I was not interested in the Sixties.  I was interested in the Fifties.  It’s an important distinction. — Matthew Weiner, Austin Film Festival, 26 October 2009 *Mad Men *creator Matthew Weiner had little idea of what exactly he wanted to do after graduation as he began his senior year at Wesleyan University in August 1986.  He wrote poetry in college and thought he might get into publishing or work for a magazine.

The current U.S. television season has seen the introduction of two new network sitcoms with the same basic premise: Fox’s Dads and CBS’s The Millers both revolve around retired parents who, due to a change in their own circumstances, move in with their grown-up children – a situation that results in constant intergenerational conflict.

At the end of March I was invited to take part in the University of Glasgow’s RSE funded workshop series “Shaping Scotland’s Talent: Change, Flexibility and New Pathways in the Screen Industries”. It was a fascinating event with a broad range of policy makers, broadcasters and academics giving position pieces on their experiences with fostering creative talent and open discussions about how, in particular, diversity of talent can be

‘A good bake’ As regular viewers of The Great British Bake Off will know, ‘a good bake’ is the highest praise indeed. It is a perfect pastry base: short, smooth and golden; it is a crisp, evenly-coloured biscuit; it is a cake of even crumb and airy texture. A good bake is the pinnacle of technique. It is more than structure, more than consistency.

BBC2’s Big Allotment Challenge pushes the TV challenge format to breaking point.  This six-part series pits nine contestant pairs against each other each week in three contests: growing a prize specimen; arranging a bouquet; preparing or preserving their produce.

It’s a very long time since I’ve really WANTED to write about something I saw on television, and just couldn’t wait to get started on it. In fact, I recently told my friends and colleagues on the ‘Television for Women’ project, Helen Wheatley and Helen Wood, that I didn’t feel able to contribute to the CSTonline blog, mainly because I felt that, since becoming a parent and returning to full-time work, I am managing to watch so

TV has traditionally been seen as domestic, and often as social: stereotypical images of families gathered around the television readily come to mind. While we may think such images nostalgic in an era where many households and individuals are multi-screen, even those living alone can watch in company via social media.

Ten years is not very long in the immortal life of a vampire – with or without a soul – but in the life, or afterlife, of a television series, it feels like an eternity.

There is no doubt that the 2012-2013 TV season was the year of Turkish TV series on Greek Television. This year, Turkish TV series seem to follow with mathematical precision an order of causality that leads to their gradual disappearance.

In a moment of frustration a few weeks ago I posted the following status update to Facebook: ‘Today’s teaching has felt like dealing with school children with half of my second years turning up to seminars without having done the screening or having been to the lecture.’ To be honest such moments of frustration are relatively rare for me. I love teaching and my students are inspiring individuals to be around.

Fifty years ago this weekend, BBC2 began, with a technological fiasco. Everything that could go wrong, did , from power supply to headline reading. These were the days when signals were routinely interrupted, aerials regularly required agile tweaking, and repairmen stood ready to come to your home.