Wilcox and Lavery (2002) identify 9 defining characteristics of ‘quality TV’ – can you apply any of these to other television series that you have viewed recently? Are there any other characteristics that you could add to their list?
The memory system or continual effect is one of the most used techniques today. “On Buffy, . . . characters remember and we remember with them”, “ . . . the series has a real, palpable past.” (Wilcox and Lavery, 2002)“But what's truly extraordinary about "Buffy" is how the show keeps moving forward, how its characters continue to evolve”. (Millman, 2001)
This is quite a common characteristic most TV shows have today as every show now starts with a “Previously on . . .” it allows the audience to journey with the characters and their stories.
It also creates a new genre by mixing old ones together. “It's daring because it defiantly and lovingly takes its tone and shape from oft-dismissed genres like daytime soaps, gothic romances, Grade-B horror flicks and supernatural fantasies, and it elevates -- no, celebrates -- these misunderstood and mistreated pop art forms” (Millman, 2001). Shows like the vampire diaries and true blood followed in the footsteps of the Buffy series, with their gothic romances.
Quality TV is always aspiring to realism, we see that today with any kind of show on TV whatever genre it maybe, always has a sense of realism. Especially them teenage sitcoms that relate to real teens trying to grow up fast, or even them drama soaps that bring a sense of reality on relationships and family. Just about everything we watch today is aspired to realism. It’s effective because people can relate as it can be transferred into a real life situation.
Quality TV tends to carry a large ensemble cast - now I don’t completely agree with that. As there are successful TV dramas that have gone on for lengthy seasons, thou having a small cast like One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl the and now the new hit teenage remake of Teen Wolf.
Overall I think the characteristics they have listed are totally spot onHills, M. (2004). Defining Cult TV; Texts, Inter-texts and Fan Audiences, The Television Studies Reader, in R. C. Allen & A. Hill. London and New York: Routledge.
Wilcox, R. & Lavery, D. (2002). Introduction, in R. Wilcox & D. Lavery (eds) Fighting the forces: what’s at stake in Buffy the vampire slayer. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Sheldon you've just repeated the ideas in the text - take another look at the question and see if you can respond to it.It asks if you can apply any of the defining characteristics of quality TV to a television series that you have viewed recently?
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