ABSTRACT
This chapter presents summaries of the book’s central arguments and reviews the major themes developed in the close analysis of Mad Men, Little Women: LA, and Six Feet Under. The chapter speculates about the nature of televisual bodies in the future, as digital technology strives to perfect artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), interactivity, screen interfaces, and user-generated content. By 2099, will AR television characters seem to enter our living rooms to entertain us? Will “watching television” mean immersing ourselves completely in a multisensory AR or VR narrative? And will future generation prefer to retreat into virtual bodies and virtual reality?
The chapter warns that advanced innovations in virtual embodiment demand vigilance and caution. These potentialities make it all the more imperative to accentuate questions of the lived body in our discourse about digital television. As digital television speeds toward the virtual, it is a fortuitous time to appreciate the viewer’s sensual connection to a tenacious, popular, and ubiquitous medium.
