Cinematic TV series

Abstract

While some film theorists are talking about a presumed death of cinema, others discuss a second golden age for TV. The current study proposes an argument that contemporary television series (as a product of post-modernism) are benefiting from cinema's previous achievements in order to upgrade their quality. To illustrate this idea, selected scenes and episodes from some narrative quality TV series are textually analyzed and compared to film theories of the three main film traditions in cinema's history (classical, modern, and post-modern). The genres of these shows follow the formulaic distinctions of the film genres and hold a function of echoing dominant myths. The narrative complexity of such shows is complemented with non-linear narrative, and a narration that patterns the events in an out of chronological order manner and represents the subjectivities of the characters. These series have a visual style (mise-en-scène, cinematography, and editing) that is found to be communication intellectually in addition to prevailing story information. Therefore, an expressive artistic quality can be attributed to the cinematic TV series through providing a fantasmatic representation of reality. By that quality TV series, as a genre of TV, would be providing an escape from reality in a more economic friendly, time flexible, and comfortable way.