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This article examines both the advantages and challenges of the ongoing serial narrative in contemporary American TV series. How did such series manage to spread beyond premium cable TV like HBO and Showtime to mainstream networks like ABC, despite the economic risks involved? How do such narratives...

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Main Author: Monica Michlin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Association Française des Enseignants et Chercheurs en Cinéma et Audiovisuel 2011-01-01
Series:Mise au Point
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/map/927
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author Monica Michlin
author_facet Monica Michlin
author_sort Monica Michlin
collection DOAJ
description This article examines both the advantages and challenges of the ongoing serial narrative in contemporary American TV series. How did such series manage to spread beyond premium cable TV like HBO and Showtime to mainstream networks like ABC, despite the economic risks involved? How do such narratives hook their audiences, and play with every convention from opening credits to the cliffhanger, from ensemble casts to subplots, in their reinvention of formulaic soap opera into sophisticated new soap? How do they avoid the pitfalls of too-obvious serial progression, disrupting their timeline, and renewing their aesthetics of surprise? How, in an attempt to satisfy very different viewer expectations, do they play on identification, reflexivity, metatextuality, and remediation to guarantee different levels of “engagement” with the series? Finally, if serialization is based on the desire for more, more, more, who determines when the story must end, and can there ever be a successful finale?
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institution Kabale University
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language English
publishDate 2011-01-01
publisher Association Française des Enseignants et Chercheurs en Cinéma et Audiovisuel
record_format Article
series Mise au Point
spelling doaj-art-0cd1e1666bb14825a4b1fe3c1f7d5e292024-12-09T15:59:50ZengAssociation Française des Enseignants et Chercheurs en Cinéma et AudiovisuelMise au Point2261-96232011-01-01310.4000/map.927More, More, MoreMonica MichlinThis article examines both the advantages and challenges of the ongoing serial narrative in contemporary American TV series. How did such series manage to spread beyond premium cable TV like HBO and Showtime to mainstream networks like ABC, despite the economic risks involved? How do such narratives hook their audiences, and play with every convention from opening credits to the cliffhanger, from ensemble casts to subplots, in their reinvention of formulaic soap opera into sophisticated new soap? How do they avoid the pitfalls of too-obvious serial progression, disrupting their timeline, and renewing their aesthetics of surprise? How, in an attempt to satisfy very different viewer expectations, do they play on identification, reflexivity, metatextuality, and remediation to guarantee different levels of “engagement” with the series? Finally, if serialization is based on the desire for more, more, more, who determines when the story must end, and can there ever be a successful finale?https://journals.openedition.org/map/927serializationnew soapepisodeseasoncontemporary TV series
spellingShingle Monica Michlin
More, More, More
Mise au Point
serialization
new soap
episode
season
contemporary TV series
title More, More, More
title_full More, More, More
title_fullStr More, More, More
title_full_unstemmed More, More, More
title_short More, More, More
title_sort more more more
topic serialization
new soap
episode
season
contemporary TV series
url https://journals.openedition.org/map/927
work_keys_str_mv AT monicamichlin moremoremore