Complexity / simplicity: Moments in television 9781526148766

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Complexity / simplicity

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series editors jonathan bignell sarah cardwell lucy fife donaldson already published Paul Abbott  beth louise johnson Alan Bennett  kara mckechnie Alan Clarke  dave rolinson Jimmy McGovern  steve blandford Andrew Davies  sarah cardwell Tony Garnett  stephen lacey Trevor Griffiths  john tulloch Troy Kennedy Martin  lez cooke David Milch  jason jacobs Terry Nation  jonathan bignell and andrew o’day Jimmy Perry and David Croft  simon morgan-russell Lynda La Plante  julia hallam Jack Rosenthal  sue vice Joss Whedon  matthew pateman TV antiquity  sylvie magerstädt You’re nicked  ben lamb

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Edited by Sarah Cardwell, Jonathan Bignell and Lucy Fife Donaldson

Complexity / simplicity Moments in television

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Manchester University Press 2022

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While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN  978 1 5261 4875 9  hardback First published 2022 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Contents

List of figures page vii Notes on contributors ix The Television Series: general editors’ preface xii Moments in Television, the collections: editors’ preface xiv Acknowledgements xviii Introduction: complexity / simplicity Sarah Cardwell, Jonathan Bignell and Lucy Fife Donaldson

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1 ‘WTF June?’: The Handmaid’s Tale and the significance of unexpected choice 16 Trisha Dunleavy 2 Being Frank? Breaking the ‘fourth wall’ in Netflix’s House of Cards 39 Christa van Raalte and Maike Helmers 3 ‘You’ve got to expect this kind of thing in the priesthood’: simplicity and complexity in Father Ted 61 Karen Quigley 4 Depth in two dimensions: complex/simple moments in Rick and Morty 84 James Walters 5 Simplicity and complexity in the costuming of Killing Eve 104 Josette Wolthuis 6 Complexity and clear-sightedness in The Wire 126 James Zborowski

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vi Contents 7 Such schadenfreude: unpacking the political satire in Veep 143 Michael P. Young 8 Queer adventures in time and space: complicating simplicity in Doctor Who 167 Benedict Morrison 9 Vanity Fair and the contradictions of colour 192 Jonathan Bignell 10 The value of simplicity: The Long Wait 216 Sarah Cardwell Index 240

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List of figures

1.1 2.1

2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 7.1 7.2 7.3 8.1

The Handmaid’s Tale (2017–present) Offred/ June prepares to return to Gilead. 34 House of Cards (2013–18) Manufacturing consent? Frank keeps his co-conspirators on board.47 House of Cards (2013–18) The operational aesthetic: Frank sharpens the blade of martyrdom. 52 House of Cards (2013–18) Metanarrative and metaphor: Frank stalks the corridors of power. 56 Father Ted (1995–98) Ted and the nuns. 65 Father Ted (1995–98) Lost in the lingerie section.68 Killing Eve (2018–present) Villanelle confronts Niko in Oxford. 109 Killing Eve (2018–present) Eve has put a hit out on herself for Villanelle to kill her. 115 Killing Eve (2018–present) Villanelle has a moment of introspection in Amsterdam. 119 Killing Eve (2018–present) Villanelle/Oksana’s mother gives her a denim jumpsuit in Russia. 120 Veep (2012–19) Helsinki. 146 Veep (2012–19) Special relationship – and that hat.150 Veep (2012–19) Selina makes it to the Oval Office.158 Doctor Who (1963–89) Genre signifiers in ‘The Gunfighters’.174

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8.2

List of figures

Doctor Who (1963–89) Widescreen television spectacle in ‘The Gunfighters’. 176 8.3 Doctor Who (1963–89) A tight frame in ‘The Gunfighters’.177 9.1 Vanity Fair (1967) ‘The Famous Little Becky Puppet’.198 9.2 Vanity Fair (1967) Tight two-shot in a set representing Amelia’s carriage. 201 9.3 Vanity Fair (1967) The filmed set-piece of the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. 206 10.1 The Long Wait (2011) Triangles and swings. 227 10.2 The Long Wait (2011) Making magic. 230 10.3 The Long Wait (2011) The time has come. 233

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Notes on contributors

Jonathan Bignell is Professor of Television and Film at the University of Reading. He is a General Editor (with Sarah Cardwell and Lucy Fife Donaldson) of Manchester University Press’s ‘The Television Series’, which he co-founded with Cardwell, and co-editor of the ‘Moments in Television’ collections. Jonathan’s writing often combines historiographic work with analysis of the audiovisual forms and style of TV programmes and films. His most recent monograph was Beckett on screen: the television plays (Manchester University Press, 2009) and he is the author of over fifty articles and chapters, including contributions to the journals Adaptation, Critical Studies in Television, the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Media History and Screen. Sarah Cardwell is Honorary Fellow in the School of Arts at the University of Kent. She is a General Editor (with Jonathan Bignell and Lucy Fife Donaldson) of Manchester University Press’s ‘The Television Series’, which she co-founded with Bignell, and co-editor of the ‘Moments in Television’ collections. Sarah’s research within television aesthetics and adaptation studies is characteristically inspired by analytic philosophical aesthetics. She is the author of Adaptation revisited (2002) and Andrew Davies (2005) (both Manchester University Press), as well as numerous articles and papers on literary adaptation, contemporary British literature and television aesthetics, and she is an Editorial Adviser to Critical Studies in Television. Lucy Fife Donaldson is Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews. She is a General Editor (with founding editors Sarah Cardwell and Jonathan Bignell) of Manchester University Press’s ‘The Television Series’ and co-editor of the ‘Moments in Television’

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collections. Lucy’s research focuses on the materiality of style and the body in popular film and television. She is the author of Texture in film (Palgrave, 2014), co-editor of Television performance (Red Globe Press, 2019) and a member of the editorial boards of Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism and MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture. Trisha Dunleavy is Associate Professor in Media Studies, at Te Rerenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research interests centre on television, in which the focal areas are high-end TV drama and related forms, television institutions and industries, and both transnational and national screen production cultures. Her major publications are Ourselves in primetime: a history of New Zealand television drama (Auckland University Press, 2005), Television drama: form, agency, innovation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), New Zealand film and television: institution, industry and cultural change, with Hester Joyce (Intellect, 2011) and Complex serial drama and multiplatform television (Routledge, 2018). Maike Helmers trained as an Assistant Film Editor and Sound Editor with the Film Department of the British Broadcasting Corporation, where she contributed to a number of award-winning documentaries, drama series and features. Subsequently, Maike became a Senior Lecturer at Bournemouth University, teaching Editing and Sound Design to MA students for over two decades. Her research interest in sound, cinema and aesthetics informed her PhD thesis: New narrative frame – sound design and conceptual storytelling in German film 1930–1933. Maike is now an independent researcher, focusing on the confluence of editing and sound in shaping filmic narrative. Benedict Morrison is Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Exeter. His research is particularly focused on theories and histories of queer film and television. His book Complicating articulation in art cinema was published by Oxford University Press in 2021. He is currently working on a reading of queer eccentricity in postwar British comedy. He is also a member of an eco-queer collective which explores the intersections of queer theory and ecology. Karen Quigley is Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York, UK. Her research on a range of subjects including unstageable stage directions, site-specific performance pedagogy and solo spectatorship has been published in European Drama and Performance Studies, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English and Theatre, Dance



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and Performance Training. Her first monograph, Performing the unstageable: success, imagination, failure was published by Bloomsbury in February 2020. Christa van Raalte is Associate Professor in Film and Television, and Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University. She gained her BA in English from Oxford and her MA in Cultural and Textual Studies from Sunderland, where she also completed her PhD: Women and guns in the post-war Hollywood western. Current research interests include constructions of gender in science fiction and action films, narrative strategies in complex TV, and workforce diversity in the media industries. James Walters is Reader in Film and Television Studies at the University of Birmingham. His books include Alternative worlds in Hollywood cinema (Intellect, 2008), Fantasy film (Bloomsbury, 2011), the BFI TV Classic on The Thick of It (2016) Film moments (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) (with Tom Brown) and Television performance (Red Globe Press, 2019) (with Lucy Fife Donaldson). Josette Wolthuis is Lecturer in Television and Cross-media Culture at the University of Amsterdam. She received her PhD in Film and Television Studies from the University of Warwick in 2020. Her research focuses on costume and fashion in serial television drama, alongside other matters of television history, style and aesthetics. Michael P. Young is a native New Yorker with an insatiable wanderlust who has finally completed his PhD in the Department of Film, Theatre and Television at University of Reading. His research interests include television aesthetics, German Romanticism, analytic philosophy, film studies and meandering around foreign locales looking for beautiful things. He is currently working on contemporary models of the feminine in American television thrillers in-between naps and figuring out which plants attract butterflies. James Zborowski is Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Hull. He is the author of Classical Hollywood cinema: point of view and communication (Manchester University Press, 2016). In the field of television studies he has published work on Coronation Street, Ghostwatch, The Royle Family, The Simpsons, The Wire, property programmes and the work of Sally Wainwright.

