Summer Reading For Television Fans

Television has often been seen as a bastard child of some sort, a medium not to be taken seriously compared to more literate forms of storytelling. It has been called everything from "a vast wasteland" to the "boob tube," and is even cited as evidence of civilization's downfall. Go into any Barnes & Noble and you will no doubt find a book entitled Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television; the mere existence of such a tome speaks volumes on how the medium is perceived by so-called "intellectuals."

Which is a shame, because television has never been more intelligent than it is today. Even the academic community is taking notice, with university's offering courses on specific series. There are at least two web sites, "Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies" and "The Society for the Study of Lost" dedicated to the serious analysis of their respective shows. A slew of books on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ranging from the philosophical to the spiritual, have been published, making for an impressive "Buffy studies library." The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica, Desperate Housewives, 24, The West Wing and even Farscape have also been the wellsprings of academic dissertations.

Since summer is the time of year in between television seasons, as well as the time to lie on the beach and catch up on your reading, here then is a list of some of the better essays that are likewise also available at your nearby Barnes & Noble:

— Gilmore Girls was a perennial critical darling because of its rapid-paced, pop-culture filled dialogue, and Heather Swain captures the spirit of this series in her own rapid-paced, pop-culture filled essay, "Whimsy Goes With Everything" (from Coffee At Luke's). She throws in everything from Mario Battali to Hugh Jackman to Bernard Goetz to Taxi Driver, and that's just in the first paragraph, as she confesses the desire to move from New York City to Stars Hollow in order to be with the man she has fallen in love with: Kirk. And with lines like, "He's good looking in a Cary Grant meets Foghorn Leghorn's nemesis the baby chicken hawk sort of way," it's a must read for any fan of this wise-cracking, whimsical series.

— Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas writes in the introduction to Lani Diane Rich's essay "Welcome to Camp Noir" (from Neptune Noir) that the piece was difficult for him to read because he detests "camp" and always went for the "thought-provoking" when it came to his recently cancelled series. Rich, a self-confessed television junkie, sees nothing wrong with "camp," however, and admits to having never understood Veronica Mars until she read a description of the show as "camp noir." Her essay focuses on a belief that Thomas molded and blended those two adjectives on television in the same ways Quentin Tarantino has on the big screen, and even dissects the various characters in terms of how far into each category they fall.

— If there ever was a television series that was perfect for a collection of essays exploring its various elements, it would have to be Lost. With so many plot-lines, unresolved mysteries, philosophical innuendos and baggage-heavy characters, volumes could be written about the show, even if it is only half-way through its six-year run. The best, however, has nothing to do with any of the above; instead, Glenn Yeffeth writes a highly-amusing, thoroughly entertaining treatise entitled, "The Art of Leadership" (from Getting Lost). Starting with the basic premise that most of the current crop of "leadership" books on the market are forgettable, Yeffeth argues that we could learn a lot about leadership by instead studying the actions of Jack Shephard. But as soon as he begins to analyze the good doctor, he realizes Jack is not a very good leader at all. He moves on to Locke and Sawyer, only to reach the same conclusions, causing him to eventually settle upon Hurley as the true leader of the castaways.

— Erin Dailey likewise finds a way to be highly amusing in regards to another complex television show, Alias, in her essay, "A Spy in the House of Love" (from Alias Assumed: Sex, Lies and SD-6). A guide on how to find love if you're an international female spy, she offers up such advise as "distract him with sex, "act dumb" and "brainwash him while he sleeps." Alias tended to become more convoluted as its seasons went along, and Dailey touches upon this with such lines as "when the man you're working for is the kind of guy who sleeps with your own mother in order to create a half-sister whose sole job in life is to destroy you, you might want to think twice before telling him about your hot new fiance" under the advice heading of "Your boss is not your friend."

— Considering how many collections of essays on Buffy the Vampire Slayer exist, it's difficult not mention at least one of them. And although there are plenty of excellent compositions out there, "The Search for Spike's Balls" (from Seven Seasons of Buffy) by Sherrilyn Kenyon truly stands out. In this short but concise piece, Kenyon points out how the stronger and more forceful Buffy Summers was in any given episode or season, the weaker the male characters inevitably became. Although this process began at the very beginning with her relationship with Angel, it became most noticeable, the author argues, when Spike realized his love for Buffy and evolved into a mere shadow of the bad-assed vampire that viewers had grown to love.

So there you have it, some great reading material to help tide any television fan over until the fall. That's not to say the above is all there is, or that it represents the "best of the best," or even that BenBella Books, with its "Pop Smart" series, is the only publisher; I.B. Tauris, for instance, offers its own excellent collection of essay volumes under its "Reading Contemporary Television" banner. And although the above mentioned works lean more to the humorous and entertaining side of life, there are also many intellectual and thought-provoking essays out there as well.

But this is summer, a time for relaxing, and "humorous and entertaining" fits right in with the season. Who wants to lie on some beach, after all, thinking about that damn smoke monster from Lost, when you can read about Hurley and his secret stash of ranch dressing instead. Right?

E-mail Anthony Letizia at anthonyletizia at hotmail dot com.