Spectacular Television

In terms of visual impact, television has long been regarded as inferior to cinema. It has been characterised as sound-led, dull to look at and consumed by a distracted audience. Today, it is tempting to see the rise of HD and 3D as ushering in a new era of spectacular television. Yet since its earliest days, the medium has embraced spectacular content. Television has been positioned as a spectacular 'attraction' from the outset. In its early days, it was introduced to audiences in public; today, programmes are viewed on large HD screens at home accompanied by surround sound and special effects. In the 1950s and 1960s, the BBC beamed exotic colonial territories into British homes; more recently, documentaries such as The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and Frozen Planet emphasise visual and aural pleasure as central to their mandate of public service. Countering the industry's intense focus on new technologies, Helen Wheatly charts the development of spectacular television across its history. Looking at lifestyle and makeover shows, costume dramas, televised sport, travel shows and ambitious natural history series, Helen Wheatley answers the questions: what is televisual pleasure, and how has television defined its own brand of spectacular aesthetics? At a time when the distinctions between television and cinema seem to be collapsing, this book fundamentally reconsiders what television is, putting questions of visual pleasure at the heart of its analysis.