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The Television Series: general editors’ preface

Television is part of our everyday experience and is one of the most significant features of our cultural lives today. Yet its practitioners and its artistic and cultural achievements remain relatively unacknowledged. The books in this series aim to remedy this via three distinct strands. The first and largest strand addresses the work of major television writers and creators. The second addresses key television genres. Each book provides an authoritative and accessible guide that focuses on a particular practitioner’s output, or a body of related works, and assesses the significance of its contribution to television over the years. Close textual analysis stands at the heart of every volume in the series; this is contextualised by and integrated with other materials. Many of the volumes draw on original sources, such as archive material and specially conducted interviews, and all of them list relevant bibliographic sources. The Television Series focuses on British television programmes, including those from other countries that are shown in the UK, and that are easily and affordably accessible for viewing by most readers. Finally, there are the ‘Moments in Television’ collections. These edited volumes explore a range of TV fictions, dramatic and comedic, and demonstrate a commitment to close encounters with television: close stylistic analysis, evaluative criticism and the appraisal of TV creators’ achievements. Every Moments collection is organised around a provocative binary theme, chosen for its engagement with key critical concepts in television studies. Each chapter appraises a particular programme, via selected moments, in relation to the theme, and makes a case for its significance within the television landscape.

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The Television Series provides resources for critical thinking about television. Whilst maintaining a clear focus on writers, creators and programmes, and placing close textual analysis at their core, the books in this series also reflect upon key critical concepts and developments in television studies. They are written from a wide range of critical and theoretical perspectives, and each author explicitly outlines the reasons for his or her particular focus, methodology or perspective. Readers are invited to think critically about the subject matter and approach covered in each book. Although the series is addressed primarily to students and scholars of television, the books will also appeal to the many people who are interested in how television programmes have been commissioned, made and enjoyed. Since television has been so much a part of personal and public life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we hope that the series will engage with, and sometimes challenge, a broad and diverse readership. Jonathan Bignell (co-founder) Sarah Cardwell (co-founder) Lucy Fife Donaldson

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Moments in Television, the collections: editors’ preface

The Moments in Television collections form a new strand in The Television Series. They exemplify the aims and emphases of the wider series, taking television seriously on artistic and cultural terms. Each volume explores a range of TV fictions, dramatic and comedic, and demonstrates the series’ commitment to close encounters with television: close stylistic analysis, evaluative criticism and the appraisal of TV creators’ achievements. Every chapter engages closely with one chosen television programme, in a way that captures the work’s particular qualities and persuades the reader of its significance in the TV landscape. In keeping with the wider Television Series, we specified that programmes be chosen from TV fictions that are easily and affordably accessible to view by most readers in the British context. Beyond this, we encouraged eclecticism in programme choices, as can be seen from the wide-ranging mix in each volume, covering varied genres, traditions and styles. We encouraged evaluative criticism and keen appreciation of programmes’ achievements. Each Moments collection is organised around a provocative binary theme, chosen for its engagement with key critical concepts in television studies, and for its potential to inspire impassioned and novel reflections on the usefulness of particular terms or concepts for exploring and appreciating specific TV works. Every chapter undertakes its exploration of its chosen programme via a reflection upon the relevant binary. It is entirely up to individual authors to determine how best, and how reflexively, to utilise the two terms of the binary to enable their exploration of the programme, and assessment of its significance and achievements.



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What are ‘moments in television’? The collections’ umbrella title, ‘Moments in Television’, was chosen for its potentially manifold implications. The word ‘moment’ has two common meanings: a short time, a fleeting instant (in the sense of momentariness) and importance, weight or significance (in the sense of momentousness). In physics, ‘moment’ is the measure of the turning effect of a force: it captures the potential of something to create a turning point. The Moments collections conceive of a ‘moment in television’ as a combination of these meanings: it is a singular instant at which something happened which is of consequence in television’s (art) history, and which may even have sparked a change of direction. Delineating a moment in television in more concrete terms is tricky. Depending on the context, a moment might be defined as a few seconds, a shot or a complete scene. Indeed, when regarding the wider expanse of television across history, an entire programme or series may be considered a mere moment. All three editors of The Television Series have been drawn to the conundrum of the television moment. Jonathan Bignell’s interests in television history and pedagogy have led him to engage sustainedly with the question of exemplarity, examining what the object of television criticism has been, is and should be (see Bignell 2007, 2006, 2005). Coming from a tradition of style-based criticism, Lucy Fife Donaldson places the practice of working through a moment in detail at the centre of her writing; she has also reflected explicitly on the difficulty of ‘the moment’ when analysing television performance (see Donaldson 2019, Donaldson and Walters 2018). Sarah Cardwell, working within a perspective inspired by analytic (philosophical) aesthetics, has explored the role and value of moments within aesthetic and arthistory approaches to TV (see Cardwell 2021, 2014). As these examples of our own interest in the television moment suggests, a concern with moments is especially apparent within television aesthetics, which places at its core detailed and sustained close analysis of stylistic and artistic achievements in particular television works. Metacritical, conceptual and analytic work on television aesthetics is still relatively rare, but, alongside Cardwell, a number of other scholars have directly addressed how moments function within evaluative criticism: Jason Jacobs’s early work on

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television fragments (2001) was groundbreaking in this regard, and was taken up by Jacobs and Steven Peacock (2013) in their collection on television aesthetics and style. Ted Nannicelli has meticulously and incisively addressed the ontology of the television work, considering the question of exemplarity from the perspective of analytic (philosophical) aesthetics (Nannicelli 2017). The Moments collections, given their location in The Television Series and the influence of the Editors’ interests, have roots within television aesthetics. But the books broaden from those origins. From the outset, we sought contributions from diverse areas of television studies. We asked only that each contributor should wish to spend extended time attending closely and sustainedly to one, self-chosen programme that he or she deemed significant in the broader TV landscape; that this attention be focused primarily upon specific, selected moments from that programme; and that the author start from a belief that the programme could be usefully examined in terms of the respective binary. Inclusiveness and eclecticism, in terms of programmes studied and different authors’ perspectives, were crucial to the successful exploration of each binary and to the project as whole. These collections therefore address important moments in the television landscape from a broadly aesthetic perspective, in the sense of foregrounding close analysis, and embracing evaluative criticism, but from varying paradigms and perspectives. They also attempt in some sense to capture moments, to convey the excitement that television can engender. The moments selected may come from any era. They might be frequently acknowledged and critically acclaimed; undervalued or disparaged; or simply overlooked and – until now – forgotten. Whichever category they fall into, they are treated with care by our contributors, and situated thoughtfully within pertinent historical, technological, institutional, cultural and art-historical contexts. This enables evaluative criticism that is sensitive, fair and appreciative. It also, we hope, works as an evocation, generating a sense of what it is to experience a particular moment both as a specific instant and also as significant – as a crystallisation, apogee or turning point in television’s artistic landscape. Sarah Cardwell Jonathan Bignell Lucy Fife Donaldson



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References Bignell, Jonathan (2005) ‘Exemplarity, pedagogy and television history’. New Review of Film and Television Studies 3:1, pp. 15–32. https:// doi.org/10.1080/17400300500037324. Bignell, Jonathan (2006) ‘Programmes and canons’. Critical Studies in Television 1:1, pp. 31–6. https://doi.org/10.7227/CST.1.1.6. Bignell, Jonathan (2007) ‘Citing the classics: constructing British television drama history in publishing and pedagogy’. In Helen Wheatley (ed.) Re-viewing television history: critical issues in television historiography. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 27–39. Cardwell, Sarah (2014) ‘Television amongst friends: medium, art, media’. Critical Studies in Television 9:3, pp. 6–21. https://doi.org/10.7227/ CST.9.3.2. Cardwell, Sarah (2021) ‘A sense of moment: appreciating television serials from aesthetic and cognitive perspectives’. In Ted Nannicelli and Héctor J. Pérez (eds) Contemporary serial television: cognition, emotion, appreciation. London and New York: Routledge. Donaldson, Lucy Fife (2019) ‘The same, but different: adjustment and accumulation in television performance’. In Lucy Fife Donaldson and James Walters (eds) Television performance. London: Red Globe Press, pp. 188–208. Donaldson, Lucy Fife and James Walters (eds) (2018) ‘Inter(acting): television performance and synthesis’. Critical Studies in Television 13:3, pp. 352–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749602018781465. Jacobs, Jason (2001) ‘Issues of judgement and value in television studies’. International Journal of Cultural Studies 4:4, pp. 427–47. https:// doi.org/10.1177/136787790100400404. Jacobs, Jason and Steven Peacock (eds) (2013) Television aesthetics and style. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Nannicelli, Ted (2017) Appreciating the art of television: a philosophical perspective. New York and Abingdon: Routledge.

