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Reviewed by:
  • The Essential HBO Reader
  • Elana Levine
The Essential HBO Reader. Edited by Gary R. Edgerton and Jeffrey P. Jones. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. 2008.

The study of television has been complicated by the changing climate of the media industries and of American culture, as the fragmentation of audiences, the development of new delivery systems, and the dynamics of social and political life affect the economic, technological, and cultural place of television. The Essential HBO Reader situates the advertiser-free format and boundary-pushing content of premium cable network HBO at the center of such shifts.

Keeping HBO's role as a business in sight, editors Gary R. Edgerton and Jeffrey P. Jones structure their analysis of HBO around its programming, which they break down into four categories: drama, comedy, sports, and documentaries, with contributors offering detailed analyses of specific programs within each. Following Edgerton's introduction (a general industrial history of the network), each section begins with an overview chapter highlighting a more specific history and pertinent issues for the genre at hand. A final section offers reflections on the network as a whole, one chapter considering representations of women and the other dissecting the network's key legacies, satisfyingly concluding this comprehensive work of television criticism.

Because Edgerton and Jones offer such a thorough treatment of HBO's programming, their volume is a useful addition to a growing number of books about American television in the "post-network" era. It also offers some strong examples of critical reflection on television texts. Chapters such as David Thorburn's critique of The Sopranos and Thomas Schatz's analysis of Band of Brothers isolate specific textual features to make insightful points not only about those programs, but also about their place within the HBO pantheon and within film and TV storytelling more generally. Also useful are those chapters that take on older, or less well-known, examples, such as Tanner '88 or HBO's erotic documentaries. The individual chapters make their most significant contributions when they place HBO's output in industrial or cultural context, as does Christopher Anderson's sharp analysis of how HBO programming has achieved the status of art.

Alongside such highlights are some missteps, as may be inevitable in a collection of this size. The collection's chief weakness becomes clear during Toby Miller and Linda J. Kim's overview of HBO Sports. This chapter is welcome, in that it is one of the only entries to critically examine the political economy of HBO, even if it is not as well [End Page 246] supported by evidence as it might be. Its challenging tone brings into sharp relief the other chapters' near-uniform praise for HBO, and their general lack of attention to how the network's economic model may shape or constrain its output in less than desirable ways. The book's celebratory perspective is unnecessary, at best, and troubling, at worst, given the already effusive praise heaped upon the network by journalistic critics, the TV industry, and HBO's own promotions. While the products of the post-network era may break free of some of the limitations of advertiser-supported broadcast television, television scholars need not abandon a more critical stance in our enthusiasm for the greater diversity of programming now before us.

Elana Levine
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
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