The History of Television

An examination of the development and evolution of television as a creative medium, with an emphasis placed on the role of the writer and producer. How did we get from the dawn of the medium of TV to the digital age? Influential TV programs will be screened and technological advances will be highlighted. Important TV scripts of historical and contemporary importance will be studied.

Instructor: William rabkin

Professor Rabkin has written and/or produced hundreds of hours of dramatic television, serving as showrunner on the CBS series Diagnosis Murder and Martial Law. His writing and producing credits include The Glades, Monk, Psych, Nero Wolfe, Missing, Spenser: For Hire, seaQuest 2032, Hunter and The Cosby Mysteries. He has also written a dozen network TV pilots and is currently writing feature films and TV series in China.

His work has been nominated twice for the Edgar Award for best television episode by the Mystery Writers of America. He has written two books on writing for television, Successful Television Writing (2003), with Lee Goldberg, and Writing The Pilot (2011) and has consulted on television writing and production in China, Singapore, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Brazil and the Netherlands.