In this assignment, I will be discussing on the extent to which quality television drama is conceptually adventurous and narratively complex. The television drama which I have chosen to study these elements from is AMC’s The Walking Dead (2010-present). Using primarily on Jason Mittel’s journal, ‘Narrative Complexity in Contemporary American Television’ – along with Robert J. Thompson’s ‘Television’s Second Golden Age’ – as well as other appropriate scholarly research, I will further explore how narrative complexity and conceptual adventures qualifies the quality of television drama.
The image fades in establishing a shot of a clean and empty highway as a county police cruiser appears from the horizon. The camera pulls back – revealing several turnover vehicles – and we can see the county police cruiser stopping right next to an abandoned truck, before a man exits from the cruiser, followed by him putting on a hat and grabbing a fuel gauge from the trunk. For the next few seconds there is no sound except for the crickets and the birds. The man, dressed like a sheriff, now seen walking pass more abandoned vehicles scattered all around him, as he looks around seemingly trying to find (from what we can assume) fuel. The camera follows him at a distance as he looks into one of the abandoned vehicles, which cuts in closer to reveal a rotting corpse on the driver’s seat. The man stops when he finds a sign, flapping idly on a string, on it writes, “NO GAS”. In disappointment, the man turns and leaves. All of a sudden, a shuffling sound breaks through the silence surprising the man. He then looks underneath a car trying to locate where the sound was coming from. A girl with a pair of bunny slippers can be glimpsed a few rows away from wh...
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...or as long as is humanly possible…. The Walking Dead will be the zombie movie that never ends.
Even though there are differences between the comics and television series, but both still kept to the narrative form Kirkman envisioned for The Walking Dead to be. In the result of this form of narrative, however, audiences may probably be confused by the beginning of this episode and may endeavour to comprehend the narrative information presented to them as well. This form of narrative points to a trend in current American television – narrative complexity.
When one has to categorize television theoretically, the term ‘quality television’ will always be brought up. The importance of understanding this term has become even more crucial when many critics and television academic in institutes try to formulate lists to see defining features of broadcasts that qualifies
The Walking Dead is a television show produced by AMC based off the black and white comic books by Robert Kirkman. The show and comic book center around main character Rick Grimes as he learns to cope with life after waking up from a deadly wound into an outbreak of virus wielding undead creatures known as “walkers.” Over the course of season two and season three, the show starts to center around how Rick is able to command the group of survivors and the challenges they face trying to settle down in a safe area. They are confronted with another community nearby late in season three along with the increasing number of walkers in the area. While facing these challenges, the number of surviving members continues to dwindle; however, the minority ratio in the group remains below the average number of majority characters in the show.
The two TV shows which I have chosen for this topic are The Walking dead and Game of thrones.
Kirkman describes zombies as an infectious horror in order to establish a close relationship between zombies and contagions. One of the The Walking Dead’s most brilliant successes has been the characterization of the zombies , and it may be the secret of their popularity. In his book, The Walking Dead, Kirkman
One of the mediums by which this cultural shift has continually happened is through television. Not only does culture affect choices made by those in the television industry, but popular series and talk shows, whether intentionally or not, name what culturally acceptable regarding many social issues. Television, TV for short, is referring to the telecommunication medium by which ideas are transmitted into moving pictures. The Television industry will be defined as the group of brains behind the creating process of a television show of any genre. Genres each have their own purpose and effect on the audience; talk shows mean to engage, while sitcoms, drams, mini-series, and television comedies are meant to entertain. Regardless of its intentions, each genre of TV has an affect on the people who internalize what they are watching.
Showing the cause and effects of the growth in the use of the television is the purpose of this piece. Individuals do not grasp the full extent of the different areas that the TV has the ability to reach and even manipulate. These “dirty” our sources of truth by perfectly formed propaganda that is absorbed into every area of our lives as a “true” sense of reality or what life should look like.
Thus creating the Zombie. In the Walking Dead show, we are, take through step by step of watching people that we have seen transformed. Take for example in Season 1, Amy, Andrea’s sister, gets bitten and dies in Andrea’s hand, only to be brought back as a reanimated version of herself and put to rest by Andrea herself. We painfully watch the transition happen before our very eyes, working fast and killing the Amy that we have watch, and recreating a malformed version in her place. The Amy that we knew died when she was bitten and the Amy that was brought back to life was a new being looking for
"Disoriented", the one word Rick Grimes uses to describe the moments he has been through before reuniting with his family. In a world driven into a apocalypse, filled with the undead and anarchy, everyone's will and faith are tested. One will either be changed for worst or for the better. This essay will analyze the actions of Rick Grimes, present my ideas if I were in Ricks position, and to answer for the actions of one more character.
