The TV Series: The New Quality or Nothing New Whatsoever? Introduction

The article is an attempt to define the quality tv series and to identify the differences between the neo-series and more traditional syndicated tv production. The author analyzes the narrative structures, aesthetics, formal complexity and the topics of the quality series while situating them within the context of the contemporary televisual apparatus. She also points to the connections between the new tv series and the technological changes within the mass media communication (interactivity and mobility in particular), the media convergence, the evolution of the producer – receiver relationships leading to the participatory model of the media use, and the change in the media protocols.

 

The Previous Season’s Recap: Short History of the TV Series

The article depicts the essential issues related to the development television series from the fifties to the nineties of the twentieth century, with the particular focus on the American media production. The first part of the article illustrates the beginnings of serial narrative: serialized novels and silent film serials. The following sections relate to, among others: reshaping of a situation comedy, the transformation of episodic series into continuing serials and conditions for the creation of quality television dramas and propagating experimental narratives. The article depicts the textual changes of the tv series, as well as their social and technological contexts.

 

HBO – The Model of the Contemporary Quality Television

New tv series are the result and co-relate of the so-called quality television. The prototype and the model of such type of television is the American tv station HBO that – while maintaining its own, recognizable artistic identity – is forced to deal with the specifically American mechanism of the tv market: the necessity to compete between the stations for the attention of more and more competent and discriminate viewer. The author describes the history and the current actions of HBO in the situation where tv medium evolves incessantly and is reshaped as a result of the social, technological, legal processes within its environment. HBO is the station that enjoys the stable success in these changing condition.

 

Between the Programming and the Binge-Viewing. How do Poles Watch
TV Series?

The article focuses on the new phenomenon known as the binge-watching, which is the practice of compulsive watching multiple episodes of a single television show in rapid succession. Binge-viewing is typical for the educated and culturally competent young people whose watching preferences go beyond the traditional tv, and include e.g. online media services. The phenomenon evolved together with the transformation of the communication technology, with the rise of the participatory practices, as well as with the evolution of the tv series themselves. The article explains the origin of the phenomenon, and presents its widespread popularity. More­over, it analyzes the motivations and engagement of the Polish viewers who practice binge-
-viewing of the new generation TV series.

 

“Game of Thrones” and its Literary Predecessor – “A Song of Ice and Fire”
as the Keystones for the Transmedia Narrative

“Game of Thrones” is a TV series made by HBO TV. Since 2011 this production has been watched by billions of people all around the world. The series and its literary prototype, “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga written by George R.R. Martin are the basic parts of transmedia story of the land called Westeros. “Game of Thrones” is being analyzed here as the cultural product facilitating the creation of the mature transmedia narrative. Furthermore the article includes analysis of relationship between Martin’s saga and its tv adaptation.

 

Black Sorrow. Nic Pizzolatto’s Authorial Strategy in “The True Detective”

The two-season crime drama is based entirely on the authorial concept, with dominant role of the screenwriter/showrunner Nic Pizzolatto. The article delineates the specifics of the authorial organization of the creative process of the tv series, its artistic, economic and organizational consequences, and the production context. The individualistic, authorial character of the creative process may be both the reason of the enormous artistic and commercial success of the series, and the reason of the failure it met in the second season.

 

Skyler-Hating, Bad Fans and Team Walt. The Attempt to Understand
the Fandom Reception of “Breaking Bad” TV Series

The creators of “Breaking Bad” series reached for various genres, both film (western, gangster cinema, crime drama, black comedy), and television (newsreel, music video, tv advertising), thus constructing the story of extreme sophistication, negotiating and de-constructing the myths of the American culture. The series got to be the global phenomenon, but its public reception was ambivalent. The showrunner Vince Gilligan’s idea was to narrate the story of the man whom all viewers are supporting at the beginning just to hate him at the end. Still, many viewers reacted contrarily to the creator’s expectations. The fans supporting the evil main character became called The Bad Fans and The Team Walt, while the widespread hatred against his wife (sabotaging her husband’s actions) was deemed The Skyler-Hating. The author of the article attempts to analyze the reasons and ethical implications of ambiguous interpretations of the series among fans.

