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Investigating Heroes

Essays on Truth, Justice and Quality TV

David Simmons editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:McFarland & Co Inc

Published:12th Dec '11

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Investigating Heroes cover

Premiering in September of 2006, the weekly NBC television series Heroes was an immediate commercial and critical hit, lasting four successful seasons. Heroes follows a group of interrelated characters who discover they have superhuman powers, with each successive episode exploring how these people react to and utilize their powers for good or for evil. This collection of essays explores a variety of issues surrounding Heroes, examining the series' content, marketing and reception. Also investigated is the show's fusion of "cult" and mainstream elements of television, analyzing its ability to combine so-called lowbrow elements (comic books and superheroes) with a high-quality television form prizing such factors as moral ambiguity and depth of characterization--and what this blending process suggests about the current hybrid state of genre television, and about the medium as a whole.

“David Simmons’ excellent collection of essays on the whole series takes all of it seriously, from inception to termination, and in it a variety of first-rank television scholars shed new light on all aspects of Heroes’ meteoric rise and fall.”—David Lavery, co-author of Saving the World: A Guide to Heroes; “David Simmons’ insightful anthology unlocks the mysteries behind the success and failure of this show by considering its place within the changing nature of television. Engaging, authoritative and rigorously researched, this book is a must-read for both the popular culture scholar and fan.”—Stacey Abbott, author of Celluloid Vampires and editor of The Cult TV Book.

ISBN: 9780786459360

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 10mm

Weight: 254g

187 pages