Customer Reviews

Spy Television (The Praeger Television Collection)

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I sat down with Spy Television intending to skim a few chapters about the handful of spy shows I remembered. Then I got completely wrapped up in this fun and readable book. I even read the parts about shows I'd never seen and shows I had seen, but didn't like.

If you are a fan of these shows, you probably already know a lot of the trivia that Wesley Britton has included here. But I'll bet that there are still some nuggets that you haven't come across. For instance, Diana Rigg quit The Avengers because she found out she was earning less than the camerman. The first thing the Beatles wanted to do when they arrived in Los Angeles was to visit the cast of their favorite show, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

The chapter on I Spy tells about the difficulty producer Sheldon Leonard had in selling the show and the discussions about how the characters would deal with race. Another chapter discusses the relationship among the three Patrick McGoohan series: Secret Agent, Danger Man, and The Prisoner. Semi-spy shows like Wild, Wild West and spoof shows like Get Smart are treated as fully as the real spy shows like Mission: Impossible and The Saint.

Spy Television is a thoroughly enjoyable book. It left me wanting to search for videos of many of these old shows to see what I missed.

What an excellent book on the entire genre of spies and their depiction on television. Written with style, this in-depth book begins at the "Roots of the Family Tree" in 1900 and continues on through the current selection of spy shows on television today. Along the way, it discusses, analyzes, and puts into historic and social perspective - such wonderful spy television favorites as I SPY, MAN FROM UNCLE, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, WILD, WILD WEST, GET SMART, DANGER MAN, SECRET AGENT MAN, and the PRISONER among many other more obscure offerings that captured our imaginations and kept us watching week after week.

Dr. Britton dissects, interprets, analyzes, and totally entertains us with his comprehensive, fascinating, informative, and intelligent look into this phenomenon. I highly recommend it - you will enjoy it!

What a find! For TV buffs, spy aficionados and anyone who enjoys a terrific read, SPY TELEVISION is a must.

From the popular to the obscure (including both US and British shows), it's both a comprehensive and detailed guide to the genre. not only does SPY Television cover cast, characters, plotting and loads of absorbing peripherals (with an attractive photo section too), it further sets each series in historical context (making it a valuable scholarly reference as well as great entertainment). The author fascinatingly reveals how individual shows reflected their times, and broke ground in terms of content, style, advances for minorities (including women!), and more.

Focusing on the serious and the spoof ("Mission: Impossible" to "Get Smart"), the book takes an in depth look at programs like "I Spy" and "The Avengers," and doesn't miss cult items like "The Sentimental Agent" and "The Sandbaggers," two immortal UK series which haven't been discussed elsewhere. More than a hundred spy shows are catalogued, including such `spy-fi' fare as "Star Trek" and "The X Files."

Thank goodness for Amazon! When I heard a book like this was on the market, I made a beeline to my local bookstore. No luck, but I found it here!

This book is for anyone who stayed home to watch the Man From UNCLE and the other shows that this TV classic inspired. Spy Television provides a complete in depth overview of the events nationally and globaly that led to the creation of MFU. The book walks you though the 1960's TV era right down to programming schedules and proliferation of shows that reflected the public's interest in spy television. In addition, the book is filled with obscure pieces of trivia and information that fans of this genre will find facinating. For example, I did not know that Robert Vaughn was considered for a replacement role on Mission Impossible.

The shipping was slow but well worth it once I received the book, a very thorough and professionally prepared work!

Mr. Britton writes a scholarly and fairly much complete analysis and history of the secret agent/spy genre on television. Not even that, but the review is fun and enjoyable to read and not burdened down with academic jargon (a definite plus). In the opening chapters, there is a readable history on how this type of adventure series evolved from the earlier pulp literature of the twenties and thirties, and in the conclusion an examination of the "why" are the spy series so popular?

The author even mentions some of my favorite but short lived favorites such as "Spy Games" and the seventies "Hunter" series (wish they would come out on DVD).

However, favorites such as "I Spy," "Mission Impossible," "Get Smart," The Avengers," and even "The X-Files" are given a chapter each to discuss each of what the series brought to popular culture. Again, highly readable.

I encourage all (serious) TV fans and secret agent afficiandos this text a try.

Now, if someone can just help me find the exact titles and authors of the rest of the Praeger Collection on Television?, it would be appreciated.

Sincerely,
JThree
[...]

Dr. Britton's Spy Television is must reading for any nostalgia buff. If a person thinks that all TV is garbage, he or she should read this book and find out otherwise. In a smorgasbord of informatively well-written chapters, Dr. Britton has reminded those of us who remember many of the shows featured here that once upon a time, TV spy shows were better than rock concerts and modern sitcoms and soap operas. Finally, one can read in one volume: what The Prisoner was really all about; how The Man from U.N.C.L.E. paved the way for this genre and its influence lives on. Even The Bionic Woman gets encyclopedic coverage. The Avengers is given a delightful treatment and one will never view the series in the same light again after reading this book. Dr. Britton has conducted personal interviews with Robert Vaughn (U.N.C.L.E.) and Robert Conrad (The Wild Wild West) to relate their intriguing retrospectives upon their own fame and series. One will want to purchase DVDs or blow dust off VHS boxes and go down memory's mansion of wonderful spy TV.

Not only is this book excellently researched, but it's also a fantastic read! It covers some of my favorite series, including Get Smart and Mission: Impossible and gives some excellent information, as well as a nice overview of the political climate that spawned these shows. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys spy TV shows and/or classic TV.

From the early 1960s, TV spies were presented in light of anti-Communist propaganda, and through the years this model has developed to cover murky motives and adventures fraught with international intrigue. Spy Television considers how both popular and obscure spy shows came to TV, analyzes how and why the shows either succeeded or failed, and examines how fact and fiction have been incorporated into the genre. Britton earned his Ph.D. in American Literature and his penchant for uncovering sources and roots readily shines.

I loved the chapter on I Spy and Sheldon Leonard. I Spy was my dad's favorite show when I was a kid. He enjoyed the on-location sets in Hong Kong, Japan, Europe and Latin America. We got to see contemporary life in those countries, not the stereotypes (Chinese can't speak proper English; they're subservients or gangsters; women were either prostitutes ("World of Suzie Wong") or cunning Dragon Ladies. (Remember, the only Chinese then on TV were "Hop Sing," the manservant in Bonanza and the housekeeper in The Courtship of Eddie's Father.) I Spy dealt with stereotypes by ignoring them. It had the nerve to show Culp and Cosby with regular business people, competent police officers, family folk, etc. who just happened to live in Hong Kong or Japan or Mexico. In one show, gangster Martin Landau tried to buy the services of a Chinese waitress. She rejected the money and his "offer," and I expected him to explode. Instead, to my surprise, Landau looked at the waitress with respect and said something along the line of "you can't be bought. I like that in a woman," and he backed off. Wow! Very heady stuff in the 1960s! I now watch the DVDs with my kids. It was interesting that I had to explain some of the racial stuff because it's not so obvious nowadays and/or we've made advances along the way. Thank you, I Spy, SL, Bob Culp and Bill Cosby.

This book also covered more obscure and hard-to-find shows such as Bergerac, the Sandbaggers, and Return of the Saint. And, of course, there were lots of silly or just plain awful programs as well. Fans of the Man from Uncle, Secret Agent, etc. will find much to enjoy, though. Great read, especially when you want an escape from watching TV.