TV Drama in Transition: Forms, Values and Cultural Change

286 Pages·1997·28.17 MB·English

by  Robin Nelson (auth.)

TV DRAMA IN TRANSITION
Also by Robin Nelson
BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF: The Making of TV Drama (with
Bob Millington)
TV Drama in Transition
Forms, Values and Cultural Change
Robin Nelson
ISBN 978-0-333-67754-4 ISBN 978-1-349-25623-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-25623-5
First published in Great Britain 1997 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstokc, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-333-67753-7 hardcover
ISBN 978-0-333-67754-4 paperback
First published in the United States of America 1997 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-17276-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nelson, Robin.
TV drama in transition : forms, values, and cultural change I
Robin Nelson.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-17276-3 (cloth)
I. Television broadcasting-Social aspects-Great Britain.
2. Television programs-Great Britain-Evaluation. 3. Television
programs-United States-Evaluation. I. Title.
PN 1992.6.N47 1997
302.23'45'0941-dc21 96-47005
CIP
© Robin Nelson 1997
Reprint of the original edition 1997
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with
written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottcnham Court Road, London WI P 9HE.
Any person who docs any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
1098765 4 3
06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98
To Avril, without whom nothing
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of Abbreviations
X
Introduction 1
1 From Electronic Theatre to ... Cyberspace?
Technology and Televisual Form 10
2 Flexi-Narrative from Hill Street to Holby City:
Upping the Tempo; Raising the Temperature 30
3 Dislocations of Postmodernity: Transition in the
Political Economy of Culture 50
4 Signs of the Times? Heartbeat and Baywatch 73
5 1V Drama Forms: Tradition and Innovation;
Gradual (Un)realizations 99
6 Framing 'the Real': Oranges, Middlemarch, X-Files 125
7 The Public Stock of Harmless Pleasure: Pleasure,
Meanings, Responsibilities 158
8 Diverse Innovations: Radical 'Tec(h)s'; NYPD
Blue, Between the Lines, The Singing Detective 183
9 For What It's Worth: Problematics of Value
and Evaluation 209
10 Coda - Critical Postmodernism: Critical Realism;
Twin Peaks and Our Friends in the North 235
Appendix: Segment Breakdown of Casualty,
Episode 16 October 1993 249
Notes 254
References 265
Index 274
vii
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Sage Publications for permission to use in
Chapter 4 material which appeared (in another version: 'From
Twin Peaks, US, to Lesser Peaks, UK') in Media, Culture and
Society 18(4) October 1996. I am grateful to colleagues and
friends in the academy and media industries who have shared
their insights and made helpful suggestions on reading drafts
of the book. I should like particularly to thank Fred Inglis,
Bob Millington, Jane Jackson, Stuart Doughty and Richard
Pinner. In a book as wide-ranging as this, I have inevitably
drawn heavily on a number of sources. I trust that, in summariz
ing sometimes complex arguments, I have represented views
accurately. The good ideas are often other people's, the faults
are all mine.
ROBIN NELSON
ix
List of Abbreviations
BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
BBFC British Board of Film Censorship
BFI British Film Institute
cccs
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies
C4 Channel 4
CMT Country Music Television
HMSO Her Majesty's Stationery Office
lTV Independent Television
MTV Music Television
NHS National Health Service
OPEC Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
PSB Public Service Broadcasting
TV Television
vr Videotape
YIV Yorkshire Television
X
Introduction
In the future 'quality programmes' will depend less on a
nod and a nudge from a regulator and more on funds and
organisational structures that grow up alongside and within
a more conventional, internationalised, industry structure
(Mulgan, 1990: 30).
A repeated question about TV drama in the 1990s is that of
its ability in the future to equal the glories of its past. A pess
imism resounds in some quarters that increasing commercial
competition in a global market-place will dislocate and devalue
established traditions of excellence in Britain in particular. As
George Brandt reflects on the 1980s:
if some of the omens at the end of the decade are anything
to go by, [TV drama's] brightest moments of glory in the
eighties may prove to have been the golden glow of a setting
sun (1993: 17).
Such sentiments lead me to write this book. Not because I share
them, but to explore my own sense that, whilst TV drama has
changed markedly since its beginnings with some losses on the
way, current TV drama output is by no means all bad.
Acknowledging, then, that change may be for the better as
well as for the worse, a key idea, traced throughout this book,
is that of 'transition' in its title. Many aspects of television pro
duction and reception, as well as our understanding of these
processes, have changed. Series and serials, inclining to the for
mat of soaps, have undoubtedly displaced the single television
play as TV drama's dominant mode. But it is not only the forms
of the dramas that alter. New technologies continue to influence
television's qualities of sound and vision, and they also introduce
into the home competing electronic means of 'infotainment'
(video, computer games, CD-Rom). Accordingly, viewing habits
change. Many homes have more than one TV set, reducing
'family viewing' by allowing individuals to watch the channel
of their choice. Shifts in work and leisure patterns and other
social relations similarly have an impact on viewing, and broader
cultural change gives rise to new ways of seeing. Over the past
decade, deregulation of industry generally- and of television
1