Posts Tagged ‘breaking bad’
Complex TV: Serial Melodrama
So. For those readers who have been following my book-in-progress Complex TV, you may have noticed a lengthy hiatus since I last posted a chapter. Not coincidentally, the last chapter I posted was in August 2012, shortly before returning to the classroom after my sabbatical. Since then, my writing process has stalled considerably, in large […]
Filed under: Complex TV, Genre, MediaCommons, Narrative, Representations, Television, TV History, TV Shows | 2 Comments
Tags: breaking bad, friday night lights, Lost, melodrama, soap opera, the good wife, The Wire, Veronica Mars
Last night’s Breaking Bad episode, “Dead Freight,” offers an interesting example of a phenomenon I’ve termed “surprise memory,” or the narrative effect of being surprised by something you know but have forgotten (or more accurately, allowed to be archived from your working memory). I discuss it in the latest chapter of Complex TV about Comprehension – here’s […]
Filed under: Complex TV, Narrative, Television, TV Shows, Viewers | 7 Comments
Tags: breaking bad, narrative comprehension, surprise
Skyler’s Story
One part of Breaking Bad‘s new season 5 that I’m finding most impressive is Skyler’s development. This is by no means a consensus opinion, as Skyler has long been the target of many Breaking Bad fans’ ire. TV critic Alyssa Rosenberg has pushed back against this hatred of antihero wives, and highlighted how Walter White is an abuser, […]
Filed under: Narrative, Television, TV Shows | 25 Comments
Tags: breaking bad, character
Complex TV: Character
My time in Germany is almost up, as we return to Vermont in early July. It’s been a productive writing year, with around 80% of Complex TV completed and a few other projects underway. Here is the last chapter of Complex TV to be posted from Germany, with the remaining chapters emerging over the Vermont summer. This one […]
Filed under: Complex TV, MediaCommons, Narrative, Television, TV Shows | Leave a Comment
Tags: angel, breaking bad, dexter, Game of Thrones, Lost, The Sopranos
Complex TV: Evaluation
It’s time for another chapter of Complex TV – this one focuses on questions of evaluation in television scholarship. Here’s the abstract: Television studies, as forged by the influence of cultural studies, has been loath to include critical evaluation in its toolbox, as television’s own spot on the receiving end of numerous aesthetic condemnations has […]
Filed under: Academia, Complex TV, Media Studies, Narrative, Taste, Television, TV Shows | Leave a Comment
Tags: breaking bad, Mad Men, The Wire
I finished watching the second season of Game of Thrones last night, which I enjoyed, but liked less than the first season (no spoilers forthcoming if you’re not caught up yet). I think a large part of that distinction came from how I watched them – like many, I came to season one late, bingeing on […]
Filed under: Narrative, Television, TV Shows | 10 Comments
Tags: breaking bad, Days of Our Lives, Game of Thrones, Lost, Mad Men, quantitative analysis, Scenes per Hour, soap opera, The Wire
It’s time for another chapter of Complex TV to go live on MediaCommons Press—this time, the topic is Transmedia Storytelling. It builds on work I have done in recent years about how television narratives expand into other media, especially around Lost and its ARGs, but very few of the chapter’s ideas have been published elsewhere. As […]
Filed under: Complex TV, Fandom, MediaCommons, Narrative, New Media, Television, TV Industry, TV Shows, Videogames, Viewers | 1 Comment
Tags: breaking bad, Lost, transmedia
Complex TV: Authorship
I’m happy to announce that the next chapter of Complex TV has been posted. It’s focused on Authorship in contemporary serial television, and I think it’s all never-before-published material. I’ve been giving a talk based on this chapter for this spring, and have been really happy with the conversation it provokes – and I do intend […]
Filed under: Books, Complex TV, MediaCommons, Narrative, Television, TV Industry, TV Shows, Viewers | Leave a Comment
Tags: authorship, breaking bad, buffy, community, Lost, The Wire
Over the past day, the internet – well, at least the corner of the internet that chatters and Twitters about television – blew up around Ryan McGee’s essay on The A.V. Club, provocatively titled “Did The Sopranos do more harm than good?: HBO and the decline of the episode.” It’s a must-read for people who are […]
Filed under: Narrative, Television, TV Shows | 19 Comments
Tags: breaking bad, flash forward, The Killing, The Sopranos, The Wire, Walking Dead
Best TV of 2011
Being in Germany since August, I feel quite detached from American television, even though that’s what I’m here to write and talk about. I’ve found ways to access the shows that I’m missing, but without the ease of my TiVo and the television schedule matching my timezone, I’m definitely watching less, and therefore more selectively. […]
Filed under: Taste, Television, TV Shows | 5 Comments
Tags: archer, Best of, bob's burgers, breaking bad, community, cougar town, doctor who, enlightened, friday night lights, Game of Thrones, happy endings, justified, louie, men of a certain age, parks & recreation, revenge, south park, the good wife, treme
This is a busy week for the Popular Seriality group I’m working with here in Göttingen. First, we took over In Media Res for a series of posts about seriality – my own contribution was on Wednesday, focused on Breaking Bad and how it constructs character interiority through serial memory. Head over and join the conversation! […]
Filed under: Academia, Media Studies, Narrative, Taste, Television, TV Shows | 5 Comments
Tags: aesthetics, breaking bad, evaluation, quality television, The Wire
Best TV of 2010: The Top Tier
Last year, I skipped my annual Best Of list for a collection of decade-bests. Since we’re arbitrarily back to thinking annually this year, here’s a look back on the TV highs of 2010. I’m not interested in forcing everything into clear rankings, so like my decade lists, I’ll divide it into tiers – the Top […]
Filed under: Taste, Television, TV Shows, Videogames | 1 Comment
Tags: breaking bad, louie, parks & recreation, red dead redemption, terriers
Rewatching Breaking Bad
As the summer wanes, it’s my annual time to look back at all the things I failed to accomplish. It’s been an excellent summer, marked by quality family time, enjoyable trips, house projects, and general low-stress fun (including a successful immersion into the best videogame I’ve played in a long time, Red Dead Redemption). But […]
Filed under: Narrative, Television, TV Shows | 2 Comments
Tags: breaking bad
As I mentioned in my last post, I’m approaching my Best Television of the Aughts in top-down order, rather than the more conventional bottom-up reveal. A few other parameters for my list: I’m not segmenting by genre like other critics, mostly because I don’t want to haggle over some shows that straddle the comedy/drama line, […]
Filed under: Television, TV Shows | 5 Comments
Tags: Arrested Development, best of the decade, breaking bad, colbert, daily show, Sopranos
I’ve got a few random thoughts that have been piling up without sufficient mass to justify a full post. So here’s a compilation of stuff passing through my mind, Larry King style. – I’ve not tried to do a full account or analysis of the network upfronts or planned 2009-10 season. But in reading about […]
Filed under: Television, TV Industry, TV Shows | Leave a Comment
Tags: breaking bad, in treatment, pushing daisies, up
