Mainstream Culture Refocused: Television Drama, Society, and the Production of Meaning in Reform-Era China offers academic value in at least two areas: first, scholarly categorization and critical analysis of mainland Chinese television drama since the 1980s; second, exclusive attention to mainstream popular culture (specifically, Chinese television drama) and an academic call for serious reconsideration of the criteria used to decide what deserves critical analysis and interpretation.

This book divides post-1980 Chinese television drama into the categories of emperor drama, anticorruption drama, youth drama and family-marriage drama. Viewers and critics enjoy their own interpretations of and interactions with the dramas and may have different categorization systems. For instance, the category of pink drama that Huang Ya-chien highlighted in TV Drama in China does not concern Zhong Xueping and appears neither in the list of chapter titles nor in the index of this book. Even within each category created by Zhong Xueping, there may be “unclear definitions of related subgenres” (p. 181).

According to Zhong's categorization, the first “emperor” drama was aired in 1991 (p. 50); the category includes the playful style and the serious style (pp. 65–66), and stands for a “historical consciousness informed by a depoliticized ideological position” (p. 71). The 1995–2005 period was the prime time for the category of anticorruption drama, whose main body is constituted by crime-related or police-related stories. Political drama, such as that of Zhou Meisen, is another significant type of anticorruption drama (pp. 77–78). As for youth drama, there are three types: the initiative wave represented by Hai Yan and Zhao Baogang's works (p. 102); “post-youth” youth drama, featuring protagonists’ experience in both the Mao and post-Mao periods, and best represented by Age of True Feelings (pp. 110–116); and the third type which highlights the search for meanings and new idealism, such as in Shibing tuji (pp. 116–121). The category of family-marriage drama in this book underscores post-Mao reconsiderations about true happiness, in dramas deriving from three women writers' works: Chi Li's Coming and Going, Wang Hailing's Divorce Chinese Style, and Wang Fang's Empty House and Nothing in the Mirror (pp. 127–138).

Zhong's book singles out the post-1980 period because of mainland China's reforms, but does not consider the inclusion of non-mainland elements, nor styles that were not directly influenced by the reforms during this era. There might, for instance, be comparative research about mainland youth idol TV dramas and Taiwanese romantic idol TV dramas, such as Zhao Baogang's Fendou (Struggle), and Taiwan-style live-action TV adaptations of manga animations. Reform-era Chinese television stations also broadcast foreign dramas, such the Korean historical drama, Dae Jang Geum, and East Asian “idol dramas.” South Korean television channel MBC's All about Eve (2000) and Zhejiang Satellite TV Station's Fall in Love with Anchor Beauty (Aishang nü zhubo, 2010) might be an apt pair for comparative study. The impact of cross-national dynamics could thus be given serious consideration.

If scholarly categorization and critical analyses of post-1980 mainland Chinese television drama are the main body of this book, the overall theoretical framework seems to be the justification of this exclusive attention to Chinese television drama. Regardless of the number and validity of categories this book creates for such dramas, the call for inclusion of Chinese television dramas in academic books also advocates the wider anthologizing of television drama, which has been less anthologized than theatre, literature and art. Early in the introductory chapter, the question of whether all these categories of Chinese television drama – so-called “low” culture – deserve “serious critical attention” is a key-point (p. 3). Zhong Xueping plays skilful theoretical games with Chinese sociopolitical particularities and narrative analyses to explore how the original criteria used to decide what should be anthologized may be reshaped. She also emphasizes Raymond Williams's theoretical belief in “the need to explore the political economy of … mainstream popular culture” (p. 7).

After the introduction's impassioned call for scholarly attention to Chinese television drama and un-anthologized mainstream popular culture, readers may wonder whether it is necessary to argue the value of academic examination of them. They may notice Zhong's inclusion of Qiong Yao's literary pieces (pp. 50–51, 54–55, 101–102) and Zhao Wei's still in the television drama Huanzhu gege (Princess Huanzhu), and recall the credit given to academic research into Qiong Yao. Lin Fang-mei, for instance, earned her PhD in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and held a professorship at National Taiwan Normal University since 1992 after the success of her academic project, Jiedu Qiong Yao aiqing diguo (Decoding the Romantic Empire of Qiong Yao, 1994), almost 20 years before this book on Chinese television drama.

In addition to Lin's publications, other examples that call into question the need to justify this research subject might be recent books such as Wang Jiguo and Yu Xuefang's book, Aiqing jiaomu Qiong Yao (Qiong Yao as the Godmother of Romantic Love). This recalls the new nickname for Qiong Yao and Liu Lili (director of the television drama deriving from Qiong Yao's romantic fiction): Xiaosan aiqing jiaomu (Godmother for mistresses). After the social problems encountered by mainland Chinese women who become mistresses (ernai second wife, or xiaosan, young third party) to Taiwanese or Hong Kong businessmen, it would be fruitful to research how television dramas related to Qiong Yao influence these female mainlanders' roles in cross-Strait heterosexual relations. In this sense, the above-mentioned publications may be supportive allies of Zhong's book, that alleviate the necessity of defending scholarly research into Chinese television drama and other forms of the mainstream popular culture.