In 2006, when I started out in television studies, the discipline was reckoning with the impact of HBO’s entry into the marketplace for television drama. Academics tended to avoid words like ‘revolution’ but journalists flung them about with abandon, and contentious debates about ideas like ‘Quality’ (McCabe and Akass, 2007) and ‘Complexity’ (Mittell, 2006) were driving much of the conversation in TV studies.
Beginning with the popularization and mass availability of television in the 1950s, the medium has since extensively been employed to transport and mediate history in manifold ways.
About In 1992 television researcher John Ellis stated that television was an “essentially national activity for the vast majority of its audience”. Since then we have witnessed a development that follows the logics of transnationalism: Television content is still produced locally – that means it is produced within specific countries under specific national laws and media regulations, and often first for a local market.
This latest offering to CST has partly been inspired by my recent research and planning for a module on American Contemporary Television Drama, and partly inspired by a long fascination with the television anthology series – its place and status in the television landscape. The module, devised by Anthony N Smith at University of Salford, has been handed into my care whilst he undertakes some serious research of his own – and good luck to him.
Last Sunday, faced with a disappointing episode of Philip K.Dick’s Electric Dreams ( Sony Pictures TV for Channel 4, 2017 – ) on Channel 4 and the blandness, not to say offensiveness of watching episode 3 of The Last Post (BonafideFilms for BBC, 2017- ), we turned to a repeat of The Monocled Mutineer (BBC, 1986) on the Yesterday channel.
Have you been watching Doctor Foster? Or Rellik? Or Strike? No? Me neither. Doctor Foster apparently drew over 8 million viewers to one of its episodes, but judging from my facebook feed, they were not impressed. Rellik scrapes around the 4 million mark, whilst Strike managed around 5 million.
Some of you may have read my previous blog on Comfort Telly, where I pondered if in the end the value of this type of TV Drama is in its actors and performances. (Granted, that the writing is central as well.) Last year ITV resurrected or rebooted their nineties success series Cold Feet (ITV, 1996 -) and with its return this week, I’ve been thinking back on series 6 or series 1 of the reboot.
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster (Nietzsche) For docudrama lovers like me, a new Peter Kosminsky production is always eagerly anticipated and the unfolding of The State over four consecutive evenings on Channel 4 last week made for a particularly intense viewing experience.
** This blog contains spoilers ** Firstly, apologies – this blog contains spoilers. But seeing as 13 Reasons Why was released on Netflix in the UK several months ago (and already covered in a blog by William Proctor back in May), I’m hoping this won’t be too much of a problem.
Guest Editors: Harriet Earle, Sheffield Hallam University, UK Jessica Clark, University of Suffolk, UK This call for papers seeks submissions that engage with the television series American Horror Story (produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk) as part of a Special Issue for the European Journal of American Culture.
