ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how television becomes a source text in its own right, impacting contemporary fiction, 'broadcasting' its influence to other media. The critique of reality television, then, is not a critique of the delivery medium the television but ultimately of its lack of story. The influence that television in general, and television adaptation in particular, is having on contemporary fiction is not cause for alarm. As these works of popular fiction make clear, television adaptations might not necessarily lead us back to their source texts but they might very easily lead us back to the book. Primarily, they are particularly interesting examples of fiction writers who were inspired both by subject matter and by storytelling techniques to be found on television and in television adaptations. The intimacy that characterizes television fictions has bred contempt, as the story becomes extraneous to the same trappings so attractive to the readership/viewership.