The problems presented on TV are only programs. Viewers are not paying attention to the real-life connections that programs like 24 show. Stevens argues that “[I]t isn’t a fictional program’s connection to real-life… events like torture and racial profiling one of the “social relationships” we should be paying attention to?” (296). Instead of doing that, the audience is focusing more on what it is going on screen, and they do not analyze the connection and the impact that those programs have in the society. Stevens pays more attention on the impact that generalizations of people have in society, on the contrary, Johnson focuses more on the structure that can help viewers become
Many American’s have been captivated by the television show The Walking Dead since it’s beginning on AMC. The show focuses on the post-apocalyptic world after a living dead outbreak. The show pushes the audience to predict how one might act during the end of the world. Throughout the series The Walking Dead illustrates the survival techniques of Glenn Rhee, Rick Grimes, and Daryl Dixon. Each character on the show depicts very different lifestyle decisions in order to survive. The Walking Dead brings each character to life in a new and refreshing way allowing the audience to feel as though they are in the characters shoes.
Steven Johnson wrote an article for the New York Times in which he argues that back in the days, television shows use to have a very simple plot which was easy to follow without too much attention. It was just an other way to sit back and relax. However, throughout the years, viewers grew tired of this situation and demanded more complex plot lines with multiple story lines that related to recent news topics. He takes the example of the television show “24”. “24” is known for being the first show which its plot occurs in “real-time”, it is also known for not censuring the violence of its topics. It is a drastic change from what Johnson states as an example “Starsky and Hutch” where basically each episodes was only a repetition of the last one. Johnson also believes that there is a misconception of the mass culture nowadays where people think the television viewer wants dumb shows which in response makes them dumber. Johnson does not agree, for him, television shows such as “24” are “nutritional”. He also states that sm...
...ps off the page and into the minds of its readers. Just like a child’s imagination, the reader’s imagination is allowed to be free, their life experiences intermingling with those on the page, to where one is not able to tell which is real and which is fiction. The lead characters of both The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks, leave a lasting impression on their readers due to the strength of the lead characters. Readers are strengthened by those characters and their resolve to survive, no matter what obstacles may wind up in their paths. What is more, these pieces allow their readers to realize that, while these characters are strong and resilient, the simple truth is that they are human and flawed, but still willing to push forward as an example to others, both in the novel and in the target audience.
The Walking Dead, a television show about surviving in the zombie world, is based on the comic book with the same name created by Robert Kirkman. In this show Rick Grimes, a sheriff's deputy, awakes from his coma and finds himself in a hospital. He soon discovers that while he was in a coma the world had become infected, turning humans into flesh-eating zombies later called Walkers by the characters. As Rick sets out to find his family he encounters many other survivors such as Glenn, Daryl, Carl, Maggie, Carol, Sasha, Hershel, Beth, and Michonne, among many others who have died along the way. Rick and the survivors have been through a lot throughout the show, such as having to move from place to place to avoid being eating by walkers. After walking a longs way, they finally find shelter in an old prison where they now live. Although The Walking Dead shows a lot violence, it sends many positive messages to the viewers that teach them about survival, religion and betray and how each of these can be beneficial in the real world
A series allows for broader representations, therefore a lot more criticism on the postmodern world. The Walking Dead’s ‘walkers’ as the character refer to them on the show, are fictional terrorists - people killing people, except their aims do not go past this, similar to a lot of terrorists in 2017. The media did not hesitate to call Salman Abedi a terrorist. Abedi was killed in the Manchester massacre, hence his intentions were never revealed. To compare, Stephen Paddock who is responsible for the Las Vegas shooting could not be labelled as a terrorist because “We still do not have a clear motive or reason why.” The definition of terrorist does not apply only to ‘Muslims’ howbeit to anyone. It is merely a stereotype that is rapidly corrupting the world. This is the same reason we enjoy zombie movies without contradiction. Terrorism is the second greatest fear in America while zombies are the least according to a Chapman University extensive survey. Zombies are fictional, as one grows up they can separate the real from the fake. Although we are still scared of them, meaning there has to be some truth. Yes, they are brain-eating monsters but they also embody a real life ordeal that we are facing greatly in reality. In The Walking Dead, an audience sees rotting facial features and thinks inhumane, dead. What we fail to notice is the dress codes. They wear everyday clothing.
“A Cultural Approach to Television Genre Theory” argues that the application of film and literary genre theory do not fully translate when analyzing television, because of “the specific industry and audience practices unique to television, or for the mixture of fictional and nonfictional programming that constitutes the lineup on nearly every TV channel. 2” The goal of media genre studies, Mittell asserts, is to understand how media is arranged within the contexts of production and reception, and how media work to create our vision of the world.
Over the last few years there have been many controversies over the invasion of privacy of individuals online. Many are not aware of how easily the government can obtain access to their personal information through their devices when they use the internet or simply use phones, as well as what type of protection is offered to them. People go through their daily lives without realizing the risk they may face and that their personal information can be in the hands of others without consent being granted. However the effects of online surveillance are quite more complex than what we’d expect them to be. Many are not aware of what the consequences of such behavior done by organizations like the NSA are. The surveillance actions that take place by the government are unethical because they invade the privacy of individuals by accessing and retaining personal information without their consent. Furthermore, they try to access this information