Ida Lupino's career in television plays much like a rerun of her career in the cinema. Originally charting her course in each medium primarily as an actor, she apparently fell into directing as a matter of circumstance. Making her debut on CBS television's Four Star Playhouse in December 1953 as a performer, it was not until three years later that Lupino was commissioned to direct an episode for Screen Directors Playhouse, "No. 5 Checked Out," for which she also wrote the script. Eventually, after more frequent invitations to helm episodes from a variety of series, Lupino would, over the course of the next 15 years, establish a reputation as the most active woman director working behind the cameras during this formative period in television's history.

Economic necessity, it would seem, played as much a part as creative opportunities in Lupino's decision to work almost exclusively within television for the remainder of her career as director. By the mid-1950s, Lupino had been offered fewer leading roles, and her activities as a film director had gradually diminished. Although she would continue to act in even more television episodes than she would direct (over 50), her unique position in the fledgling industry rested more upon her reputation as a filmmaker than as a leading lady, in particular upon the critical and commercial success of her most widely seen cinematic work, The Hitch-Hiker.

In fact, after 1960, Lupino earned the nickname "the female Hitch" (as in Hitchcock) for her specialty work in action-oriented television genres that employed her talent at creating suspense. For example, Richard Boone, the star of the popular Have Gun-Will Travel series, of which Lupino eventually directed four episodes, had admired her hard-boiled style and offered her a script by Harry Julian Fink, famed for his graphic descriptions of physical violence. From that point on, although she would direct many sitcoms (e.g., The Donna Reed Show, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir) and various dramatic programs (e.g., Mr. Novak, Dr. Kildare), Lupino would be commissioned primarily for westerns (The Rifleman, The Virginian, Dundee and the Culhane, Daniel Boone, Tate, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater), crime dramas (The Untouchables, The Fugitive, 77 Sunset Strip), and mysteries (The Twilight Zone, Kraft Suspense Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock Presents). Perhaps the only series that Lupino genuinely shaped as director is Thriller, a mystery anthology hosted by Boris Karloff, for which she directed at least ten episodes in its first two seasons. At times lamenting publicly that she had become so typecast as an action director that she was overlooked for love stories, Lupino otherwise exploited her anomalous stature as a woman specializing in shoot-outs and car chases, at one point turning down Hitchcock's offer of a lead role in one episode of his series in order to replace him as its director.

This figure of Lupino as a "female Hitch," whose nomenclature suggests the freedom to call her own shots and her status as auteur, is rather misleading within the context of the U.S. television industry, whose creative efforts are shaped and controlled almost exclusively by producers rather than by directors. Thus, although she directed episodes of The Untouchables and The Fugitive, whose intricate weekly sub-plots and relatively large guest casts required her creative input, her influence on formulaic series such as Gilligan's Island or Bewitched was minimal. For this reason, in contrast to her body of cinematic works (most of which she also co-wrote or co produced), Lupino's scattered work in television resists an auteurist approach because of the very nature of the industry. More of a freelance substitute than a series regular, Lupino never pursued long-term contracts with any particular producer or network. Such job security generally was reserved for her male colleagues. On the other hand, Lupino's continued interest in acting may have been equally responsible for her irregular directing schedule; it undoubtedly strengthened her reputation as a director who worked well with fellow actors. Although praised for her abilities to link scenes smoothly, to cooperate with the crew, and to come in on time and under budget, Lupino's most sought-after capacities were her skill at handling players of both sexes and her sensitivity to the problems and needs of her cast, qualities derived from her own training and experience as an actress.

Although Lupino was one of the first woman directors during the early years of American television production, it is odd that she is rarely referenced as a "groundbreaker" for other women entering the industry. Unlike Lucille Ball, Loretta Young, Joan Davis, and other women who were involved as producers in early television programming, Lupino had little creative control over the programs she directed. To contextualize Lupino's role as a director in relation to other women working contemporaneously as producers is not meant to suggest, however, that a critical analysis of Lupino's work is irrelevant to television history and feminist inquiry. What remains significant about Lupino as a "woman director" was her unique ability to succeed in an occupation that was (and still is) dominantly coded as "masculine." Constructed as an outsider and an anomaly, Lupino as a TV director was more often than not represented merely as a woman, her directorial skill either de-emphasized or ignored altogether in the popular press.

After a decade of professional activity spanning all three networks, a variety of genres, and an irregular schedule, Lupino's commitment to directing, like act­ing, could not have been said to be total. Working at a period in her life in which her desire for a career chafed at her equally strong desire to raise and care for her family, Lupino suffered the dilemma of the average woman of the time. She was forced to negotiate a no­tion of "work" dictating that her choices should threaten neither the spheres over which patriarchy dominated, such as the television industry, nor her identity as a wife and mother, whose "natural" place belonged in the home rather than in the studio. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the nick­name bestowed  upon  Lupino by her production crews-"Mother"-worked to contain her in the dom­inant role for women at the time.