Over the last decade Spain and Mexico have both produced an extraordinary wealth of television drama. Drawing on both national practices of production and reception and international theories of textual analysis this book offers the first study of contemporary quality TV drama in two countries where television has displaced cinema as the creative medium that shapes the national narrative. As dramatized societies, Spain and Mexico are thus at once reflected and refracted by the new series on the small screen.

‘A groundbreaking contribution to Hispanic cultural and media studies. Highly readable and well structured, the volume is a unique comparative transnational study of the two principal Spanish-language television markets/industries/cultures. Such comparative scholarship requires expertise on many levels in the two media cultures as well as a grasp of conceptual and theoretic underpinnings of mass media in the context of cultural studies, all of which Smith has in abundance and he uses his knowledge to provide a richly detailed and stimulating reading.’ Professor Marvin D'Lugo, Clark University