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Acknowledgements

When we first discussed the idea of the Moments in Television collections, we rather rashly agreed to bring out the first three volumes (Substance/style, Complexity/simplicity and Sound/image) simultaneously. Just as the first chapters were being written, and the books were in their earliest stages, the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing series of lockdowns hit. Everyone involved in the project was in some way affected. It is thanks to the perseverance, generosity and teamwork of a large number of people that you now hold this book in your hands. We cannot mention every name, but we wish to extend some particular thanks to a small number of individuals. We would like to acknowledge and thank Steven Peacock, former co-editor of The Television Series, who helped conceive the Moments in Television collections, and whose editorial input in the earlier stages of the project was very much valued. His departure meant that Lucy Fife Donaldson could join us as a General Editor of The Television Series; she stepped in in medias res with characteristic calmness, confidence and capability for which the other Editors, Jonathan and Sarah, are incredibly grateful. Matthew Frost, at Manchester University Press, has encouraged and supported these new Moments in Television collections from the outset, with his customary vivacity, enthusiasm, thoughtfulness and unflappability. We’re thankful to him, and to MUP, for their confidence in these new volumes. We also extend appreciative gratitude to our superb copyeditor for MUP, John Banks, for his exceptional attentiveness and expertise. Our thanks as Editors go above all to all our contributors for their keenness, commitment, patience and resolute support for the

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Acknowledgements xix Moments collections. Throughout the process, and under the unprecedented pressures of a global pandemic, our authors sustained their enthusiasm for this project and created, developed and honed their chapters. We are proud of the quality, breadth and eclecticism of the work published in these first three books. We have also been touched by the generosity, understanding and friendship shown by so many of our contributors, towards us and towards each other, during some difficult times. Finally, Lucy would like to thank Jonathan and Sarah for their generosity and unfailingly convivial support, as well as for the trust they have shown in welcoming her to the editorial team. Jonathan would like to thank his parents for letting him spend so much time watching television earlier in his life. Both his mother and father have been keen TV viewers, but his father, also an MUP author, died during the planning of the Moments collections. Sarah would like to thank her father, who died mid-way through the creation of these volumes, but who in life looked forward always to the next moment; her mother, for her precious gift of the ‘found’ moment; and Jon Cardwell Davies, who can be relied upon to see, in the very transience of every moment, the hopeful promise of the next one.

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Introduction: complexity / simplicity Sarah Cardwell, Jonathan Bignell and Lucy Fife Donaldson

This collection appraises an eclectic selection of programmes, exploring and weighing their particular achievements and their contribution to the TV landscape. It does this via a simultaneous engagement with a ‘binary’: in this case, complexity/simplicity. Our aim is to explore further the notion of complexity, with particular consideration of how it impacts upon the practice of critical and evaluative interpretation. We also wish to reweigh and reassess simplicity as a potential, relatively neglected, criterion for evaluation in television studies. This volume advocates that both complexity and simplicity, when used in appropriately reflective and nuanced ways, can contribute valuably to TV scholars’ and critics’ practices. The notion of complexity is enjoying considerable keen attention within current television studies, where its value has been recognised by a range of scholars interested in narrative, seriality, style, aesthetics, broadcasting practices, audience, fan and viewer studies and more. Overt references to complexity and ‘complex TV’ have burgeoned in recent years, and these terms typically bear positive evaluative connotations: complexity is invariably regarded as an attribute, or even a defining feature, of good television. The promotion of complexity has accordingly given a welcome boost, in particular, to what might be termed ‘aesthetic’ approaches to television: closely detailed and explicitly evaluative critical appreciations of specific television programmes. In a sense, then, recent interest in complex TV has helpfully encouraged more of the kind of scholarship upon which this series of books depends. Indeed, many of the authors in this volume build explicitly and fruitfully upon prevailing accounts of complexity as they undertake appraisals of their chosen programmes,

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acknowledging and showcasing the ways in which the concept enables their critical practice. From the beginning, however, we have encouraged authors to engage reflectively and critically with the notion of complexity and the way in which it is commonly applied as a criterion for value. Several oft-repeated assertions about ‘complex TV’ have been insufficiently examined, clarified or questioned. A number of contributors to this volume recognise and engage with concerns about the extent to which ‘complexity’ has overshadowed other possible qualities, the particular types of complexity that have been foregrounded and the way in which complexity is sometimes depicted as uniquely present in only certain kinds or eras of television. Chapters herein expand common conceptions of complex TV, direct attention to neglected sources of complexity and illuminate the creative achievements that arise from balancing simplicity with complexity. Our hope is that the kind of appreciative, constructive and reflective work to be found in this volume will contribute to the development of ideas around complex television and help refine the role that complexity plays within scholarly and critical writing about television. Given the current prominence of ‘complexity’ in television studies, we were not surprised that by far the largest portion of chapter proposals we received were heavily orientated to that half of the binary. Simplicity is a rather different kettle of fish. Only a very small number of proposals chose to foreground it. This reflects the wider field: the word ‘simplicity’ is rarely seen in current television criticism and scholarship, and, when it appears, it is often used as a counterpoint, couched in negative terms compared with complexity, associated with unfashionable and critically slighted TV, rather than as an alternative criterion for value. And yet several contributors have taken up the challenge to engage explicitly with the opportunities presented by simplicity. Some seek out and reconsider the positive impact of simple qualities within particular television works. Others choose to look beyond studies of television to find inspiration and models for how simplicity might be revalued as a potentially positive and valuable aesthetic feature. Their explorations offer promising starting points for future work that, we hope, will embrace simplicity with the same keen appreciation as that which complexity currently garners.

Introduction 3

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Evaluation and making distinctions In keeping with the broader aims and remits of The Television Series and the Moments strand, this volume embraces evaluative criticism. Each chapter proffers a case for a certain programme’s significance within the wider television landscape; this task of critical evaluation is carried out making use of the notions of complexity and/or simplicity as the author sees fit. That is, the terms complexity and simplicity are used descriptively and also evaluatively. Furthermore, each chapter moves to reflect, explicitly or implicitly, upon the very terms of its practice, asking to what extent notions of complexity and/or simplicity, when employed as potential criteria for value, help or hinder the kind of evaluative criticism being undertaken. Care must be taken when writing evaluatively. With an eye on the metacritical aims of the volume, we have encouraged authors to be frank and reflective about their chosen approaches, and to use language as precisely as possible, especially when making evaluative distinctions. In relation to the key terms of our binary, for example, it is important to distinguish the complex from the complicated, and the simple from the simplistic. The latter term in each pair describes unnecessary, excessive or inappropriate complication (or complexification) or simplification, respectively. Such distinctions are fundamental. Alongside reflective metacriticism, a careful and precise use of language is crucial to the project of further developing sound, evaluative critical practices within a loosely ‘television aesthetics’ approach.

A tale of complex TV: narrative complexity Complexity implies richness, depth, scope, intensity. It also suggests something of the quality of the viewer’s responsive experience: a complex work of art is one, perhaps, that makes demands, that stretches its audience intellectually, emotionally or even morally. The concept is broad enough to enable a wide range of approaches and emphases. One might begin by seeking to uncover complexity in any number of elements of a television programme: narrative, character, performance, mise-en-scène, style, sound design, emotional, political and moral timbre. Recent work on complexity in TV, though, which

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attends closely to the achievements of individual programmes, has tended to foreground complexity in narrative. Most influential in this regard is the work of Jason Mittell, who celebrates recent, ‘quality’ US serials produced since the late 1990s for what he argues is their unprecedented ‘narrative complexity’ (2015: 17). His account explores narrative in the broadest terms, considering long-term serials, extended story arcs, metanarratives and fan commentary, temporal implications of innovative broadcast or streaming formats and the impact of changing narrative structures upon characterisation. Mittell’s work has prompted further close analyses and engagements with the details, achievements and creative choices of specific programmes. In this way, his intervention has supported those working in the area of television aesthetics, although he does not overtly situate his work within that scholarly context. Indeed, he does not acknowledge the correspondences between his conception of complexity and that influential version espoused much earlier, in analytic philosophical aesthetics – yet the echoes are fascinating. Mittell argues that his ‘poetic’ approach (2015: 4), a term he uses in preference to ‘aesthetic’, is the most appropriate response to what he regards as the extraordinary achievements of recent television narratives. These programmes, he avers, exhibit innovative, unparalleled complexity such that they demand – and also reward – close attention and extended consideration. Complexity is here characterised as conceived above, as both a quality of the work and also a quality of the experience afforded by that work – a conception that is long-established in both everyday and philosophical contexts. The aesthetician Monroe Beardsley, in his pioneering work Aesthetics: problems in the philosophy of criticism (1958), placed complexity at the centre of his thesis, arguing that it (along with unity and intensity) was an essential, distinguishing feature of good art, or art with high aesthetic value. Moreover, Beardsley argued that these very qualities which characterise a good artwork – complexity, unity and intensity – are also constituents of the aesthetic experience of the person who engages with the artwork in an appropriately focused and attentive way (1981: 527–9). The parallels with Mittell’s argument are striking. Despite Mittell’s reluctance to associate his approach closely with either philosophical aesthetics or television aesthetics, insights from both of these could support his case for the role of

Introduction 5 ‘complexity’ within the kind of appreciative, critical and evaluative approach to television he advocates and which typify the chapters in this volume.

