Million: Europe’s Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War
Peter Biskind catalogs real-life misbehavior by the principals responsible for an array of lauded series with the same unsparing eye that he detailed the excesses of New Hollywood in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls -- Fall 2023 Must-Reads * Entertainment Weekly *
This gossip-filled overview of the past 40 years of television will keep readers glued to their seats * Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW *
Biskind is known as much for his outspoken opinions as his insightful commentary, and Pandora’s Box is Biskind at his most candid. For readers interested in what goes on behind the scenes in the world of television, a must-read * Booklist *
- - Praise for Peter Biskind -- -
Who else can explicate the hidden politics of movies and make you laugh out loud at the same time? -- Barbara Ehrenreich on The Sky is Falling
Insanely readable -- Slavoj Žižek on The Sky is Falling
You'll never look at your favourite movies and TV shows the same way again. And you shouldn't -- Steven Soderbergh on The Sky is Falling
Thoughtful, entertaining and occasionally profound * Spectator on The Sky is Falling *
Spot on * Irish Times on The Sky is Falling *
Dishy, teeming, superbly reported...packed with lively inside anecdotes...[a] juicy and fascinating exposé * Entertainment Weekly on Down and Dirty Pictures *
Sensationally entertaining * Los Angeles Times on Down and Dirty Pictures *
Peter Biskind's great, scathing, news-packed history...is one hell of an elixir-salty with flavorsome gossip, sour with the aftertaste of misspent careers, intoxicating with one revelation after another...an A * Entertainment Weekly on Easy Riders, Raging Bulls *
Biskind's devourable book is that rarity, a Hollywood exposé that you can read mouth agape, slurping up scandal and titillation so fast you're in danger of choking-without feeling ashamed of yourself * Washington Post Book World on Easy Riders, Raging Bulls *
Biskind is a magician at prying revealing yarns and juicy quotes out of his subjects. And the resulting scenarios are deliciously tawdry...moments of real intelligence and grace * San Francisco Chronicle on Easy Riders, Raging Bulls *