 

Edwardian Corsets for the New Times. Welcome to “Downton Abbey”

“Downton Abbey” tv series, which has broken popularity records and earned much acclaim has recently come to an end. The article aims to explore to what extent the antiquarian form and the conservative content of the series continues in the tradition of heritage movies, or else it offers a post-heritage escapist fantasy more firmly inbedded in the commercialised reality of corporate entertainment. It also attempts to pinpoint the relationships of the tv series to the wider popcultural trend of the Victorian and Edwardian nostalgia.

 

Demonic Politics vs. the Politics of Difficult Trade-Offs. “House of Cards”
and “Borgen” as Political Fiction

Relationships between politics and popular culture are long-term and diverse, yet only in the recent decade or two have they been submitted to the scholarly research. They can be examined from two perspectives: the use of popular culture by the politicians to achieve their goals, and the depiction of politics in the culture itself. The article does focus on the latter, as it is centred around the political tv series being the elements of the phenomenon of the representation and negotiation of politics in the entertainment genres that can be termed politicotainment. Political tv series as depicted here do not usually attempt the dramatization of the real events, yet they do, to some relevant extent, represent the observations and experiences of their creators, thus being inspired by the real people and the real events. The article outlines typology of political films and tv series, discusses the ways of presenting politics in political fiction drama, as well as the reason for their popularity. In order to highlight the complexity of the analysed phenomenon, two popular and significantly different series are used as a reference: Netflix’s “House of Cards” and Danish “Borgen”.

 

Reality Is Unrealistic. Journalist Report as a Source of Narrative about War
in HBO’s Miniseries “Generation Kill”

The popular HBO mini-series “Generation Kill” is a successful attempt to develop a new formula of narrative fiction founded on the journalistic report – a hybrid, quasi-documentary narrative based on “explanatory” as well as “participatory” modes. The radically realistic audiovisual representation of the events was thus constructed. The creators of the series – deriving from the reportage of Evan Wright – raised important social issues. We are dealing with an interesting perspective on the generation of “disposable children”, young Americans shaped by the global pop culture; young marines operating in Iraq of 2003 are ‘elite killers’, ‘devil dogs’ of the USA, disillusioned to the world of politics and war. The series also shows the chaos of war, during which even the most powerful military machine in the world, the US military – in some cases – fails. Despite its critical sound, the series does not impress of didactic moralizing tone. Both HBO and Wright’s book are characterized by a complete lack of political correctness, which gives way to realism of the characters and events.

 

Journalists and Media in “The Newsroom” TV Series. When Television Becomes its Own Reflection

“The Newsroom” TV series narrates the story of the newsroom staff who create a daily TV news show. Written by Aaron Sorkin, the tv show depicts the journalists attempting to change the way relaying the information and to get rid of the sensational and tabloid-like topics, in of real impact on the viewers’ lives. The article refers to the way of how the modern media are presented by the producers of both series mentioned above and what an ordinary viewer needs to be aware of while watching TV.

“Black Mirror”. A Non-Futuristic, Technological and Media Dystopia

“Black Mirror” is TV series made by Charlie Brooker’s team, currently producing the next installments for Netflix online TV. Every episode is an individual, closed story, devoted to the different roles of digital media in contemporary society, both real and anticipated. The series’ leitmotiv are the black mirrors – the screens of different digital supplies. As “Black Mirror” is a non-futurist, technological dystopia, all episodes are being analyzed in terms of uses of the technology and media; the author aims at identification of the futurist and non-futurist elements.

