The way that race and disability were covered began to change as well, and the book contains sections on the new wave of drama dealing with these topics; the American concept of the ‘Very Special Episode’ is also explained, where sitcoms dealt with non-funny subject matter. One such innocent sits with his back to us in a period photo early on, bowlcut and knitted tanktop present and correct. As they say at the start, it's not a reference book, more a collection of conversational essays on television, film, books and games, not to mention public information films that made up the landscape for two boys with an interest in horror, fantasy and SF. The book ends (after a brief but fun excursion into the world of traumatising sweets: Fuman Chews, anyone?

Serials like The Tripods and The Knights of God dealt with young heroes fighting against controlling totalitarian regimes, showing that this has been a theme in young adult fiction for longer than commonly assumed.

The bulk of the book is about how she got involved with the group, how the program worked and the various ideologies.

While what those leaders did was eventually deemed illegal, it's also tough to feel sympathy for her because at any point over 12 years she could have walked away. I hate her for making me feel like this; for making me covet yet another thing that my brother gets. First by exchanging physical objects with one another in the playground: physical objects like last night’s John Peel Show or that (“Honest to God it IS!Sarah's aftermath in exiting the organization provided her with time for reflection and the ability to identify specific moments and events that marked her growth and the lessons learned from this harrowing experience. An actor’s exposé of her experiences in the NXIVM MLM Executive Success Program, which she looked into only after a solid endorsement from a trusted colleague. These are things which we, in our younger and formative years, find disturbing, terrifying, freaky, or surreal. And as you leaf through its crisp, clean, colourful pages you realise that Brotherstone and Lawrence are attempting something extraordinary: they want to capture and communicate nothing less than the texture of an entire era.

Ultimately, the reason Scarred For Life is such an engaging and fascinating read is because it goes beyond simply listing a few popular moments or titles. Edmondson was based in Canada and ran what could be described as a branch office of NXIVM, while Mack, her slaves, and the organization’s headquarters were based in Albany.

The people who think she should financially compensate for her complicity in NXIVM definitely have a leg to stand on and I dunno, if I was one of the mates she pulled into 'Do As I Say, Not As I Do' cult I'd be seriously entertaining TPing her NXIVM paid-off house.

In an era when the only black faces on TV almost all belonged to a white Welsh Dixieland jazz troupe, the sight of a handsome, urbane black man like Rudolph Walker as the star of a leading sitcom was a start. Perhaps this is better seen as a book to keep on the bedside table, to dip in and out of when one feels the need. I thought that this book could provide some insight on the inner-workings of the organization since she was a high-ranking member and one of the first to come forward. What I think this led to was continual boundary pushing, and the impact of that was, that a lot of wonderful creative media was produced and aired - however, much of that would never get past a savvy media executive today. You'll also need a metric fuckton of extra free time, because like Boromir stated in The Lord of the Rings, one does not simply sit down and read Scarred For Life.

Doing this made it much easier to understand how the sociopath, Keith Raniere, was able to break women down and commit all of the crimes he has been convicted of. This one deals with British television alone, with a foreword assuring that the next will deal with films, books, comics, games and nuclear war.