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Broadening the scope: complexity across the landscape of TV The extent of Mittell’s influence on the study of ‘complex TV’ has not been wholly auspicious. His chosen focus on narrative (rather than other potential sources of complexity), whilst judicious in the context of his specific project, and the rootedness of his theorising within specifically US television history (a history which is particular, and is by no means typical of other national television histories) have effectively delimited the scope and terminology of much ensuing scholarship on ‘complex TV’. Many scholars’ enthusiastic adoption of Mittell’s terms of categorisation, foci and even programme choices has meant that the range of television being considered in terms of ‘complexity’ is rather narrow. There is a heavy bias towards television of the twenty-first century to the extent that, as Milly Buonanno astutely observes, ‘it involves a radical distancing from previous forms of serialised TV fiction [… and a] neglect or othering of what has gone before or does not anyway fit into the new canons’ (2019: 192). Additionally, the emphasis on narrative chimes with a fashionable fascination with seriality and serial form. Narrative complexity is often presented as inherently embedded within long-form serials; complexity and seriality are regarded as intimately, even inextricably, connected (see for example Dunleavy 2018). Buonanno laments the rise of ahistoricism in contemporary studies of serials and seriality, and the concomitant implication that earlier serials are insufficiently complex to warrant close appreciative attention. Non-serial dramas, especially generic ones, are relegated still further: ‘recent expressive and evaluative criticism of television frequently valorises TV’s seriality and the dramatic potential of long-running serial form, especially its manifestation in “quality US drama”’; in comparison, episodic forms are dismissed as ‘closed, constrained, simplistic, out of date’ (Cardwell 2019: 22–3, 25). Older, episodic and generic programmes, which do not fall readily into the category of ‘quality’ drama, are

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Complexity / simplicity

deemed to lack narrative complexity and not to elicit or warrant the kinds of complex responses evoked by Beardsley and Mittell. The contributions in this book reject such confining parameters. They expand the relatively limited range of programmes currently appreciated in terms of complexity. Several chapters uncover complexity in forms and genres not usually credited with it, from Benedict Morrison’s consideration of classic Doctor Who (BBC, 1963–89) and James Walters’s exploration of the animated series Rick and Morty (Warner Bros Television, 2013–present) to Karen Quigley’s appreciation of Father Ted (Channel 4, 1995–98), Michael P. Young’s reflections on Veep (HBO, 2012–19) and Sarah Cardwell’s analysis of the John Lewis Christmas advertisement The Long Wait (2011). Episodic series, animation, sitcoms, adverts – none of these works constitutes the kind of long-running dramatic serial that is usually favoured by those interested in narrative complexity. Other contributors explicitly or implicitly challenge the trend for ahistoricism in studies of television complexity. Morrison’s chosen focus of the classic period of Doctor Who and Jonathan Bignell’s account of Vanity Fair (BBC, 1967) are clear expressions of interest in older television. And there are other indications of historical contextualisation in the collection. Christa van Raalte and Maike Helmers write about the recent Netflix production House of Cards (Netflix, 2013–18), but their focus is the use of direct address – a televisual device with a long history and only rarely used in twentyfirst-century TV. James Zborowski’s chosen programme, The Wire (HBO, 2002–8) fits neatly into the category of recent, acclaimed US long-run serials, but Zborowski situates the programme within broader and longer-established aesthetic and critical contexts. Similarly, Cardwell’s consideration of The Long Wait draws upon a wide range of historical conceptions of simplicity across several fields of interest, and Young’s account of Veep draws on enduring artistic traditions of satire and schadenfreude. Trisha Dunleavy’s appraisal of The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu, 2017–present) notes that both serial and episodic forms must balance narrative progression against stasis. These accounts highlight the ongoing connections, interdependencies and continuities between new, long-running serials and other (older, episodic and generic) forms of TV. The eclecticism of the programme choices in this collection is not merely a gesture of inclusiveness or equality. It is an expression of our desire to reappraise the aesthetic pleasures and achievements

Introduction 7

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of programmes which do not fit readily, at first sight, into the ‘complex’ category, and which have been correspondingly neglected. But there is still more to be done to develop the value of complexity as a tool for evaluative criticism. We also need to move beyond a focus on narrative, whether serial or episodic.

Beyond narrative complexity – other kinds of complexities To further expand the conversation on complexity in television, we might take inspiration from Beardsley and his founding work on art and aesthetic experience. Beardsley’s primary interest was in visual, non-narrative arts, but he also wrote about music and literature; his ideas about complexity are correspondingly broad in scope and application. He recommends that the complexity of a work might be measured by attending to the scale of an artwork, its richness of variety and contrasts and its degree of subtleness and imaginativeness (1981: 462). Beardsley’s definition of complexity is noticeably more diffuse than that found in current TV scholarship. It is not focused on narrative. It is interesting to ponder the different route that our field might have taken, had TV scholars looked to philosophical aesthetics rather than literary studies for their notions of complexity. Television is a narrative art. But it is not merely narrative; it is also an audiovisual ‘art of many media’ (Cardwell 2014). So when we consider complexity, we might also be prompted by aestheticians who wished to illuminate and appraise a range of non-narrative arts, and thus direct our attention into each programme in a more holistic, flexible and responsive way. Indeed, in this spirit, the chapters in this volume posit more accommodating notions of complexity in their analyses, and, in doing so, offer fresh perspectives and implicit challenges to the dominance of narrative. Diverging most explicitly from a focus on narrative, and foregrounding new and alternative foci, Josie Wolthuis examines the play between complexity and simplicity in the costumes in Killing Eve (BBC, 2018–present); Bignell places colour at the centre of his account of Vanity Fair; and Cardwell undertakes an aesthetic analysis of visual and sound composition in The Long Wait. But every contributor, even those concerned primarily with narrative and/or character development, attends to elements

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Complexity / simplicity

of style such as visual composition, sound design and performance, tracing the complexity (and simplicity) of these elements and their contribution to the chosen programme’s achievements. Whilst close attention to the qualities of specific programmes remains central, most contributors also incorporate within their consideration of complexity extra-textual factors, emphasising that even the ‘simplest’ programmes are constantly negotiating complicated industrial, commercial and technological contexts. As Arthur Danto argued, the ontology of any artwork is always, in some sense, complex (1993: 204). The complexity of a work may well enable appropriately sophisticated engagement on the part of the viewer. However, as the chapters in this volume make clear, there is no need to limit our conception of complexity to the narrative kind. In theory, any kind of complexity might offer comparable challenges, richness, rewards and pleasures. It must also be acknowledged that sometimes complexity goes wrong: it fails to offer rewards or pleasures to the viewer, it misfires, or is ineptly handled, and we end up with complication (a negative trait). This is not often enough acknowledged in scholarship, though more often in TV criticism. The critic Sam Wolfson writes of modern ‘complex’ television programmes of the kind often beloved by scholars and critics, ‘there remains a question as to whether weirder is better’; he challenges ‘the whole notion that complexity equals ingenuity’ and suggests, citing another reviewer, that ‘if you need to do extra homework after watching a show, it hasn’t done its job’ (2018: 9). The delicate line between complexity and complication is one that individual scholars and critics could draw more often in our judgements of each programme; if we did so, we might find ourselves reappraising the value of simplicity.

Simplicity Complexity in TV is typically regarded as a positive quality. Provided we can find suitable and fair means by which we might seek and appraise it in a variety of works, complexity is a valuable tool for critical evaluation. But a problem arises when, for the sake of argumentative tidiness, simplicity is made to stand in as the counterpoint to complexity, taking up the spot that ought to be

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Introduction 9 allocated to complication (failed complexity). When a programme is judged to be, for example, underdeveloped, naive, formulaic or clumsy, the allegation being made is really one of simplistic-ness – of over-simplification. The work is simpler than it ought to be, given its aims and intentions. The simple (a potential source of value) is, in this case, wrongly conflated with, indeed overridden by, the simplistic. These distortions, elisions and omissions impoverish our critical vocabulary. When the distinctions between complex and complicated, and simple and simplistic, are lost, we fail to recognise not only when complexity ‘goes bad’ but also that simplicity can be a virtue – even, or especially, in a multi-modal artwork such as a TV programme. The setting up of false counterpoints has meant that, rather than complexity being valued alongside simplicity, the former has tended to be valued over the latter. Then, programmes which are considered to exhibit the former are valued over those which are seen to exhibit the latter – and consequently the former are chosen for appreciation, and their complexity further celebrated, which only perpetuates the divisions. Moreover, as noted earlier, whilst complexity tends to be linked with the modern and the new, simplicity is associated with older forms of TV, as if there is some kind of teleological force at work, driving television ever onwards, towards its most sophisticated incarnation. In this view, the simple is also the earlier version, outof-date, merely a stepping stone to ‘good’ TV. And consider the impact of the emphasis on narrative: ‘simplicity’ is not often regarded as a positive virtue in narrative (though there are certain kinds of narrative, especially written ones, that are praised for it: parables, fables etc.). In writing about television, words such as ‘formulaic’ and ‘thin’ describe narratives deemed too simple or simplistic. These are some of the hindrances preventing the adoption of simplicity as an equal, alternative criterion for value. It must be noted that appreciative notions about simplicity are not entirely absent from discourse about television – nor is complexity regarded as an absolute good. As Mittell notes, in a less-cited caveat: ‘complexity is not necessarily to be equated with value, and simplicity is sometimes artistically preferable’ (2015: 217). There are programmes and genres in which complexity might be considered a failing, being inappropriate in the specific context. Advertising

