The DVD Novel: How the Way We Watch Television Changed the Television We Watch

by Greg Metcalf

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313385827
Publisher:	ABC-CLIO, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/06/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	231
File size:	363 KB

About the Author

Greg Metcalf, PhD, is an artist and a scholar who teaches film, television, literature, modern art history, cultural history, popular culture, American humor, and sculpture at the University of Maryland, College Park, and art history at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Because "Excuses" Sounds Too Defensive a Way to Start ix

Chapter 1 Television is an Object and a Narrative Form 1

Chapter 2 The Singing Detective and British Television 15

Chapter 3 Steven Bochco and Too Many Stories, Not Enough Time 37

Chapter 4 Stealing the Soap and Longform Network Television 63

Chapter 5 Premium Blend Genre and Longform Network Television 81

Chapter 6 Men Behaving Badly on Cable 97

Chapter 7 Comedy on Television 121

Chapter 8 Longform Comedy on Television 135

Chapter 9 Graphic Novels and DVD Novels 155

Chapter 10 David Milch and Television as Literature 167

Chapter 11 David Simon and Fictional Nonfiction Television 187

Chapter 12 Endings 205

Notes 215

Bibliography 221

Index 223

What People are Saying About This

George Plasketes

"Greg Metcalf’s conceptualization is current, if not cutting edge; the research exhaustive; and the writing refreshing, smart, and engaging. Metcalf makes fascinating connections throughout, deftly weaving historical, technological, commercial and creative contexts. The book, and Metcalf's casually brilliant narrative, have broad appeal from the academic sphere to the popular intelligentsia to the casual TV episode devotee."