Broadcast drama and the problem of television aesthetics: home, nation, universe

Approaching the cultures of use: Netflix, disruption and the audience

“…We do have research that examines audience ‐ and consumption-related topics such as that on television and convergent media (Evans, 2011; Holt and Sanson, 2014; Sparviano et al, 2017) and the volume of research into the audiences of reality television goes back to the early 2000s (Andrejevic, 2004). Nonetheless, as Karen Lury suggests, and citing Helen Piper, television studies could invest more substantially in examining the ‘embedded everydayness’ (2016: 121) of television. There is more to be done in terms of finding ways to describe and understand the cultures of use that have developed around the multiple options now available to consumers through which their personalised practices of television consumption can be articulated to the structures of their everyday lives in their own domestic spaces (Bury, 2018).…”

Through the Gaps of My Fingers: Genre, Femininity, and Cringe Aesthetics in Dramedy Television

“…We demonstrate the coming together of these aesthetic and ideological practices in one specific feature of prestige dramedy, namely, the cringe comedy tradition’s mobilization through “complex” character portrayal. The terms complex television and complex characterization have become widely employed in television journalism and also lately in academia following Jason Mittell’s (2015b, 2015c) influential work on recent shifts in Western television culture’s aesthetic and narrative traditions; yet they also remain, along with the designation “quality” television, contested in scholarship for the inherent ideological—classed, gendered—value judgments they imply (e.g., Lagerwey and Nygaard 2016; Newman and Levine 2012; Piper 2016). While useful—and seemingly inescapable—as a concept to discuss the televisual trend, we indicate the term’s roots in popular discourses and its problematic ideological implications via the use of inverted commas throughout this article.…”

Wainwright's West Yorkshire: Affect and Landscape in the Television Drama of Sally Wainwright

“…Happy Valley (Donaldson 2016: 11) have seen the genre -particularly Nordic Noirdominate discussions of television drama's use of landscape (Roberts, 2016;Piper 2016). The programmes I discuss here share Nordic Noir's use of landscape imagery to signal mood and emotion, underscore emotional states, and create a distinct visual style (Marit Waade 2017: 388).…”

“…This freedom is signaled affectively and spatially in the closing sequence of season one, where Catherine's release from her emotional turmoil comes when she climbs a hill outside the town with her family. Following a memory montage that offers 'affective representation of her working through of the trauma' of narrative events (Piper 2016: 178), Catherine finally turns to tilt her face to the sun, positioned against the valley's hills in a 'Long Shot of Our Town From That Hill' (Higson 1984: 13): a prospect view. Her emotional release is signalled through spatial dynamics, yet this is not a sign of her desire for escape but, as Gorton argues, links her to place and a feeling of hope (2016: 82).…”

“…But I do place the storytelling and affective investment of these programme's under Wainwright's authorship, as she has been an executive producer on several of her works for RED and now increasingly directs these dramas. Recent academic work on Wainwright has sought to position her as one of the most significant creatives in contemporary television, tracing commonalities across Wainwright's dramas: an interest in working women and the social anxieties that surround them; the rendering of a distinctly classbased experience; the depiction of emotional labour; and the complexity of friendship and familial bonds (Gorton 2016;Piper 2016Piper , 2017McElroy 2017).…”