UCL FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

In recent years, the television drama series has undergone radical development, both in terms of series-creators’ ambitions for the medium and the levels of expectation of the audience. Episodic storylines have increasingly expanded into season-long arcs, allowing for a far greater subtlety to narratives, which are no longer dependent upon satisfying the casual viewer. Instead changes in distribution – DVD boxsets, online viewing and cable networks such as HBO and AMC – have created a culture in which complexity is increasingly important to TV, impacting upon how one should create and watch a series.

This change has been mirrored by a rise in academic TV criticism, both of specific series and wider theories of television narrative. ‘“Complex TV”: television drama in the twenty-first century’ offers UCL graduate students and staff from across the Faculty of Arts and Humanities the opportunity to present on and discuss a medium which has garnered increasing acclaim but is frequently underrepresented in traditional academia.

The seminar series aims to address a range of TV drama series which have been significant in shaping the medium in the twenty-first century. Beginning with The Sopranos and concluding with Breaking Bad, the seminars will consider television series produced in Denmark, France, Israel, the UK and the USA, addressing the international phenomenon that the TV drama has become.

Seminars will all run from 6.00 - 8.00pm and will take the format of one or two 30-minute papers, followed by an hour's discussion. 

Refreshments will be provided.

For more information, please contact George Potts or join our facebook group.

Seminars: