Rating: Summary: ITS THE TELEVISION BIBLE, PLAIN AND SIMPLE Review: There are a lot of different movie and film guides out there, but for television there is only one you will ever need and it is this one. i cannot recall when I bought my first copy, back in the late 1980's I think. In the office I worked in for over 10 years in the 1990's my co-worker had one that he kept in his desk, always ready to settle and argument with or come up with the answer to a trivia question no one could remember about a TV show.
Laid out in alphabetical order, you'll get when each show premiered and ended, casts, description of the show, and quite often little-know tidbits of information that you never knew before. I mean..where else can you find information about "Captain Nice?"
Add to that expanded coverage of cable television shows, top rated shows by season, programming grids by year, emmy Award Winners, Trivia questions, websites...and you truly have an indispensible guide to television. Only problem is that in a few more years your going to need a truck to take this massive book home in. Wonderful book!
Rating: Summary: one thing i would like to be added Review: this book is great for tv buffs it brought back alot of memories from my past and present. there is only one thing that could make this book better and what i would like to see added is a list of each episode by name or at least something stating how many episodes were made for each show listed like for example "kolchak:the night stalker" (20 episodes),other than that the book is a bible of the tv and cable world.oh yeah also what would make it better is if a new edition was put out each year instead of the wide gap in years between editions so this way it is more up to date and accurate of the current times.
Rating: Summary: An Uneven And Decidedly Opinionated Book About TV Review: This book sort of considers itself the "industry standard" at giving you the facts about television shows. And, in many ways, it does give you a sense of many of the programs listed here, more than six thousand, as the cover states. However, it frequently doesn't know whether it wants to give you the gossipy dish on a program or to clearheadedly state the facts of a show, and it frequently misses the historical records or the most important points about and surrounding the listings.For example, in the case of television's most celebrated flop, "My Mother The Car," they flatly state the plot of the program, but nothing about how outrageous the concept was or any of the commentary about it. Meanwhile, just over the page, they talk of how many people found the critical darling, "My So-Called Life" whiny and melodramatic! Either a tome like this should treat all shows with no editorial opinion included, or they should dish the dirt on all programs. It makes the authors seem like rank amateurs to try to be both critics and paladins of television facts. One final note: They always state, with each ensuing version of this book (currently at the Eighth Edition), that the text is "completely revised and updated." This is a lie. The reviews and comments on every show reviewed in a previous edition is exactly the same as it was when it first appeared. Some of these are embarrassingly outdated, like the comments they made about the landmark miniseries, "Roots." This book is helpful to people who are aware of the programs firsthand and won't be swayed by the author's biases. However, with internet resources available, this book and many others like it may soon be as dead as many of the shows it purportedly reviews.
Rating: Summary: Great Book Review: This is a truly great book for any television fan.
It basically covers every telivision show and sitcom since the creation of the TV. It does however have it's errors. It has missed characters, and episodes, as well as missing shows.
Granted it does have 95% of the shows you are looking for, it doesn't cover cartoons as much as it should. It does have Nickelodeon and Disney cartoons. It covers mostly NBC, ABC and CBS television shows, but very few cartoons. It neglects the saturday morning cartoons that you would expect to see in this book. The cartoons from the 70's 80's and 90's.
There are books for that, but you would expect this book to have them in it. There are over 6000 shows in this book, so it does have plenty in it. And I know you will find shows that you have forgotten about. I know I did.
|