I was initially thinking of calling this post “Is the Age of Quality Television Over?” or even something more ominous like “Is This The End?” but I don’t think that it is, and I’m not ready to play TV-Nostradamus just yet, in spite of whatever signs I might be seeing from the comfort of my living room.

In my first blog after the summer hiatus I was going to write about some of the television I’d been enjoying over the first half of 2013 and in particular the glorious glut of zombies that seemed to be gracing my PVR for the past few months.

Greenpeace organized an Ice Ride on September 15 2013 to rally support for protecting de-territorialized sections of the Arctic from mineral exploitation. The Torygraph has surprisingly good video coverage of the UK-based campaign, which included a vast polar bear puppet, the double-decker-sized Aurora the roarer, who lumbered through London to protest the nefarious activities of Shell and its kind. Listen here for some background.

Aside of devising plotlines engaging enough to both maintain core audiences and entice new viewers, there can be few greater challenges to a television production team than the unexpected departure of regular cast members. The need to fill the resulting character void requires both the reassurance of the familiar and the creative spark of the new, and otherwise invulnerable prime-time programmes can stand or fall as a result of the choices made.

Last week represented the culmination of over a year’s worth of organization.  The ‘*Doctor Who: *Walking in Eternity conference’ ostensibly kicked off the academic round of 50 years of Doctor Who celebrations which will culminate in an anniversary special on 23 ^rd November this year.

Scott and Bailey, The Politician’s Husband, The Fall, Top of the Lake, The Americans Over the past few months I’ve found myself engaged with television heroines once again.1 The ‘Television for Women’ conference at University of Warwick in May threw up lots of examples of women on and off the screen who might fulfill such a role and Charlotte […]

JJ: So, our edited collection Television Aesthetics and Style is being launched at the ‘ Doctor Who Walking In Eternity’ conference at the University of Hertfordshire.  This is an opportunity to reflect on what we think the book does as an intervention in the field, so can I ask you first what you think the book does well – or badly!

In Matt Hills’ 2002 book *Fan Cultures, *he theorises the relationship between fandom and academia, in particular the way academia and fandom are often imagined as being mutually exclusive with academia, the ‘good subject’, dependent upon the fan as its ‘other’ in order to affirm its subjectivity and institutional legitimisation.

D-Day: As it Happens (Channel 4) was part of the spate of programming that, as usual, accompanied the anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy on 6 ^th June, 1944.

The US comedy Girls debuted on pay-cable channel HBO in April 2012 to viewing figures of less than 1 million (rising to 4 million with Video on Demand). Its media reception however belies such modest ratings as it became subject to widespread acclaim and criticism even before it aired.

As I wind up and evaluate classes from the academic year just gone by, and start to prepare for the coming year, my thoughts turn to teaching, and in particular to teaching television. It’s always interesting in these blogs to read about other opinions, other critical ideas, other research and I guess many CST bloggers write about what most engages them.