WATCHING WHAT WE WATCH: Prime-Time Television Through the Lens of Faith

While too many authors may not have spoiled this book, they do seem to have muddled its interesting but disorganized treatment of television and its effect on people of faith. Beginning with an arcane explanation of the analytic methods they will employ, the authors fail to adequately introduce and define the book's fundamental concepts and purposes. Rather, they jump into a series of analyses of various prime-time programs; these analyses are long on episode summaries, but short on substantive faith-influenced insights. Fascinatingly, in the book's final chapters—those examining news, sports, commercials and the business and history of television—the authors beautifully articulate all that is missing in their introduction. For example, while their exploration of situation comedies and dramas is inexplicably devoid of all but the gentlest, most tentative moral critique, the authors finally begin to express strong and compelling outrage in their discussions of television news and commercials. Moreover, it is only in these chapters that they fully explain the commercialism and corporate hegemony that television programming serves. Each author wrote his or her section alone; as such, the book would probably have fared better as a series of essays. As it is, the authors' varying styles, politics and faith commitments yield an uneven text. Despite these flaws, their intelligent and usually balanced treatment of this topic provides an excellent starting point for discussion and further study. (Nov.)