Journal of Popular Television, The - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2013

English-born, American television celebrity chef Dione Lucas, toured Australia in 1956, 1958 and 1960, each time sponsored by The Australian Women’s Weekly (AWW), a magazine that at that time boasted weekly sales of 750,000 copies. On the surface, Lucas’s 1956 Australian visit is in line with the magazine’s practice of bringing high profile international guests to Australia to promote the magazine and increase sales. But there was a more compelling reason for her to travel to Australia. With the launch of television just weeks away, and the knowledge that women controlled 90 per cent of household spending, her cooking demonstrations were closely linked to the promotion of the sale of television sets and television viewing. This article uses a culinary lens along with archival material, magazine and newspaper articles and personal stories to add Lucas’s cooking demonstrations, and Australian women, and their interest in cooking, to the history of the start of television in Australia. It thus challenges the static narratives, about both this event and the 1950s housewife, embedded in our popular memory.

The starting point of the critical discourse developed in the article is the current celebration of (a certain kind of) American series, which having gained huge cultural and aesthetic cachet due to a set of generic features, have turned into the epitome of ‘quality TV’ and monopolize scholarly attention and investigation. In this connection, I make the claim that television studies are at risk of validating processes of unilateral canonization which end up overshadowing the range of different conceptions and traditions of quality that exist in different televisual cultures. The Italian case is emblematic of the role assumed by American television in supplying the touchstone against which the value of domestic TV drama is tested, appraised and placed in the cultural hierarchy of contemporary media art forms. The enthusiastic embrace of US quality TV within academic and intellectual circles has in fact entailed disregard and rejection of the peculiar ‘tradition of quality’ that Italian TV drama has built over the years on the grounds of a public service ethos.

This article explores the narrative construction of the episode entitled ‘The Voice’ in the context of the show Seinfeld from 1989 to 1998 (NBC), and that of the wider genre of the sitcom, as well as notions of female/male subjectivity. I first argue that the narrative structure of the episode (as well as that of the entire series since several references to other episodes will be made) reverses the classic Hollywood narrative progression. Second, I show that even though Seinfeld maintains many classic conventions, such as suture, and restrictions on the female body and voice, a unique, shifting (female) subjectivity still emerges.

In this article, I argue that, despite arguments to the contrary, Mad Men (2007–) powerfully reflects the realities of a racialized America. From the very first episode, the characters, the actors and the script of Mad Men are haunted by race. First, the characters’ identities are called into being by the black figures who inhabit the edges of their consciousness. Second, the performances of the actors are haunted by a history of racialized representation. Third, the script of Mad Men is haunted by political events that manifest as psychic disturbance. This last form of haunting mirrors the audience’s own experiences with a history of race in America, and, in the end, it evokes a painful knowledge of a history of racial violence.

This article traces the main concepts in the so-called production dogmas of the in-house drama department DR Fiction at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), which has recently produced acclaimed series such as Forbrydelsen/The Killing (2007–2012) and Borgen (2010–2013). The idea of putting the writer at the centre of the production process based on the concept of ‘one vision’ is highlighted as important to understanding the nature of the series from DR. The article discusses the concepts of public service ‘double storytelling’, organizing production based on notions of ‘crossover’ between the film and TV industry and ‘producer’s choice’. The article argues that while the strong talent behind the series and contextual aspects such as the recent interest in ‘Nordic Noir’ and new scheduling strategies for subtitled content by UK broadcaster BBC4 are important for understanding the international interest, major changes in the mode of production at DR Fiction since the late 1990s also need to be included in the understanding of the choice of content, the look and the recent success of several Danish series.

This article tracks the uncanny locations of The Killing (2007–2012), relating them to place, space and atmosphere, putting bits and pieces from the topographic puzzle together with cues from the symbolic space in order to see how they fit into the overall pattern of Nordic Noir. In The Killing, the abstract level of space and atmosphere meets the concrete level of place, both influencing the notion of location.