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and children’s programmes are two oft-cited examples, since it is generally agreed they need to be clear, concise and accessible. But simplicity is not merely a means to an end – a route to clarity, concision or accessibility. It can be a virtue in its own right, as is recognised in many fields outside TV, including other artistic contexts: consider, for instance, the case of Japanese aesthetics, which depend upon the notion of simplicity as a virtue. Cardwell’s chapter in this collection explores further the sources old and new, local and global, that we might draw upon to develop our understanding and appreciation of simplicity. Although the term ‘simplicity’ is notable by its absence in much television scholarship, the concept can, at times, be detected within the language of evaluative interpretation. It is not unusual to find, in writing that takes an aesthetic approach, or which attends closely to visual style and design, praise for economy of style, for instance. ‘Economy’ is only one example of a vocabulary that implies that, at least to some degree, simplicity might be an aesthetic virtue; others include nuance, understatement, quietness, balance, particularity, sufficiency and subtlety. Such words express an awareness of the value of ‘just enough’ and no more, and appreciation of the vision and experience required to craft a work that confidently exclude any extraneous material. The achievement of simplicity – whether of form, style, theme or perspective – requires complex skills on part of the creator, as many of the chapters in this volume attest. Correspondingly, the appreciation of simplicity is as valid and challenging an activity for the viewer as is the task of appreciating complexity. In this volume, Cardwell’s is the only chapter that explicitly prioritises simplicity, offering an account of the accomplishments of The Long Wait specifically in terms of the work’s use of simple qualities. However, all the contributors keep the binary complexity/simplicity in play, with differing emphases on each term, and all incorporate reflections upon simplicity, and to what extent their chosen programme is illuminated by a consideration of it.

The chapters Opening the collection, Trisha Dunleavy explores The Handmaid’s Tale (2017–present) as an instance of long-running serial drama

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Introduction 11 which, as she recognises, fits readily into Mittell’s framework. However, her conceptualisation acknowledges the correspondences between episodic and serial multi-season drama, noting that both must ensure their survival by attaining an appropriate balance between narrative progression (allied with complexity) and stasis (allied with simplicity, and here taking the familiar form of a situational problematic). She thus builds on and develops existing accounts of complexity in multi-season, serial drama. In her analysis, Dunleavy pinpoints a critical and contentious moment in the programme’s run, at which some viewers accused the show of jumping the shark (introducing increasingly implausible, novel elements in an attempt to keep the programme going); she asks whether commercial considerations had negative aesthetic and even moral implications. Her chapter moves beyond a straightforward celebration of narrative complexity, to consider the ramifications of the long-running serial form in multiple dimensions. Christa van Raalte and Maike Helmers similarly modify and extend Mittell’s work on complex narrative in their analysis of direct address in House of Cards (2013–18). They point out that the programme, whilst clearly an example of a US, ‘quality’ long-running serial, actually combines simple with complex elements at many levels, including narrative, characterisation, imagery and visual style. Echoing the above-noted connection between the work and the viewer’s (aesthetic) experience, they interrogate the pleasures House of Cards offers, both simple and complex. Considering the different modes, purposes and tones of direct address, they also question the evaluative implications of the technique: direct address has in the past been criticised as stylistically clumsy and theatrical, but they conclude that House of Cards reinvents this classic technique in fresh, sophisticated and specifically televisual ways. With a focus on a very different kind of television programme, Karen Quigley, in her chapter on Father Ted (1995–98), turns to the popular and longstanding genre of sitcom. Situating the programme generically, she explores both the simplicity of sitcom format and also its structural complexity, especially in terms of the creation of myriad plots and subplots; she also reveals the complexity of comic performances within broad-brushstroke, simple characterisation. Quigley argues that Father Ted is edgier than it might seem at first sight, as she draws out the range of its intertextual, social, cultural and political references. In a spirit of evaluative reappraisal, she closes

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by tackling the apparently simplistic depiction of female characters, arguing for the complexity of the famous housekeeper Mrs Doyle. James Walters also embraces a genre often excluded from discussions of complexity, in his exploration of animated serial Ricky and Morty (2013–present). He argues that the narrative sophistication and intricacy of the programme, alongside its complex characterisation and moral ambiguity, situate it within prevailing accounts of complex TV. However, in attending to the particular ways in which viewers and fans of Rick and Morty engage with the programme, Walters shapes a distinctly different conception of the relationship between the work and the viewer’s experience, insisting that the appreciation of ‘moments’ is as important as sustained, extensive engagement. Walters avers that visual design and composition must be appreciated alongside narrative; in particular, he argues that the programme’s superficially simple form belies complexities both within the work and within the intricate creative processes that brought it into being. If the preceding chapters each modify, extend and develop prevailing theories about complex TV, Josette Wolthuis’s chapter on Killing Eve (2018–present) explicitly challenges the narrative emphasis and stakes out a new focus for complexity: costume. Killing Eve is a programme noted for its costumes, especially those of its anti-hero, Villanelle. Wolthuis considers its achievements in this regard, paying attention to the interrelation of costume with other aspects of style and mise-en-scène, and situating the programme in terms of femininity, genre and performance. She argues that clothes are not merely expressive, moving to ask the intriguing question: can clothes lie? The straightforward simplicity of Eve’s costumes contrasts with the complex nature of Villanelle’s; the latter’s costumes are ambiguous, dissembling, even deceitful. In this, they crystallise and complexify the show’s thematic concerns. James Zborowski’s chapter on The Wire (2002–8) introduces a more explicitly metacritical bent. Developing his analysis from a series of moments from the serial, Zborowski undertakes a reflective reappraisal of previous evaluative criticism of the programme. Agreeing with the dominant view of The Wire as an impressively complex drama, Zborowski nevertheless argues that its particular complexity is achieved by virtue of qualities of presentation and structure that can be best characterised as simple, and that contribute

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Introduction 13 to a laudable clear-sightedness. Engaging explicitly with evaluative matters, Zborowski poses the question as to whether The Wire’s conscious reduction of certain types of complexity constitutes simplicity (a virtue) or over-simplification (a flaw). Although Veep (2012–19) is a recent work, Michael P. Young’s exploration situates the programme within longstanding comedic traditions, considering it as a comedy of errors that verges on the carnivalesque via its crude, often scatological, humour. In this, and in its love of farce, slapstick and broad characterisation verging on stereotypes and caricature, the show gleefully seizes upon tools of conventionally simple comic forms. However, Veep belongs also to the category of satire, exploiting schadenfreude as part of its repertoire – and its mix of comedic traditions, as well as the qualities of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s central performance, elevates the programme’s complexity. Young argues that simplicity and complexity cannot be neatly distinguished and delineated; they work together. The helpfulness and stability of binary distinctions is also questioned by Benedict Morrison, in his chapter on classic Doctor Who (1963–89). Morrison considers how we might seek out some continuity, some coherence, from such a vast and sprawling episodic series. He recommends a queer perspective that, specifically, rejects the hierarchy which conventionally places the complex above the simple. Indeed, he argues that the programme itself challenges – queries – such hierarchies, promoting not an ‘either/or’ binary but ‘both/and’. With this in mind, Morrison takes up the contention that classic Doctor Who is simpler than the newer series in visual style, narrative and theme, whilst simultaneously assessing the ways in which the programme’s use of ‘sideways’ stories, history and myth constitute complexity. Continuing a focus on older television works, and going even further in countering ahistoricism, is Jonathan Bignell’s chapter on Vanity Fair (1967). Bignell conjures the excitement of a groundbreaking moment in television’s past, exploring this programme’s innovative and pioneering use of colour in terms of both simplicity and complexity. His account highlights the importance of historical contextualisation, revealing in and behind Vanity Fair complexities which we cannot properly understand or appreciate without building a careful picture of what the programme meant, and how it shaped its meanings, at the time. The chapter discloses the complexities

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and complications that lie behind something which might appear superficially simple. Closing the collection is a chapter by Sarah Cardwell which similarly acknowledges that creating simplicity can be a complex business. Cardwell explicitly prioritises simplicity over complexity. She chooses as her focus the John Lewis Christmas advertisement The Long Wait (2011), which, whilst embracing simplicity, nevertheless encourages and rewards sustained, careful attention (or enables what one might call a complex aesthetic experience). Cardwell examines The Long Wait’s achievements, with particular attention to visual style and sound design, attending especially to patterns which integrate the two, such as repetition and echoes, rhythm and resonance. It becomes clear that the advert is a complex orchestration of simple elements; moreover, its complexly drawn theme of temporality also emerges. And yet, at the last, the advert is best appreciated in terms of simplicity. Cardwell closes by advocating the value of simplicity to our critical and evaluative practice. The essays collected in this volume encapsulate the spirit of the ‘Moments’ series. First, they appreciate the creative and artistic achievements – and the aesthetic impact – of particular programmes, making the case for the significance of those programmes within the broader TV landscape. Second, they expand the debate about complex TV, broadening the scope of programmes typically considered within the category; moving against ahistoricism and biases against certain kinds of programmes; extending the definition of complexity far beyond narrative complexity; and distinguishing complexity from complication. Third, they raise the profile of simplicity as a potential criterion of value in evaluative criticism and television scholarship, revealing how it enables wider appreciation in terms of both directing our attention to details of programmes otherwise overlooked, and opening up to a fuller range of TV works to appreciative attention. Finally, we must highlight the eclecticism of the chapters contained herein. The Moments series is informally inspired by the perspective of television aesthetics, and we sought contributions that were engaged by the broad principles of the project, specifically its commitment to evaluative (meta)criticism that places individual programmes at the centre. The contributors to this volume come from diverse areas of TV studies, bringing with them myriad interests and expertise alongside a wealth of enthusiasm for the project which is evident,

Introduction 15 we hope, throughout the volume. This book benefits from their fresh insights, innovations and perspectives.

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References Beardsley, Monroe (1981 [1958]) Aesthetics: problems in the philosophy of criticism. Second edition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Buonanno, Milly (2019) ‘Seriality: development and disruption in the contemporary medial and cultural environment’. Critical Studies in Television 14:2, pp. 187–203. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1749602019834667. Cardwell, Sarah (2014) ‘Television amongst friends: medium, art, media’. Critical Studies in Television 9:3, pp. 6–21. https://doi.org/10.7227%2FCST. 9.3.2. Cardwell, Sarah (2019) ‘In small packages: particularities of performance in episodic series’. In Lucy Fife Donaldson and James Walters (eds) Performance in television. London: Red Globe Press, pp. 22–42. Danto, Arthur (1993) ‘Responses and replies’. In Mark Rollins (ed.) Danto and his critics. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 193–216. Dunleavy, Trisha (2018) Complex serial drama and multiplatform television. New York and Oxford: Routledge. Mittell, Jason (2015) Complex TV: the poetics of contemporary television storytelling. New York and London: New York University Press. Wolfson, Sam (2018) ‘Losing the plot’. The Guide, Guardian, 21–27 April, pp. 8–10.

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‘WTF June?’: The Handmaid’s Tale and the significance of unexpected choice Trisha Dunleavy

Produced for Hulu and co-financed with MGM, The Handmaid’s Tale (2017–present) is a high-end, long-format TV drama adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel of the same name. With three seasons aired to date, an international audience that continues to build, and as the recipient of prestigious industry awards,1 The Handmaid’s Tale (THT) has been a notable success for US-produced, non-broadcast TV drama. As a serial drama that follows and extends the diegetic world of the novel, THT’s most discussed distinction as multi-season TV drama is its visualisation of Atwood’s nightmarish Gilead, the postapocalyptic, faux-theocratic and totalitarian society that has replaced contemporary America.2 An important feature of this dystopian world is the epidemic of infertility that has helped to form it, a problem that Gilead’s male oligarchy addresses via the enslavement of the few still fertile women as ‘Handmaids’. Whilst every Gilead resident is held to a rigidly proscribed role and strictly heterosexual identity, THT’s central interest is the subjection and sexual servitude of women. Though all Gilead women and girls endure minimal agency over their lives, absolute rule by a fundamentalist patriarchy, and the imperative to build a new population to support it, combine to legitimate the ritual rape of Handmaids by Gilead’s leaders. THT’s primary character is Handmaid Offred (Elizabeth Moss) who in this chapter is referred to only as ‘June’, her original name.3 Having been forced from her home, separated from her family and trained for a life of service, June is eventually assigned to the household of a senior member of this patriarchy, Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and his Wife Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski).

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‘WTF June’, is the label that one reviewer, anticipating frustration and disappointment on the part of THT viewers, gave to the closing scene of its 2018 Season 2 finale episode.4 Having dangled the real possibility that June will escape from Gilead, the narrative twists sharply in this scene when she chooses the more dangerous of two possible options, deciding to remain in Gilead, while sending her infant, Holly/Nicole, to Canada under the protection of her trusted friend, Emily. In making this decision, June chooses not to take what appears to be a one-off opportunity to escape her life as a Handmaid – one that she has ardently pursued earlier in this season and that others have risked (or lost) their lives to create. This chapter’s position is that THT is ultimately a complex rather than a simplistic TV drama. It sees June’s decision as one that opens THT to narrative complexity because it sustains and deepens, rather than resolving, this drama’s central conflict. Notwithstanding this, the chapter highlights THT’s capacity for simplicity in THT’s tactical deployment of Gilead as a situational ‘problematic’ (Ellis 1988: 154); a construct well established in TV fiction whose overriding function is to maximise a show’s longevity. These indicators of THT’s capacities for complexity and simplicity converge in the moment of focus for this chapter, as one that culminates in June’s ‘WTF’ choice. Albeit frustrating for viewers who ‘want her to make a different decision’ (Bruce Miller cited in Wigler 2018a), this choice, along with the developments that contribute to and mitigate it, can be analysed as an effective demonstration of the narrative fundamentals of multi-season TV drama.

The institutional function of multi-season TV drama serials In institutional terms, the function of the above narrative turn is to extend this show’s life as a TV drama. By contrast with the 1990 feature film adaptation of Atwood’s novel, which concludes with Offred’s escape to freedom, all of THT’s seasons have ended in ways that leave the narrative open to new episodes.5 As a TV drama created to function as a brand vehicle for Hulu, a ‘premium’ (or subscription-funded) TV service, THT is a very different type of screen product from the 1990 film. Premium TV networks commission high-end dramas to attract and maintain subscribers and their business

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model is one that favours original drama in serial (rather than episodic series) form. But the imperatives arising from a premium model, to maximise the number of subscribers and reduce monthly subscriber turnover or ‘churn’, also mean that the dramas these networks commission are more often multi-season than single-season shows. From the perspective of premium TV networks, the ideal ‘flagship’ drama is a serial that is not only enticing for its characters, story and aesthetics but also has the capacity for multi-season continuity. As an outcome demonstrated by the blockbuster international popularity of HBO’s Game of Thrones (2011–19) among other examples, multi-season continuity encourages a TV drama’s audiences to gradually build from one season to the next, the media ‘buzz’ that attends this process ensuring that the show amply fulfils the branding function that motivated its creation. Serial dramas have become increasingly prevalent as non-broadcast TV services have expanded. This development has been ensured not only by the larger number of premium services operating and competing but equally by the capacity of internet delivery to bring an unprecedented flexibility to the consumption of serial drama. The addition of the internet has seen television evolve from a multichannel to a ‘multiplatform’ medium in which broadcast, cable/ satellite and internet-only TV services and platforms co-exist (Dunleavy 2018: 11–13). With this range of platforms allowing viewers to decide when, through what means and for how long they watch, high-end serial dramas continue to flourish. As a drama designed to exploit the opportunities of TV’s multiplatform era, the payoff for Hulu of June’s ‘WTF’ decision is that THT can return for a compelling third season and more seasons beyond it.

Revise and reset: adjusting the objectives of primary characters Despite the fact that THT, as a multi-season serial, is unavoidably subject to the above industrial conditions and outcomes, reviews of the show have been mixed, and there is a sense that in prolonging this particular story – as one in which the worst acts of violence are also directed at female characters – THT is indulging in ‘torture

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‘WTF June?’

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porn’ (Miller 2018). Particular vitriol was incited by Season 2’s final episode, ‘The Word’, which ended in June’s shock decision to remain in Gilead. Interpreting this decision as the show’s effort to ‘jump the shark’,6 Judy Berman (2018) wrote, ‘The question is, what – besides a third season of The Handmaid’s Tale – could possibly come out of [June’s] bravery? Does she really have a better chance of getting Hannah out of Gilead from the inside, where she is subject to the Waterford’s whims? […] Her decision may be heroic, but it’s not what I call smart.’ Questioning the authenticity of June’s choice, because it reverses her evident desire, at the outset of this season, to escape, Margaret Lyons (2018) wrote, ‘Even though people died to help [June] escape at the beginning of the season, she’s determined now to stay in Gilead, because I guess Season 3 has to be about something […] So all the show can do is walk in circles.’ Unconvinced and frustrated by June’s opting against escaping from Gilead as Season 2 ends, the above comments seem to conflate her decision to remain there with a commercial opportunism that is somehow harder to excuse in such an acclaimed TV drama. Yet an alternative view, which this chapter evaluates through its analysis of this turn as a pivotal moment, is that June’s decision opens THT not only to narrative continuity (its ostensible purpose) but also to narrative ‘complexity’. Whilst this decision foregrounds June’s capacity to revise her goals as her circumstances change, it also ‘resets’ THT’s central conflict – June’s incarceration as a Handmaid in Gilead – allowing this to be further elaborated and developed.7 THT is by no means the first acclaimed and ‘complex’ serial drama to require its central character to make decisions which seem in conflict with earlier choices they have made. In this regard, June can be compared with Breaking Bad’s Walter White. By the end of Breaking Bad’s second season, Walter (Bryan Cranston) has enjoyed such notable success as notorious ‘meth king’ Heisenberg that he has earned far more money than his family will ever need if he should die from the lung cancer condition that motivates him to ‘break bad’ at the show’s outset. Even though it is difficult to rationalise Walt’s decision to continue as Heisenberg beyond Season 2, when he could have simply retired, the continuation of his criminal trajectory was so central to Breaking Bad’s concept that its writers had every incentive to further develop it and find ways to authenticate it as a

