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Pandora’s Box
  • Published: 7 November 2023
  • ISBN: 9780141992761
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 400
Categories:

Pandora’s Box

The Greed, Lust, and Lies That Broke Television

Formats & editions
Paperback
11 Feb 2025
EBook
7 Nov 2023
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From the author of the 'stone-cold classic' Easy Riders, Raging Bulls comes a blockbuster follow-up: the inside story of television's epic transformation

The revolution has been televized. From The Sopranos to Stranger Things, the shows we watch - and the ways we watch them - have been transformed over the past fifty years. Out of the bland wasteland of 'play-it-safe' broadcasting came astonishing stories of sex , violence, and corruption shown first on cable, and then by way of streaming. Today, the power of viewers to select what they want and when they want it is greater than ever before. In short, we are living in a new golden age of television, but golden ages don't last forever, and this one may turn out to be too much of a good thing. Revolutions have a habit of eating their own, and the era of 'peak TV' may have an unhappy ending.

Pandora's Box is a major new account of the small screen from incisive cultural critic Peter Biskind. Through exclusive, candid and colourful interviews with writers, showrunners, directors and actors, Biskind brings us face to face with the people whose creations we encounter every day on our sofas, revealing the dynamic interplay of art, commerce and technology. We follow executives down the corridors of power and see how their money and guile cultivate, then crush creativity; we witness the making - and unmaking - of TVs biggest hits. There has never been a more exciting time in entertainment history, and in Peter Biskind, the ideal insider guide, captures all of it.
  • Published: 7 November 2023
  • ISBN: 9780141992761
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 400
Categories:

Also by Peter Biskind

The Sky is Falling!
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Praise for Pandora’s Box

Biskind is a magician at prying revealing yarns and juicy quotes out of his subjects. And the resulting scenarios are deliciously tawdry...moments of real intelligence and grace

San Francisco Chronicle on Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Biskind's devourable book is that rarity, a Hollywood exposé that you can read mouth agape, slurping up scandal and titillation so fast you're in danger of choking-without feeling ashamed of yourself

Washington Post Book World on Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Dishy, teeming, superbly reported...packed with lively inside anecdotes...[a] juicy and fascinating exposé

Entertainment Weekly on Down and Dirty Pictures

Insanely readable

Slavoj Zizek on The Sky is Falling

Peter Biskind's great, scathing, news-packed history...is one hell of an elixir-salty with flavorsome gossip, sour with the aftertaste of misspent careers, intoxicating with one revelation after another...an A

Entertainment Weekly on Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Sensationally entertaining

Los Angeles Times on Down and Dirty Pictures

Spot on

Irish Times on The Sky is Falling

Thoughtful, entertaining and occasionally profound

Spectator on The Sky is Falling

You'll never look at your favourite movies and TV shows the same way again. And you shouldn't

Steven Soderbergh on The Sky is Falling

- - Praise for Peter Biskind

Who else can explicate the hidden politics of movies and make you laugh out loud at the same time?

Barbara Ehrenreich on The Sky is Falling