srn2020oxford 26 Jul 2021 Panel 13, SVOD, TV series

Ianniello & Batty – Serial offenders? Defining the boundaries of series and serial television for screenwriting practice and theory

Marco Ianniello (University of Notre Dame, Sydney, Australia)

Craig Batty (University of South Australia, Adelaide)

Panel 13 – SERIAL TV DRAMA

Monday 13 September (Day 4), Session 1, 8 am

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1

JT Velikovsky on 9 Sep 2021 at 7:14 pm
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Thanks for this great paper, Marco and Craig… & also, for the article:

Ianniello, Marco and Batty, Craig (2021), ‘Serial offenders? Defining the boundaries of series and serial TV for screenwriting practice and theory’, Journal of Screenwriting, 12:1, pp. 55–74, doi: https://doi.org/10.1386/josc_00048_1

Important points you make, about evolving `industry vs scholarly’ definitions!

& I do like your revised taxonomy of the 3 modes of the drama serial:

“1. Drama serial: finite
2. Drama serial: infinite
3. Drama serial: franchise” (Ianniello & Batty 2021, p. 65)

Great stuff…!!

Also, a Q:

(& a Preamble to my Q – I see, in your great article, you mention:

`Landau briefly breaks down the entire series of `The Wire’ to identify each season’s ‘key theme and areas’ (2019: 78):
Season 1: Drugs
Season 2: Ports
Season 3: Politics
Season 4: Schools
Season 5: Media’ ((Ianniello & Batty 2021, p. 69)

My Question: Marco & Craig – Do you have a preferred definition of `Theme’ ?

P.S. – Why I ask – I also discussed “The problem of, The Definition of Theme” in my 2016 PhD (pp. 198-201), concluding that: “There does not appear to be a consensus on theme in the doxa of these four [popular, screenwriting, doxa, orthodoxy] manuals; more broadly there is little consensus on it anywhere to be found.” (The StoryAlity PhD, Velikovsky 2016, p. 201).

(& If of interest, the PhD-PDF is at: https://storyality.wordpress.com/my-phd-dissertation-free-online/
or, direct-download at: https://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:24940?view=null&f0=sm_identifier%3A%22http%3A%2F%2Fhdl.handle.net%2F1959.13%2F1324018%22&sort=null)

Thanks again for a great paper.

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2

Katri Manninen on 9 Sep 2021 at 8:31 pm
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I don’t hear a sound from the recording. Should there be one? I can hear the audio in other presentations. 🤔

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- 3
  
  srn2020oxford on 9 Sep 2021 at 9:00 pm
  Reply
  
  It works on my end. Have you checked your audio output source, Katri? Anybody else having the same issue?
  
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- 4
  
  Deborah Klika on 12 Sep 2021 at 9:12 pm
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  I couldn’t hear very well on a PC but could on a mac……………?
  
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5

Janet Staiger on 10 Sep 2021 at 8:10 pm
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Yes, thanks Marco and Craig. I agree that making distinctions among the types of “long-form” story-telling could be very helpful. You’ve set up your categories based on, I am understanding, narrative and characters. In terms of narrative, the issue is the development and resolution of a central plot question. Could you imagine (I am thinking you could) when a minor plot question which develops in one season of a program begins to become the dominant plot question in another? I am thinking of stories in which aspects of the central characters’ lives start to “dominant” the main attention for the serial. You mention “Line of Duty”; what looks in the first season to be basically a major plot question is resolved but along comes the “cop conspiracy” plot that sort of underlies crime solving in the next season until it is finally resolved in the last season (not to many of the audience members’ satisfaction). I’d say this is the case as well for the Belgium version of “Professor T.”
I’m not suggesting we wait until the serial is over to label. In fact, having a set of variables to observe and consider as the program progresses is likely useful.
Also, I see no attention in the presentation (maybe it is in the published essay) of distinguishing between “serial” and “series.” Are you (and this is okay, I’m just asking) considering these as equivalents?
Again, thanks. I enjoy the argument which I do think is helpful in sorting out variable sorts of narratives.

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6

Ian W.Macdonald on 11 Sep 2021 at 6:07 pm
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Thanks Marco and Craig for probing this area! I think you’re right to try and clarify terminology for academic use at least, and if it is useful also in practice, even better. I wonder, however, about the stability of these terms, not least because they might not apply in retrospect to earlier TV – ‘franchise’ was an unknown term until relatively recently (last 20 years?). Picking up Janet Staiger’s point about series and serial,: series was the common term in earlier years to define single episodes with the same set-up and character and different CDQ per episode, the key being it was self-contained each episode, e.g. Columbo, Man from Uncle, Lou Grant (RIP), within an overall umbrella framework. This was the common format, but there were many exceptions – The Fugitive had a long-running back story masquerading as a CDQ across the whole series, but each episode was self-contained. Many series (MoTW, Play for Today, Armchair Theatre, Outer Limits) were umbrellas/anthologies with not much linking each episodes, other than they might have a loose theme, e.g. relevance to modern society, alien invasions etc. You might describe Dr Who as a franchise now, but when it started it was a series of serials – each 4-episode serial was almost self-contained and the changeover usually involved the TARDIS moving to a different (story)world, and new CDQ. Dallas and Dynasty were described as soaps (i.e. open-ended serials), but filled prime time seasonal slots which were finite and known in advance, and it deliberately changed the infinite to the franchise, using your terms.

I’m welcoming your work in trying to pin down such terms, and I think there’s a lot of complexities (in a genre kind of way), which have to do with how the industry views/viewed the schedules, when creating narrative (complex or otherwise).

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7

Diego Sheinbaum on 13 Sep 2021 at 1:00 am
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Great discussion. I wonder if “infinite” is a good label, it seems like a misleading label. In strictly philosophical terms, all series are “finite”, they last only some years. I know that they seem as potentially infinite but, not all stories are in some way potentially infinite?

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SRN 2021

Ianniello & Batty – Serial offenders? Defining the boundaries of series and serial television for screenwriting practice and theory

READ ABSTRACT & BIOS

WATCH PRE-RECORDED PRESENTATION

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