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revised goal. Hence, even though Walt is reluctant and terrified as he ‘breaks bad’ at the show’s outset, he comes to relish the power over others that his Heisenberg persona and role confers. Whilst this adjustment of Walt’s objectives is increasingly obvious as Breaking Bad unfolds, it is articulated only in the show’s ultimate episode (5:16) in which Walt admits to his wife, Skyler, ‘I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. I was alive.’ Despite the differences between Walter and June as morally conflicted primary characters, Breaking Bad and THT’s writers have faced similar challenges in regard to explaining and authenticating the changing objectives for these characters. Interviewed about June’s decision to remain in Gilead, the showrunner and head writer Bruce Miller (cited in Wigler 2018b) helps explain how THT’s writers, when scripting Season 2, found ways to narratively mitigate and explain it: The first thing that we tried to do is put ourselves in the position of June as a character […] OK, what would June do? We talked about what she’s been through this season […] As she says, the impossible has become very possible. She never thought she’d see her daughter again […] There’s also something kind of ringing in her head from the time she encountered her daughter and her daughter said, ‘Why didn’t you try to find me? Why didn’t you try harder?’ There’s the knife-twisting of your 7 or 8 year-old daughter telling you, ‘Why didn’t you try harder to find me and rescue me and be with me?’ I think that’s her choice in that final moment: ‘I’m going to try harder. I’m not gonna do what odds are might be the safest thing. I’m gonna absolutely put myself out there and try my hardest to save both of my daughters’.8

June’s decision to remain in Gilead has a close counterpart in Walter White’s continuation as Heisenberg, especially since both trajectories aim to revive and reset narrative conflicts deemed essential to the multi-season longevity of each show. In June’s case, and even though Miller’s assertions foreground her ‘knife-twisting’ realisation that Hannah did not understand why her mother could not rescue her, additional narrative strands are seen to contribute to her decision. Nevertheless by inventing and inserting the surprise meeting with Hannah as a way to substantially revise June’s objectives, THT’s writers were able to extend her confinement in Gilead indefinitely whilst simultaneously reducing her determination to escape, changes

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which together preserve THT’s central conflict, allowing it to continue for further seasons. As a successful multi-season drama, THT is obliged to reconcile narrative progression with narrative stasis. Progression is a more fundamental feature of drama serials (whose most significant story strands continue and evolve) than it is for episodic drama series (in which, although serial strands operate and contribute, there is a tendency to emphasise resolving stories). However, to the extent that both forms operate as multi-season rather than single-season programming, both require a trade-off between progression and stasis in order to exploit the potentials of their concepts and maximise their capacity to endure. Two elements of THT’s central concept operate to effect this balance between narrative progression and stasis at the levels of show, season and individual episode. One is its setting in the totalitarian state of Gilead, a situational construct whose extreme and immovable ideology provides the narrative rationale for it to resist change. The other is the ongoing development and interrogation of June as primary character. Through these means, narrative progression is articulated in June’s rejection of Gilead’s ideology and her increasing determination to effect meaningful change, not just for herself. The contributions of character development to narrative complexity and situational stasis to narrative simplicity underpin the discussions of the two sections that follow.

Character development as complexity in The Handmaid’s Tale Offering a useful definition of what ‘complexity’ might mean in TV drama, Jason Mittell foregrounds the importance, among other elements, of narrative sophistication and progression. For Mittell, a ‘complex’ show is one with the capacity to provide ‘a vision of the world that avoids being reductive or artificially simplistic but that grows richer through sustained engagement and consideration’ (2013: 46). Yet it is not possible to fully separate complexity from conventionality in TV drama, especially because of the tendency for new examples to integrate the most successful features of their predecessors (see Gitlin 1994). Moreover, all TV dramas, including

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such undisputed examples of complexity as The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, deploy the tried-and-tested conventions of serial TV fiction (see Newcomb 2007). Nevertheless, as a drama whose concept, initial narrative and larger mythology are all derived from their literary source in Margaret Atwood’s novel, THT deploys narrative strategies that are emblematic of the drama form that I call ‘complex serial’ (Dunleavy 2018).9 Foregrounding the integration between the drama concept (or premise) and primary character that distinguishes this form within the more diverse category of serial TV drama, this section examines how THT deploys ‘complex serial’ features to develop, investigate and reveal June as conflicted primary character. First, complex serials construct a hierarchy of plots whose importance is generally overridden by one main story, the ‘overarching’ story, which spans all the episodes. It is because this overarching story dictates their formal and narrative priorities that their narratives construct and investigate morally-conflicted primary characters, rather than investigating situations (indicatively those devised for procedural crime or medical series) in which conflict is a regular occurrence. Second, THT’s primary character and overarching story, as with other complex serials, are so closely integrated that story and character are inseparable from each other, this issue preventing THT’s writers from allowing June to escape from Gilead and exchange her life as a Handmaid for another. Other characters that embody, rather than being situated within, the distinctive concept of their respective shows are Tony Soprano, Don Draper and Walter White. June’s embodiment of THT’s concept means that, from the first to the last episode, THT is not the story of Gilead but the story of June’s experience there. Whilst the narratives of complex serials begin and end with the trajectories of their primary characters, the narratives of procedural crime or medical series generally contrive situations of conflict that characters are created to inhabit. Yet, assisting the longevity of procedural series, these characters have often been interchangeable. Underscored by her embodiment of THT’s overarching story, and while it is possible for other characters to escape to freedom, any such escape on June’s part will curtail the circumstances and conflicts that THT can then explore and necessitate that its overarching story is brought to an end.

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Third, a feature inspired by the novel and an important contributor to THT’s complexity, is that June is both central character and narrator. THT adapts the template established by the novel in which, even though the use of different narrative frames does allow different perspectives on her story, Offred narrates this in the present tense. Similar to its impacts in the novel, June’s narration of THT during rather than after her tenure as Handmaid ‘helps her to survive the psychological oppression of Gilead’ by providing her with ‘a counter-narrative to the social gospel of Gilead’ (Howells 2006: 165). Whilst both novel and TV drama use June as a ‘character-narrator’, an important difference between the two is that, whereas Offred is the only narrator for the novel, THT combines narration through mise-en-scène, actions and dialogue with ongoing and significant contributions from June. An important consequence of THT’s access to this range of storytelling strategies is that there are various developments in the TV show’s narrative – such as what happened to Luke after the family’s capture (1:7), Moira’s successful arrival in Canada (1:10) and Emily’s stabbing of Aunt Lydia (2:13) – that viewers immediately know but June does not. THT’s story continues well beyond the span of events covered in Atwood’s 1985 novel as is necessitated by its design as a multi-season drama for Hulu. Whilst this need not change June’s role as main storyteller and primary character (beyond the differences noted above), it does intertwine her survival as a Gilead Handmaid with the continuation of THT itself, a condition which means, as Bruce Miller underlines, that ‘[t]his story only exists as long as June [is] alive to live it’ (cited in Bradley 2019). A fourth complex serial feature is the ongoing psychological investigation of June. As a strategy through which viewers access what Dennis Potter called the ‘inner life’ of a character (cited in Cook 1998: 30), its narrative contribution is to foster audience understanding of June and the choices she makes. Such understanding is vital to complex serials because their stories, as I emphasise (Dunleavy 2018: 5), ‘unfold around conflict-riven and usually transgressive characters’. Accordingly, whilst the psychological investigation of primary characters is a convention for complex serials, it gains extra significance in the context of June’s narration of THT’s story and her inability (outside of exceptional moments) to more directly articulate her responses to the suffering of herself and others. The

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‘inner life’ of June is revealed by THT through two complementary approaches. The first and most frequent approach to June’s psychological investigation is her flow of extra-diegetic voice-overs. These take two forms. One provides a critical foundation for montage scenes whose images depict Gilead’s horrors, in which June’s voice often operates in cynical counterpoint to what the camera shows. Where used, this counterpoint provides for additional critique through what McCabe (1985: 219) suggests is a ‘splitting’ of THT’s opposing discourses of rebellion and conformity, whereby the different ‘truths’ claimed by the voice-over and the camera are compared and evaluated in ways that strengthen June’s authority and reliability as narrator. The other involves the pairing of June’s voice-overs with lingering close-ups in which she looks directly into the camera. These voiceovers evidence Mittell’s contention (2015: 324) that complex shows achieve ‘meta-fiction’ through the incorporation of ‘moments that address the audience more directly than is typical within otherwise realist modes of narration’. When paired with lingering close-ups of June, her voice-overs enable her character to directly address and/or confide in her audience. Viewers listen to June’s fears and criticisms while her eyes look directly down the lens of the camera. These voice-overs privilege the understanding of viewers over that of other THT characters and add a meta-fictional layer to the show. This layer is created by June’s effective acknowledgement, in looking into and speaking to the camera, that THT has a non-diegetic dimension so must itself be a text. Important too, is that, when using this meta-fictional mode of address as an extra-diegetic outlet that is only available to June, this subjugated yet increasingly rebellious character can speak as freely as she cares and articulate her plans to viewers. The second approach to June’s psychological investigation is the embedding within all or most episodes of flashbacks. Whilst flashbacks are used in various ways across different forms of TV drama, complex serials insert them, in non-chronological order, so as to inform and resonate with developments in the narrative present. These departures from chronology highlight the tendency of complex serials to manipulate the narrative’s ‘syuzhet’ plane, the order in which events are narrated and revealed to viewers (see Gripsrud

