Simon Brew - TV Geek: The Den of Geek Guide for the Netflix Generation

TELEVISION CHANGED IN THE LATE 1990S. THE SIZE OF IT, THE VISUAL QUALITY OF IT. AND THE STUFF THAT WAS BEING SHOWN ON IT.

In came what became known as the HBO revolution, as shows such as Oz and The Sopranos heralded whats already regarded as a golden era of American television drama. In the UK, meanwhile, genre TV shows were starting to seep into the mainstream. Previously, just getting a decent regular slot for shows such as Quantum Leap, Star Trek and Red Dwarf was a challenge. By the end of the 2000s, primetime British television was bursting with sci-fi, fantasy and genre shows, with the phenomenally successful revival of Doctor Who leading the charge.

Almost by coincidence, the Den of Geek website launched in the midst of all of this. From the moment the site went live back in April 2007, keeping on top of an avalanche of quality TV has been a delightful challenge. But whats been notable whether Den of Geek is your web friend of choice or not is how the changes in television were accompanied by a more obvious and vocal audience. All of a sudden, if you wanted to discuss a show, you didnt need to meet people in person or write into a magazine. You could do it there and then. Then Twitter came along, with things like hashtags and opinions. Just keeping on top of some of the, er, disagreeing views in the comments section of the website has been a challenge. When social media gets involved one overnight TV show can instantly feel like a drop-everything-because-you-must-see-it-moment. Ironically, at a point when television can be watched almost anywhere and at any time, theres still something really rather of-the-moment about it. And an awful lot to digest.

In our previous, competitively priced, non-award-winning and pivotally still available Movie Geek book, we explored in terrifying detail some of the stories behind nerdy-leaning films. Even before we got to the end of writing that particular tome, we realized that television particularly the TV of the late 1990s onward, where we focus much of our attention was an equally rich area for a book.

So we wrote one. And thankfully, you appear to be reading it. Thank you. A lot.

What weve tried to cover here is the shift in television thats taken place from the late 1990s through to DVD collections that required umpteen trips to IKEA to house, right up to the rise and dominance of streaming services. Weve done it more by looking at the shows themselves than the technology, but what weve found is that certain shows have in turn fuelled changes in the way people watch TV. Would Stranger Things have been such a huge hit if it didnt land all in one go? Did DVD season collections help fuel interest in shows such as The Sopranos? And would anyone in the UK have become obsessed with childrens TV hit The Mysterious Cities of Gold in the 1980s had it not run every week for the best part of a year?

Theres much to chew on, and it would be remiss of me not to plug our multi-award-losing website before I stop. Youll find it at www.denofgeek.com. In the meantime, on behalf of the Den of Geek scribes whose words youre about to read mine, Louisa, Ryan, Mike, Alec, Jenny, Kayti and Sarah thanks for indulging us so far. And we hope what youre about to read gives you an even longer to-watch list

SIMON BREW

@simonbrew