Customer Reviews

The Dynasty Years: Hollywood Television and Critical Media Studies (Comedia)

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Being a HUGE Dynasty fan, I bought this book not really knowing what it was about. It certainly IS about Dynasty, but buyer beware...it is about Dynasty's affect on Norway's mass media market. It's rather interesting, but takes a lot of patience to get through, as I caught myself glazing over, trying to understand all the technical terms and statistics used in some passages. If you are looking for a tell-all, behind the scenes TV Book, THIS IS NOT IT! Most of the book is more about Scandanavian society than the show itself, but the author definitely sheds some interesting light on what goes on in producing and marketing a television show. This is NOT a coffee table book!

At first, I did not know how seriously to take this book. It seemed like an elaborate prank. However gradually upon reading it, I realised that the author is deadly earnest. It is a sociological analysis of the episodes of Dynasty, as viewed on Norwegian television. But, and this is the significant point, it is also a co-analysis of the reaction of those episodes on the Norwegian audience.

It should be made clear that the book is not some fluffy tabloid precis of the show. Gripsrud expertly dissects the role of the prime time soap opera, using Dynasty as the case study.

If you are an American who watched the original episodes in the US, then this book might be a fascinating twisted perspective.