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Concept TV Concept TV An Aesthetics of Television Series Luca Bandirali and Enrico Terrone LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www .rowman .com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2021 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bandirali, Luca, 1973- author. | Terrone, Enrico, 1970- author. Title: Concept TV : an aesthetics of television series / Luca Bandirali and Enrico Terrone. Other titles: Filosofia delle serie TV. English Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021017911 (print) | LCCN 2021017912 (ebook) | ISBN 9781498597562 (cloth) | ISBN 9781498597579 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Television series—United States—History and criticism. | Television series—Philosophy. Classification: LCC PN1992.8.S4 B34513 2012 (print) | LCC PN1992.8.S4 (ebook) | DDC 791.45—dcundefined LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021017911 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021017912 ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. RL_00_CATS_PRELIMS_INFO_docbook_new_indd.indd 4 9/30/2021 2:53:08 PM Contents List of Figures vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1 The Problem: Supersize Narratives 5 2 The Solution: Conceptual Narratives 23 3 The Upshot: Engaging with Conceptual Narratives 57 Bibliography 111 Index 119 About the Authors 123 v List of Figures Figure 2.1 24 (Fox, 2001–2010) 32 Figure 2.2 Money Heist (Netflix, 2017–) 42 Figure 2.3 Homeland (Fox, 2015–2020) 50 Figure 2.4 Stranger Things (Netflix, 2016–) 56 Figure 3.1 Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (Netflix, 2018) 68 Figure 3.2 The Good Wife (CBS, 2009–2016) 71 Figure 3.3 Gomorrah (Sky Italia, 2014–) 77 Figure 3.4 Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011–2019) 90 Figure 3.5 Mad Men (AMC, 2007–2015) 102 Figure 3.6 BoJack Horseman (Netflix, 2014–2020) 106 vii Acknowledgments The authors want to thank Jana Hodges-Kluck, Holly Buchanan, and Sydney Wedbush, our editors for Lexington Books. Thanks also to the two refer- ees for Lexington Books, whose insightful comments have contributed to improve this book. The first chapter draws on material from the paper “Super Size Stories: Narrative Strategies in Contemporary TV Series” published in issue 11 of the journal Cinergie in 2017. Thanks to Roy Menarini, editor in chief of Cinergie, for allowing the use of those materials in this book. The authors would also like to thank Isabella Hernández for her help in preparing the final manuscript. Enrico Terrone would like to thank Mario Calderale, editor in chief of the journal Segnocinema, which has hosted several reviews of TV series that had been the starting point for the research that has led to this book. He also would like to thank Sara Guindani and Maurizio Ferraris for insightful comments on the talk “Pouvoir en serie. Images de la force et de la loi dans les nouveaux récits audiovisuels. De 24 heures chrono à House of Cards” which he gave on February 12, 2016, in the framework of “Cycle de conférences: Pouvoirs des images / Images de pouvoir,” organized by Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Paris et Département d’Arts de l’Université Paris 8. Luca Bandirali would like to thank Roberto De Gaetano (University of Calabria) for appreciating and encouraging this work since the beginning and Massimiliano Rossi (University of Salento) who read the work in progress and was generous with his feedback. He would also like to thank Alessia Cervini, Antioco Floris, and Marco Gargiulo for providing him opportunities to talk about Gomorrah at the 2018 conference “La forma cinematografica del reale. Teorie, pratiche, linguaggi: da Bazin a Netflix” in Palermo and at the 2019 conference “Lingue e linguaggi del reale” in Bergen. He also acknowledges Fabio Pollice and rector’s staff at University of Salento; ix