The HBO Effect (Paperback)

This book turns the HBO story inside out and productively repositions what we think we know about the premium pay-TV company within a broader historical and institutional history of US culture and television. -- Janet McCabe,Lecturer in Film, Television and Creative Industries, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
The HBO Effect is not the first book on HBO, but 'it's not TV' criticism in any ordinary sense. It's water cooler study criticism that will have scholars of the medium and serious viewers buzzing about this well written, engaging, funny, and constantly surprising investigation. Dean J. DeFino succeeds brilliantly in establishing his central contention: that HBO 'is itself a by-product of [the] long history [of television], not some aberration.' -- David Lavery, Professor of English, Middle Tennessee State University, USA, and editor of The Essential Sopranos Reader
Summarized. * LitRant *
In The HBO Effect, DeFino (Iona College) demonstrates that HBO is fully embedded within a long history of "quality television" storytelling and uses its positions to take risks and walk the line between complexity and popularity. The book notes HBO so-called showrunners created "quality television" for networks long before working with HBO. Although the book can be applauded for its attention to early stand-up comedy and "sex-docs" like Cathouse, which others often ignore, DeFino's focus on character studies and comparative analysis (for example, a lengthy comparison of The West Wing and The Sopranos) does not provide much in terms of cable history that cannot be found elsewhere thoughtful television criticism, but the book could have been strengthened by engaging more thoroughly with scholarship that tackles issues of narrative complexity and industry studies. Less-experiences readers will likely enjoy the book, but specialists will leave wanting more."-Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates; general readers.-- -- S. Pepper * CHOICE *