Product Description

The Halliwells of British telly, guaranteed to feed your TV addiction From the moment TVs entered our sitting rooms in the 50s we became a nation hooked by our favourite soaps, dramas, comedies ...and now reality TV. This complete guide covers classic British telly, cults hits, and imports old and new such as Star Trek, Neighbours, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 24, and Desperate Housewives. What was it about The Prisoner, The Avengers, and Dr Who, that got the fans excited? Which were the best episodes (and the worst)? This one-stop A-Z guide to over 2,000 terrestrial shows reminds you of the best TV moments, the locations, the characters, the writers, and is absolutely packed with websites to visit and related series to watch. Hyperlinks send you on to other programmes of similar genre influenced by the series, and the next programme chronologically to have been broadcast. In this way the Collins Telly Guide offers a family tree of the programmes on our screens over the last fifty years. The authors are unashamedly passionate about television, so you can expect a vigorously researched, highly-opinionated guide, brimming with personality and trivia that will send you diving for the remote control. For the 100 most influential TV series of all time we've included longer feature entries, with full cast lists, photographs and top ten listings. And as if that isn't enough, the shorter entries also include plenty of series-related trivia, perfect for pub quiz fanatics and general Christmas day disputing ! so which Eastenders character is connected to every other?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #348921 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 960 pages

About the Author
Jim Sangster and Paul Condon have a lifetime of in-depth knowledge about TV, and together have been writing about television and media in general for nearly 20 years. Jim's previous books include Friends Like Us (the programme guide to Friends), Scorsese, 24 the Unofficial Guide and Spooks Confidential. Paul's books include Six Feet Under and The Matrix Unlocked. Together they have written Hitchcock.

Customer Reviews

About time!
If you are an addict of TV trivia over the last thirty years this is book you've been waiting for. It covers pretty much every memorable series that I can remember from cult series from the 70s like 'The Survivors' right up to current day hits from the UK and the US. The only one that was missing for me was Curb Your Enthusiasm - maybe in the next edition...If you want to look up who starred in a series, when it was broadcast or just remind yourself what happened, this is a great book that should settle any inter-family arguments in front of the TV. I am a huge fan of imdb.com but the advantage of TV Heaven is that you can browse about long forgotten series on the train or in bed. Brilliant!

An incredibly comprehensive guide to the whole of TV
I was given this book as a gift as I have a love of TV and it's absolutely great. It's got a huge range of shows, from Big Brother to Eldorado, but even includes programs like Blankety Blank and So Graham Norton which most 'cult' TV books ignore.

There are the basic facts you'd expect, transmission dates, number of episodes etc., but it's the quality of writing that makes it stand out. I know it's a cliche but it's really hard to put down, as once you've read one entry your eyes jump across to another show, maybe because you've forgotten it, or because you don't expect such a huge book to be so up to date (for example the third series of Black Books is in there).

The authors also really review the shows, ideal for working out which DVD boxset to buy, and manage to find gems of facts about each one. It's the perfect mix of reference and entertainment, I've got another copy to give as a present already.

The Televison fan's bible
This book is, without doubt, the finst in the genre. It has so much information on the subject, it is likely to satisfy even the most dye hard television officinado. The only critisism I have is that it leaves out the superb 'Thriller' (1973), the ATV series produced by Brian Clemens post Avengers. Apart from that, I cannot find a fault with it. The gauntlet is down fo someone to write a better book. Is anyone going to pick it up?