This meeting, I suggest, has contributed towards the simultaneous domestic and international appeal of The Killing.

The article compares and contrasts the reception of DR’s political drama series Borgen (2010–13) in Denmark and Germany. Whilst German audiences are au fait with a number of Danish primetime drama series, public opinion of the shows can diverge considerably. One such example is the reception of Borgen. Even if the critics’ reaction was for the most part positive in both countries, reviews differ in tone and content. Among other issues, this is particularly apparent when critics relate the drama to a much broader discussion of public service broadcasting.

This article looks at the success of Danish drama imports on BBC Four from the specific perspective of public service broadcasting’s definition in the globalized era. It argues that the presentation of the service offered by BBC Four to the national audience has come to be significantly inflected by its importation strategy in such a way that openly co-opts, rather than resists or obscures, cross-border flows. While the BBC faces budgetary cuts and a statutory obligation to avoid bidding wars for imported content, their Danish equivalent Danmarks Radio (DR) offers a source of affordable and consistent drama. The article looks first at the institutional and economic characteristics of DR to show how these imports are formed with both the international market and public service intentions as central concerns. It then demonstrates, by drawing on interviews with BBC acquisitions personnel and press coverage, how these imports have been framed in such a way that ensures their integration with the explicit ‘public purpose’ of BBC Four’s remit.

In this article, the authors argue that the relative success in Great Britain of Danish television drama series marks an interesting shift in both the British and Danish context. In Denmark, it marks a shift in television’s drama production in which the exoticism of the Danish settings, landscapes, light, climate, language and everyday life become promotional tools when marketing the productions internationally, hence internationalizing Danish television drama production from within. In Great Britain, the success of the Danish series has paved the way for an unprecedented increase in subtitled foreign television drama, which arguably represents a cultural mark-up in the minds of British audiences and critics alike, hence internationalizing British television from without. Consequently, the Danish series’ success in Great Britain and beyond also tentatively challenges long-held ‘truths’ about media globalization and the perceived dominance of anglophone audio-visual industries and content.

In this brief overview of The Killing’s American reception, I consider the series’ rise and fall in critics’ eyes and relate these changing perceptions to expectations rooted in AMC’s brand, AMC’s promotional campaign, and the discourse of basic cable drama. I argue that rather than searching for an explanation of The Killing’s ‘failure’, it is more productive to consider this perceived failure as indication of a gap between critics’ expectations and The Killing’s challenge to the narrative structure of the masculinized prime time drama.

Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status, Michael Z. Newman and Elana Levine (2012) New York: Routledge, 232 pp., ISBN: 9780415880251, h/bk, $150.00; ISBN: 9780415880268, p/bk, $36.95

1950s ‘Rocketman’ TV Series and Their Fans: Cadets, Rangers, and Junior Space Men, Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper (eds) (2012) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 270 pp., ISBN: 9780230377318, h/bk, $90

Television, Sex, and Society: Analyzing Contemporary Representations, Basil Glynn, James Aston and Beth Johnson (eds) (2012) London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 196 pp., ISBN: 9780826434982, p/bk, $24

Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom: Essays on the BBC Series, Louisa Ellen Stein and Kristina Busse (eds) (2012) Jefferson: McFarland, 241 pp., ISBN: 0786468181, p/bk, $40.

Television, Memory and Nostalgia, Amy Holdsworth (2011) London: Palgrave Macmillan, 192 pp., ISBN 9780230245983, hbk, £50.

The Name of the Scholar

The Humanism of Doctor Who: A Critical Study in Science Fiction and Philosophy, David Layton (2012) Jefferson: McFarland, 364 pp. ISBN: 9780786466733, p/bk, $40

The Doctor’s Monsters: Meanings of the Monstrous in Doctor Who, Graham Sleight (2012) London: I.B. Tauris, 256pp, ISBN: 9781848851788, p/bk, £12.99