ABSTRACT
Whether it is called the Golden Age of Television, a Second (or Third) Golden Age of Television, or the New, New Golden Age of Television, contemporary TV series (ca. 2000 to present) have garnered both critical acclaim and academic attention. This chapter provides a survey of the discursive impasses that have arisen in addressing and categorizing this mode of production, with particular attention to points of contention between film scholarship and Television Studies. It argues that recent efforts to reformulate the categories of “the cinematic” and “the televisual” and revisit the notion of medium specificity can serve to situate these highly acclaimed series within a shared intermedial legacy with cinema based on their unique preoccupation with aestheticized time.
