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331 reviews for:
Freaks, Gleeks, and Dawson's Creek: How Seven Teen Shows Transformed Television
Thea Glassman
3.88 AVERAGE
331 reviews for:
Freaks, Gleeks, and Dawson's Creek: How Seven Teen Shows Transformed Television
Thea Glassman
3.88 AVERAGE
Fun but I really disliked the writing. It felt like a transcript of spoken interviews that could have used a lot more smoothing.
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
How much time needs to pass before revisiting the shows of my high school years?
Even as a bookish kid, avoidant of WB television, these high school dramas landed their way to my impressionable teenage brain. Dawson Creek’s steady rowboat. The indie rock needledrops of the O.C. The indelible opening of “Freaks and Geeks” with Joan Jett’s steady aggressive drive. Even if you weren’t watching - you can be sure in the 90s monolith of pre-internet culture millions of others were.
Like the turbulent strom and stressful years of adolescence, the teenage dramas reviewed were short-lived but highly impactful. Far from the Happy Days sitcoms, showrunners and writers were moving toward more truthful storytelling. Real experiences of adolescence were mirrored such as parental neglect (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), sexual tensions and revelations (My-So Called Life) and ambition and character (Friday Night Lights).
Off-camera is just as exciting. Punch-ups to scripts. Chemistry between actors. Directors and executives conflicting over artistic integrity and ratings. And oh yeah - it shows up on the screen. We see the craft of building a show around Will Smith’s charisma with actors and writing to build a structure for a deeply impactful show. We see the wildly ambitious musically talented actors of Glee come together to build story, dance, and cultural moments that defined their coming of age show.
Partly an analysis and partly an experience of rediscovering youthful joy, this iadmirably written book by Thea Glassman highlights the importance of sharing stories of young people. It mirrors the culture of the 90s, and for the nostalgia seeking millennials, a reminder that youth culture changes but good storytelling is timeless.
Even as a bookish kid, avoidant of WB television, these high school dramas landed their way to my impressionable teenage brain. Dawson Creek’s steady rowboat. The indie rock needledrops of the O.C. The indelible opening of “Freaks and Geeks” with Joan Jett’s steady aggressive drive. Even if you weren’t watching - you can be sure in the 90s monolith of pre-internet culture millions of others were.
Like the turbulent strom and stressful years of adolescence, the teenage dramas reviewed were short-lived but highly impactful. Far from the Happy Days sitcoms, showrunners and writers were moving toward more truthful storytelling. Real experiences of adolescence were mirrored such as parental neglect (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), sexual tensions and revelations (My-So Called Life) and ambition and character (Friday Night Lights).
Off-camera is just as exciting. Punch-ups to scripts. Chemistry between actors. Directors and executives conflicting over artistic integrity and ratings. And oh yeah - it shows up on the screen. We see the craft of building a show around Will Smith’s charisma with actors and writing to build a structure for a deeply impactful show. We see the wildly ambitious musically talented actors of Glee come together to build story, dance, and cultural moments that defined their coming of age show.
Partly an analysis and partly an experience of rediscovering youthful joy, this iadmirably written book by Thea Glassman highlights the importance of sharing stories of young people. It mirrors the culture of the 90s, and for the nostalgia seeking millennials, a reminder that youth culture changes but good storytelling is timeless.
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
3.5// Cool to learn more about the shows I knew/watched/loved. Skipped the section of one show that I had never seen episodes of (still counting it as read though bc I do what I want). It was dense info, but the narrator at 1.55 speed made it better.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
There is probably a nostalgia-boost to review score. I am exactly the right age for 5 of the 7 shows.
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I have to confess, Glee is the only one of the seven shows Thea Glassman features in Freaks, Gleeks and Dawson’s Creek that I actually watched contemporaneously on television. Most of these programs debuted while I was in my twenties when I was busy with young children and teenage drama’s weren’t on my radar, so I didn’t discover My So-Called Life, Dawson’s Creek , Freaks and Geeks, The O.C., or Friday Night Lights until I had teenagers myself. Despite being well past the age of these programmes target audience, Dawson’s Creek (Team Pacey BTW) and Friday Night Lights were two that joined my binge list, a rota of comfort shows that I usually re-watch once every year or two.
I perhaps didn’t read the description for Freaks, Gleeks and Dawson’s Creek as closely as I should have. I was somehow expecting this to be an analysis of the cultural and social impact of the shows Glassman highlights, but its focus is more narrow (though exactly as the book’s tag line indicates), concentrating on how the seven drama’s affected the evolution of television programming aimed at teenage audiences, as well as ‘behind the scenes’ details of the shows and cast.
Unless you grew up in an era where there was rarely more than one TV in a household, it seems incredible that teen audiences were largely ignored by studios until the late eighties/early nineties. Previously programming was either aimed at children, adults, or a combination of the two, and that left teens with little choice but to watch family friendly viewing with their younger siblings, or whatever their parents wanted to watch after dinner. Beverly Hills 90210 (a glaring omission), which premiered in 1990 is usually credited with sparking the interest of television executives in appealing to teenage audiences. The show was a phenomenon, and soon had networks scrambling for their own market share, giving rise to the programmes Glassman has chosen to include.
I found it interesting to learn how these seven shows were pitched and developed, and the challenges each faced to manage their young casts, earn and keep their audiences, and maintain the support of their networks. I liked that Glassman obviously spoke with a fairly wide range of people involved in each show to source the details she shares.
However I’m not fond of reality intruding on my comfort shows (and I don’t care for celebrity gossip), so I could have done without some of the behind the scenes information Glassman imparts. My other niggle with the book was Glassman’s inclusion of The Fresh Prince of Belair which I think fits far more neatly into the family friendly viewing genre than the teen drama niche, though she does her best to make the connection.
There’s definitely nostalgia value in Freaks, Gleeks and Dawson’s Creek if you are, or were, a fan of any of these shows or their stars, but it should also appeal to those generally interested in the entertainment industry. With its easy narrative, this is a quick and undemanding read.
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
I checked this book out of the library in the hope that it would help me with research for a project. That didn’t work out, but it was still an enjoyable read and quite a look at the arc of the entertainment industry.
I've only actually seen a few of these shows, but for the TV fan this is a must read!