The face of 1980s television was shaped by a man who stayed behind the scenes. Stephen Cannell's reluctant white knights--put-upon private eye James Rockford, World War II fly-boys the Black Sheep Squadron, hapless superhero Ralph Hinckley, fugitive mercenaries the A-Team, and maverick cop Hunter--traversed the television landscape from the 1970s to the 1990s. Cannell changed the face of the action-adventure genre, updating the crime-show format with a hybrid of rebellious morality, juveni...

Before establishing himself as the "master of disaster" with the 1970s films The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, Irwin Allen created four of television's most exciting and enduring science-fiction series: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants. These 1960s series were full of Allen's favorite tricks, techniques and characteristic touches, and influenced other productions from the original Star Trek forward. Every science-fiction ...