Blog Posts by Subject: Broadcasting, Radio and Television

The summer is almost over! It's sad but true. As we look ahead to the leaves changing colors in Central Park and kids going back to school, let's spend the last fleeting moments of the season talking about the oldest show on our list, Quantum Leap.

Happy belated 100th birthday to Lucille Ball!

While the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts may seem peripheral to Lucille Ball and her legacy, we do have an important connection to the theme music of her first television show.

To begin with, the Music Division has what is believed to be the first edition of the show’s theme song in sheet music format.

"September 23rd. Journal entry one. I'm Liz Parker, and five days ago, I died. After that, things got really weird..." 

Here's a typical boy-meets-girl story. The girl is Liz Parker, a high school waitress from Roswell, New Mexico. The boy is the mysterious Max Evans, a high school loner who redefines "tall, dark, and handsome." Liz works at her parents' diner, the Crashdown Café, which plays up the town's touristy alien kitsch mentality. One afternoon while Max is eating and Liz is working, two guys get into an argument. One pulls out a gun. There's a struggle. The gun goes off... and Liz is shot. Without thinking, Max rushes to her side. 

Oh Japan, where would modern sci-fi be without you? With your vivid and thought-provoking visions of what the world could be, robots and all, you've given us countless rich and spectacular new arenas for our imaginations to run around in. From the philosophical man-and-machine melds of Ghost in the Shell to the adventurous natural majesty of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, science fiction is a genre well-covered by our friends in the Land of the Rising Sun. Just like anime as a whole, their sci-fi selection has a little something for everyone. Whether your love futures or alternate worlds peppered with robots, romance, grit, speculation, or just plain fun, 

"What if you found a portal to a parallel universe? What if you could slide into a thousand different worlds? Where it's the same year and you're the same person... but everything else is different. And what if you can't find your way home?"

The phrase "lost episode" can evoke a number of different emotions in TV viewers. To some, it can evoke the excitement of lost treasure; to others, the sadness of an adventure they may never see. In the early 1970s, tapes for storing old television programs were very expensive in the United Kingdom, and the advent of home video was still a few years off. Figuring that most of the old black-and-white Doctor Who serials from the 60s (along with numerous other shows) had officially been milked for all their commercial value, the old tapes were wiped to make room for new shows.

Teleportation. Precognition. Suspended Animation. Dark Matter. Fringe.

Since 1963, the BBC's sci-fi epic Doctor Who has followed the adventurous and enigmatic alien time traveler known only as the Doctor as he races through space and time and our TV screens solving problems, saving worlds, and making new friends who join him on his travels. Unfortunately, the current season is on break and won't be back until this fall (with an episode curiously titled "Let's Kill Hitler.") Let's say you're a newer fan — someone who's only recently gotten into the show through the 2005 revival, be it with Matt Smith, David Tennant, or Christopher Eccleston's Doctor. You've worn out all your DVDs, commentaries and all, and the tie-in novels just 

The truth is (probably) out there.

When I was a kid and it was Friday night, I can tell you... I got very excited. Why? The X-Files was on. I was in elementary school at the time, so it was probably wildly inappropriate that I was even watching this show. Those who have seen it know what I'm talking about. If it wasn't one of the overly confusing episodes about the government hiding some sort of sophisticated alien conspiracy, then it was an hour of pure, abject horror.

We are about to boldly go where many people have gone before.

I mean, let's face it. If you've never heard of Star Trek before, you've basically been living under a rock. The Original Series starred William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, cementing their status as pop culture icons to this day.

I would say that I am rather familiar with Tina Fey’s work and I would declare myself quite a fan of her talent. From watching her in Mean Girls on the big screen and laughing at her hilarious Sarah Palin impressions to officially making Date Night one of the top five movies to make me laugh so hard I had tears streaming down my face — she is indeed amazing. So how is her New York Times best-selling book Bossypants? Well, a good book is in the eye of the reader, but here's my take on it.

Creators of TV shows get their inspiration from many places, but lately they seem to be turning more and more often to books for their source material. And with quality programs doing justice to the books that inspired them, it's a welcome trend, especially if it leads fans of the shows who have never read the books to seek them out. Here are some to get you started.

As the school year ends and the members of our Teen Advisory Group plan to ride off into the sunset (or at least take a vacation or go to summer camp), I thought I would share some more of their favorite books, CDs, and DVDs that they enjoyed this year.

It is my day off and I have some errands to do! However, that shouldn't keep me from what I really love: WRITING BLOG POSTS.

The television series Walking Dead, as seen on the cable channel American Movie Classics, was recently released on DVD. The hit TV show has been renewed for a second season, which will most likely air in the fall. If you need your zombie fix sooner than later and need to know what happens to the survivors, visit your local library and check out the graphic novels that inspired the TV show.

Last week I started a Tumblr account for The Battery Park City Branch.   I'm thinking it will be used for content too long for Twitter and too short for this blog.  The majority of the first few posts have been about library related ephemera: comic book art depicting libraries, things found in library books, and anonymous snapshots.

After I'd spent four Sunday evenings in January engrossed in the doings of the Earl of Grantham and his household on the PBS "Masterpiece Classic" series Downton Abbey, this month's choice for Spencer Collection Book of the Month was obvious: a book that lingered for more than three centuries in the company of barons and earls, before being exiled from their presence in exchange for cold, hard cash.

Daydreaming of an English holiday that you just can't afford to take? Keep saving your money, and in the meantime, use your New York Public Library card to take you to your destination. These books, albums, and DVDs will transport you to England without leaving home.

Fans of the ABC Family television series Pretty Little Liars rejoice – new episodes began airing on January 3, 2011! The hit drama, based on Sara Shepard’s series of books by the same name, premiered this past summer to less than favorable critical reviews, but the fans ate it right up. The series won the 2010 Teen Choice Award for Choice Summer TV Show, with awards also going to Ian Harding (Ezra) and Lucy Hale (Aria) for Choice Summer TV Star: Male and Female, respectively.