ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the stylistic tendencies of complex serial drama, a critical perspective located within the field of ‘television aesthetics’. 1 While aesthetics are crucial to the examination of style, the chapter does not deal with the evaluative analysis that aesthetic criticism is considered to include. Instead, it investigates the aesthetic traditions and stylistic approaches deployed in the production of complex serials. As the chapter’s discussions appreciate, the aesthetics and style of complex serials are not distinctive to this form. Rather, the aesthetic traditions and stylistic approaches they deploy are indicative of the capacities of high-end TV drama more broadly. Yet complex serials have attained unusual creative opportunities and resources on the basis of their role as ‘prestige’ original fare devised to draw viewers to optional TV services for which, even if only a minimal charge, they must pay. In view of this ‘prestige’ role and the attendant investment and expectations, complex serials reside outside Frances Bonner’s definition of ‘ordinary’ television (2003: 29–63). Along with the elements of conceptual originality and narrative complexity examined in earlier chapters, the aesthetic and stylistic tendencies of complex serials provide an important manifestation of their status as ‘exceptional’ television.
