Television Aesthetics and Style ed. by Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock (review)

Television Aesthetics and Style Eds. Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. 352 pages. $32.95, Paperback.Together, editors Jason Jacobs, an Associate Professor of Film and Television at University of Queensland, Australia, and Steven Peacock, reader in Film and Television Aesthetics at University of Hertfordshire, present volume of essays which convincingly argues that discipline of Television Studies would benefit from discussion of style and aesthetics. As they note, academic work on remains, for most part, entrenched in theoretical frameworks (2). Building on work of Jeremy Butler's Television Style (Routledge, 2010) and Gibbs and Pye's Close-Up series, Jacobs and Peacock maintain that studies must address role of and style in production, reception, and distribution of programs; they note that television is as capable as film of creating expressive richness in moments that at once fleeting, demonstrative and dramatically declamatory, climatic, or seemingly inconsequential (6). While their position is not without controversy, this volume of essays by American and international scholars demonstrates importance of style, aesthetics, and textual analysis in evaluating as cultural and of art.Jacobs and Peacock seek to elicit debate and dialogue between essays and in reader: the collection, they note, forms an invitation to talk and think about and style both more widely and more closely (11). They organize book in four parts: conceptual debates, and style of comedy, critical analyses of drama, and non-fiction and history. This division allows readers to peruse those areas that most pertinent to their interests and scholarship; it also reflects commitment to rethinking how studies has been organized in past. Moreover, book's structure both acknowledges need for theoretical debates about how can be incorporated into discipline and illustrates how those theories can be applied to analyses of key genres within production such as dramas and comedies.The first section on conceptual debates brings together essays from key scholars like Sarah Cardwell, Jason Mittell, Brett Mills, and Deborah L. Jarmillo. Cardwell's essay in many ways sets tone for book, as she outlines various positions in support of and opposition to idea of focusing on in study of television. She champions idea of television aesthetics despite views of some scholars whom she deems skeptical because they fear that aspects of reactionary, harkening back to old methods and values that have no place in study of popular, mass medium (25). For Cardwell, expands focus of discipline and offers challenging and provocative new avenues of study that incorporate study of with philosophy, thus allowing for new interpretative models to develop and enriching existing modes of analysis. Mittell's essay offers theoretical model to consider as he looks at series The Wire and Breaking Bad, which, he notes, are currently atop my shifting personal list of best all-time television, (47). In commending complex narrative strategies employed by these two series, Mittell acknowledges role his own personal taste plays to argue that must account for individual tastes of critics, scholars, and regular viewers. He points out that The Wire relies on 'zero degree style' and Breaking Bad is built around a maximum degree style through kinetic visuals, bold sounds, and unpredictable storytelling form (49). …