In six chapters Jan Johnson-Smith applies a presumably British and beyond a doubt academic lens to decades of science fiction on TV. Beginning with an examination of science fiction and the nature of television, the author moves on to incorporate an analysis of the western as well as American cultural concepts and traits that apply to the American west?it is, after all, no accident that Star Trek?s opening voice-over includes the phrase ?the final frontier." Johnson-Smith follows this opening section with chapters on Star Trek, military science fiction, images of time and space, and Babylon 5.

(Source: Wesleyan University Press)