Now that television shows can live forever as DVD sets, the stories they can tell have changed; television episodes are now crafted as chapters in a season-long novel instead of free-standing stories. This book examines how this significant shift in storytelling occurred.
In 1981, NBC's
Hill Street Blues
combined the cop show and the soap opera to set the model for primetime serial storytelling, which is evident in
The Sopranos
,
The Wire
, and
Breaking Bad
. In 1963, ABC's
The Fugitive
showed how an anthology series could tell a continuing tale, influencing
The X-Files
House
Fringe
. In 1987, NBC's
The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd
changed the situation comedy into attitudinal comedy, leading to
Weeds
Nurse Jackie
Entourage
.
The DVD Novel: How the Way We Watch Television Changed the Television We Watch
not only examines how American television shows changed, but also what television artists have been able to create.
The book provides an alternate history of American television that compares it to British television, and explains the influence of Dennis Potter's
The Singing Detective
on the development of long-form television and the evolution of drama shows and sitcoms. The work considers a wide range of network and cable television shows, paying special attention to the work of Steven Bochco, David Milch, and David Simon, and spotlighting the influence of graphic novels and literary novels in changing television.