‘Brings Back Some Memories’: Textual and metatextual experiences of nostalgia in Twin Peaks: The Return
“When you see me again, it won’t be me,” the entity called The Arm warns in the second season finale of Twin Peaks, the cult 1990s TV series co-created […]
“Be Curious, Not Judgemental.” Influences of Positivity and Kindness in Ted Lasso
In the summer of 2020, Ted Lasso, a sitcom centred around a former NBC soccer promoter, was released to both critical and commercial success and appeared to channel a […]
Quantum Leap: Jukebox Nostalgia and the Flattening of History
In the opening scene of the Quantum Leap episode “Animal Frat” (2×12), Dr. Sam Beckett ‘leaps’ into the body of Knut “Wild Thing” Wileton, arriving in his body on top […]
The Mandalorian: The Latest Space Western Series in a New Era of American Television
From the outset, Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian (2019) pays homage to a duality of histories: the American Western genre and the rich tapestry of the Star Wars franchise. Set […]
Mirroring the Medium: Depictions of Female Domesticity in ‘WandaVision’
WandaVision (2021) is, at its core, a story of grief and nostalgia. In its genre-bending magnificence, WandaVision narrates the evolution of American sit-coms, hurtling us forward through the second half […]
“The Only Way Forward Is Back” – Nostalgia, Grief and Television in WandaVision
WandaVision, one of the newest installments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), abandoned the cinema altogether to bring two of the Avengers, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) […]
Eliminating “Blood and Thunder” from Containment Culture: Audience Efforts to Censor Postwar Radio Programming in the Run-Up to Television
The decade after WWII (1945-1955) was distinct and pivotal in the formation of American media policy, and in establishing postwar social norms.[1] The major broadcast networks (NBC, CBS, and ABC) […]
When Mariah met Lutie – Luke Cage, The Street and the cultural capital of TV comic adaptation
Content Warning: Graphic Images (violence, severed heads) Netflix released the first series of Luke Cage in September 2016 to immediate acclaim. Cheo Hodari Coker, the producer of the Marvel comic […]
Watchmen and Hunters: Reading Nostalgia, Repair, and Heroism in American Historical Fiction
Watchmen (2019 and Hunters (2020) are both TV shows that engage with a deep sense of nostalgia and reparation: whether it is their counterfactual worldmaking with an ‘American […]
U.S. Television, Nostalgia and Identity – Editorial
The ubiquity of television has been written about extensively in both scholarship and popular writing; ever since the first commercial sets began replacing the hearth as the centrepiece of any […]