‘Quality television’ as a critical obstacle: explanation and aesthetics in television studies

Renegotiating quality TV in the Swedish pressAmerican serial television and Sweden's post-monopoly television landscape

“…Anti-legitimation arguments à la Newman and Levine, Mittell (2015: 215) argues, tend to bracket off aesthetic issues altogether -hence his poetics of "complex TV" as an alternative approach meant to avoid "the categorical sweep" of both sides. My point is not to engage in these debates about the place of aesthetic analysis and evaluative criticism in television studies (see also Dasgupta, 2012;Johnson, 2007;Logan, 2016), or in the scholarly conversation about serial television, genre, and gender (see, e.g., Kackman, 2008;Mittell, 2015), but to make clear that this article's aim is to explore quality TV not as an aesthetic category, but as a label of distinction to be deconstructed and demystified -in this case, within the specific context of Swedish television culture.…”

The constructed quality of Israeli TV on Netflix: The cases of Fauda and Shtisel

“…This was a result of the constructed difference between the terms as bingeable TV content – for example, reality TV – is regarded as trashy and dangerously addictive, while so-called ‘complex TV’ content requires more thoughtful viewing (Hargraves, 2015). However, in the process of certain TV drama series becoming commercially viable while also attaining elevated cultural status (Logan, 2016: 147), the legitimation of binge watching was enforced through the concept of quality TV (Jenner, 2018: 161); in this way Netflix was also positioned as a producer of original quality TV (Jenner, 2018: 140). Moreover, Netflix stresses the way binge watching is a more sophisticated way of watching television, free of linear TV constraints and commercial time (Horeck et al, 2018).…”

Stylistic convergences between British film and American television: Andrew Haigh’s Looking

“…Elliott Logan identifies four ways in which quality television distinguishes itself and he implicitly states the liminality of the form: it ‘tests boundaries’ of the sociopolitical issues and language, sex and violence; it utilises cult audiences via its genre hybridity; it has a ‘“cinematic” mode of visual and aural presentation’ (which I will return to); and it utilises ‘ongoing storylines with varying degrees of density’ (Logan, 2016: 147–148). Logan argues that ‘at each of these levels, many shows have come to display a highly self-conscious reflexivity’ (Logan, 2016: 147–148). Finally, he states that with the emergence of quality television, there has been an emphasis on television authorship via the showrunner.…”