Greg Metcalf

The DVD Novel (eBook, PDF)

How the Way We Watch Television Changed the Television We Watch

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

Now that television shows can live forever as DVD sets, the stories they can tell have changed; television episodes are now crafted as chapters in a season-long novel instead of free-standing stories. This book examines how this significant shift in storytelling occurred. In 1981, NBC's Hill Street Blues combined the cop show and the soap opera to set the model for primetime serial storytelling, which is evident in The Sopranos, The Wire, and Breaking Bad. In 1963, ABC's The Fugitive showed how an anthology series could tell a continuing tale, influencing The X-Files, House, and Fringe. In 1987, NBC's The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd changed the situation comedy into attitudinal comedy, leading to Weeds, Nurse Jackie, and Entourage. The DVD Novel: How the Way We Watch Television Changed the Television We Watch not only examines how American television shows changed, but also what television artists have been able to create. The book provides an alternate history of American television that compares it to British television, and explains the influence of Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective on the development of long-form television and the evolution of drama shows and sitcoms. The work considers a wide range of network and cable television shows, paying special attention to the work of Steven Bochco, David Milch, and David Simon, and spotlighting the influence of graphic novels and literary novels in changing television.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
• Seitenzahl: 256
• Altersempfehlung: ab 7 Jahre
• Erscheinungstermin: 6. Juli 2012
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780313385827
• Artikelnr.: 68183896

Autorenporträt

Greg Metcalf, PhD, is an artist and a scholar who teaches film, television, literature, modern art history, cultural history, popular culture, American humor, and sculpture at the University of Maryland, College Park, and art history at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction Because "Excuses" Sounds Too Defensive a Way to Start
Chapter One Television Is an Object and a Narrative Form
Chapter Two The Singing Detective and British Television
Chapter Three Steven Bochco and Too Many Stories
Not Enough Time
Chapter Four Stealing the Soap and Longform Network Television
Chapter Five Premium Blend Genre and Longform Network Television
Chapter Six Men Behaving Badly on Cable
Chapter Seven Comedy on Television
Chapter Eight Longform Comedy on Television
Chapter Nine Graphic Novels and DVD Novels
Chapter Ten David Milch and Television as Literature
Chapter Eleven David Simon and Fictional Nonfiction Television
Chapter Twelve Endings
Notes
Bibliography
Index