 

 “Grey’s Anatomy”. The Post-Racial, Post-Feminist Discourse about the Hospital Isolated From History and Culture

„Grey’s Anatomy” tv series created by Afro-American producer Shonda Rhimes obtained many awards from anti-discrimination organizations. Rhimes’ creative and producerly strategies – the „color-blind casting”, multi-racial and multicultural character of the cast – attracted the attention of the public opinion and became the trademark of the series. In this article the series’ dominant discourse is being analyzed and set against the critical analysis by the researchers specializing in the problems of discrimination and racial prejudice; according to their opinion the series trivializes the cultural differences, and uses the narrative structures reinforcing the traditional cultural patterns, thus perpetuating the racial divisions.

 

“Sherlock”. Fandom Games and the Employment of the Convergent Media Potential

The British tv mini-series “Sherlock” has become nowadays the complex transmedia narrative, utilizing different media and engaging its fandom to the intense creative actions and the processes of the collective construction of knowledge. The lengthy production process and the particular distribution strategy (with the two-year gaps between the seasons) force the showrunners to develop various production and communication strategies so as to maintain the viewers’ involvement with the series during “the hiatuses”. To this purpose, different forms of communication with fandom are applied, together with the skillful use of the potential of the convergence processes in media.

 

“The Bridge”, “The Killing”, “Wallander”: The Nordic Criminal Fiction

How to explain the fact that in the societies with the lowest criminality rate in the world so many stories are written, relating the cruelest crimes? Why do Scandinavian crime dramas provoke so much interest among the viewers all over the world? The article is devoted to the analysis of the reception and cultural contexts of the global success of the so-called Nordic noir.

 

The TV Series in France: Why the French Do Not Succeed?

The structure of the tv series market in France as compared to the other Western countries is rather untypical one. Not many local products are being created here, which can be even perceived as the threat to the national identity. The article, while delineating the development of the tv series in France in the diachronic perspective, does attempt to diagnose the reasons for this situation, using the SESCA report. The report’s authors point to the culturally grounded idealization of the cinema film as one of the source of the underdevelopment of tv series production. They also point to the inappreciation of the artistic potential of the tv series creators, and to the lack of the systemic solutions within the whole French media market.

 

Russian TV Series Yesterday and Today. Part I

The article in a concise way summarizes first Sowiet attempts at production of the tv series. In the years of perestroika and in early 90’s, after having come in contact with the Western productions, the Russian television mastered production of telenovellas and contemporary crime dramas at the end of the XXth century. At the outset the Russian tv, while being independent from the state, developed the big-scale production of the tv series. After 2000 the rule of Putin and the dominance of the state sponsoring accounted for the further development of the Russian tv series market, due to the realization by the state authorities of the educational and propaganda potential of this tv genre. The author describes the most important thematic sub-genres of Russian tv series, as: military, sensation, historical, and particular importance of the historical crime drama.

 

Seriale omawiane w artykułach numeru

• Małgorzata Major, Justyna Bucknall-Hołyńska (red.): Władcy torrentów (Emilia Kotnis-Górka), s. 260–261;
• Arkadiusz Lewicki, Jacek Grębowiec (red.): Serialez różnych stron (Paweł Płaneta), s. 261–265;
• Aaron Delwiche, Jennifer Jacobs Henderson (red.): The Participatory Cultures Handbook (Agnieszka Całek), s. 265–268;
• Maria Wojtak: Rozłożone gazety. Studia z zakresu prasowego dyskursu, języka i stylu(Anna Goc), s. 268–269.

• Konferencja „60 lat prasoznawstwa w Polsce. Dorobek naukowy OBP i Zeszytów Prasoznawczych w perspektywie krajowej i międzynarodowej” (Małgorzata Winiarska, Edyta Żyrek-Horodyska, Mateusz Flont, Marcin Pielużek), s. 270–281.
• Konferencja „Seriale w kontekście kulturowym – po dwóch stronach ekranu” (Kamil Wszołek), s. 282–285.