A Golden Age of Serial Drama
It’s almost three years since Kevin Spacey, speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, declared television to be ‘entering a new golden age’. His claim has since been much-quoted, if […]
Category Archives: Television
Second Series Syndrome
It’s a familiar headline in the world of television: a popular drama series, initially transmitted as a self-contained, start-to-finish story, finds itself recommissioned for a sequel. From Broadchurch to […]
Agatha Christie: Forever the Queen of Crime
My younger self wasn’t much of a reader. At the start of every summer holiday, I’d be forced by my Mum to the library, reluctant to take any books home […]
Inside the Anthology Series
Once associated with the early glory days of television, the anthology drama has lately experienced a welcome revival. The genre, sometimes known as a ‘portmanteau’, refers to a television series […]
The Biopic: Story of the Facts
Think of any remotely iconic individual of the last 200 years, and if their life hasn’t yet been dramatised for a major film, you can bet it’s on course to. […]
The Craze for Crime Fiction
If there was ever a genre of fiction that’s kept at the very height of fashion, it’s the whodunnit. Scout the shelves of any bookshop, scan the listings of the […]
BBC3 to Netflix: the Migration of Television
As part of its latest cost-cutting initiatives, the BBC today announced plans to draw the curtain on BBC Three and broadcast its content online. But while devoted viewers and celebrities […]
The Fascination with Nordic Noir
Like television’s answer to the Viking invasion, Scandinavian drama is triumphing in Britain. Ever since Stieg Larsson’s novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo became an international bestseller in 2008, our screens […]
The Culturist 