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2002: 199). Dispersed widely across the show’s larger narrative, these flashbacks deliver unique and vital information, demanding close attention from viewers. Their placement and dispersal underlines that the function of these flashbacks is not simply to deliver backstory details but rather to connect the lived experiences of conflicted primary characters with their problems and behaviour in the present. As used in THT, flashbacks also provide narrative extensions to a diegetic world that is largely confined within Gilead. It is by way of flashbacks that THT incorporates a counter-narrative about the pre-revolutionary years that characters term ‘before’ and the shortlived, ominous period of transition to totalitarianism. Contributing significantly to the psychological investigation of conflicted primary characters, complex serials insert flashbacks in moments of indecision or crisis in the unfolding main story. An indicative example, drawn from the ‘moment’ analysed in this chapter, is the flashback to a precious memory for June of her time with Hannah in the era ‘before’. Inserted between big close-ups which depict June waiting in a cornfield adjacent to the pick-up point, this flashback is positioned to precede and inform June’s decision in the scene that follows, to remain in Gilead.

Gilead as TV drama ‘problematic’: situational stasis as a form of simplicity Writing about the narrative mechanisms deployed by conventional drama series, John Ellis foregrounds their use of a ‘problematic’, arguing that ‘Repetition across the series is one of problematic, of both characters and the situation (or dilemma) in which they find themselves. These situations provide a steady state to which audience and fiction return each week’ (1988: 154, 156). This problematic is an asset to multi-season drama for its capacity to generate a large number of resolvable stories from a single drama series concept, as evidenced by the 261 episodes and 331 episodes achieved, respectively, by ABC’s NYPD Blue (1993–2005) and NBC’s ER (1994–2009). Important to the longevity that a problematic brings to these series, as successful, long-running procedural dramas, is that, whilst it allows for moderate development in core characters, it constrains

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the progression of the situations that host resolving stories and their characters. Ellis’s phrase ‘steady state’ is one that accommodates the possibility of some change. However, the risk that narrative progression brings to this ‘steady state’ is that, if the situation changes too much, the problematic loses something integral to its effectiveness, threatening the show’s survival. Explaining how this problematic operates at the level of the individual episode of a series, Mick Eaton (1985: 33), using sitcom, articulates a golden rule for the sustaining of a situation-based series: that ‘[n]othing that has happened in the narrative of the previous week must destroy or even complicate the way the situation is grounded’.10 Prioritising narrative progression over stasis, complex serials are obliged to break Eaton’s rule as far as they dare. Yet their creative challenge, as dramas from which narrative progression is expected, is how to maintain sufficient narrative stasis to preserve the serial’s conceptual integrity and maximise its longevity. Though longevity is not a necessary feature for them, complex serials have frequently extended this by incorporating into their concepts a series-like problematic which complements, but is also secondary, to the character-driven overarching story. By providing for a flow of guest characters and additional stories that intersect with those that are more prominent and enduring, this series-like problematic – as exemplified by the mafia business in The Sopranos and the advertising agency in Mad Men – helps to sustain the larger volume of episodes that complex serials are able to generate. THT is a character-driven drama whose overarching story is that of June as a Handmaid, yet it supplements this story with a series-like problematic through its construction of Gilead. As a ‘new’ society formed from the intersection of an extreme fauxtheocratic ideology and a post-apocalyptic America, the world of Gilead, dystopian though it is, is deployed by THT as a situational problematic which, even as it generates a succession of new story strands and characters, operates to limit narrative progression and maximise stasis. Because it imposes unethical authority, inspires rebellion and punishes the slightest expression of deviance with execution or dismemberment, the Gilead construct, as a place, regime and ideology, is highly effective as THT’s problematic. Since the regime either executes or otherwise disposes of anyone who seeks to disrupt it, there seems little likelihood of changes that might



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‘destroy or even complicate the way the situation is grounded’ (Eaton 1985: 33). Revealing how the nightmare world of Gilead arose out of her desire to interrogate the operation and effects of absolute power, Margaret Atwood (cited in Rothstein 1986) explains that: You could say it’s a response to [the notion that] ‘it can’t happen here’ […] But what could happen here […] if you were going to do it, what would you do? What emotions would you appeal to? What groups would you utilize? How exactly would you go about it? Well, something like the way the religious right is doing things. And the ultimate result of that process would be the union of church and state.

Atwood’s Gilead gains considerable potency from its visualisation as high-end television; this ensuring a viewing experience that is at once horrific and compelling. For some viewers the above effect is all the more challenging since, as multi-season television, there is no immediate end to the suffering that THT depicts. Even though THT has sought to adhere to rather than embellish Gilead’s practices and rituals as described in the novel, these are more affective on the screen, the images, actions and sounds combining to imbue the dystopian world described in Atwood’s novel with a sense of tangible possibility. This has tested the tolerance of those reviewers who have dismissed THT as ‘torture porn’ (Miller 2018) and sworn off the show. Almost every THT episode visits, or revisits, Gilead’s bloodstained Wall (on which the newly executed are publicly displayed), its ritual ‘ceremonies’ (in which Handmaids are raped by Commanders in the presence of their Wives), its frequent ‘salvagings’ and ‘particicutions’ (Atwood’s inventive descriptors for the executions with which the Handmaids assist) and its ‘prayvaganzas’ (mass prayer meetings with added ‘spectacle’, such as the mass marriage of loyal Guardians to young Econobrides in 2:5). THT also takes pains to remind viewers of the twenty-first-century technologies – a feature exemplified by the mass gallows used to terrorise the disobedient Handmaids in 2:1 – that render Gilead’s medieval punishments all the more bizarre and horrific in the cool, calculated efficiency of their execution. Within Gilead’s colour-coded system of categorising its populace according to status and function, only its most powerful men (the

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Commanders) make significant decisions, these enforced by men and women of lesser status (the Guardians, Aunts and Angels). All other women, regardless of their status (as Wives, Marthas, Econowives and Handmaids), are denied the means to education or knowledge and obliged to perform their assigned roles, within which, if they fall short, they risk severe punishment. Taken together, the above elements of situation and character provide episode-by-episode manifestations of Gilead as THT’s own problematic, each one providing a specific answer to the larger questions posed by Atwood above, of how, by whom, and at the expense of which individual or groups, a society like Gilead might operate and sustain itself. As a fictional place, regime and ideology, Gilead is without precedent in television drama and is complex rather than simplistic. Despite this, simplicity is evident in the way in which these elements of Gilead are used to construct a situational problematic which opens the narrative to a flow of new stories and characters and limits narrative progression while preserving stasis. Perhaps the most indicative example of the simplicity that results from Gilead’s role as situational problematic is the capacity of June, whose offences against the regime are among the most serious of all those depicted, to avoid the harsh punishment that would almost certainly be meted out to other errant THT characters. Whilst noncompliance by Gilead women justifies either exile to the colonies, dismemberment or execution, neither June’s attempted escape (2:1) nor her removal of Nicole (2:13) is seen to result in any significant punishment. This usage of Gilead – a significant departure from its deployment first in the 1985 novel and second in the 1990 feature film – is an important repercussion of the decision to adapt Atwood’s 1985 story to function as successful multi-season television. It is keyed to generate new seasons, characters, and story strands which together complement the development of June as primary character and the narrative progression of her predicament as a Handmaid. At an institutional level, the deployment of Gilead as a situational problematic operates to maximise the longevity of a demonstrably successful TV show and can be interpreted as a step away from complexity and towards conventionality. As such, it provides an important expression of THT’s capacity for simplicity.



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Backstory influences on Season 2’s ending June’s decision to remain in Gilead is all the more surprising for viewers because, as the sequence of events directly preceding it suggests, neither viewers nor June herself could have anticipated it. Having set alight a neighbourhood residence so as to create a suitable distraction for the escape attempt that is the initiative of resistance movement Mayday, Rita, the Waterfords’ Martha and a Mayday activist, informs June that ‘Friends’ can get her out. Whilst June has no time to do anything but accept this opportunity and react to the trajectory unfolding in front of her, it seems significant that this includes developments of which she is unaware. An important one is Emily’s attack on Aunt Lydia, the incident that motivates Emily’s benevolent Commander, Joseph Lawrence, to independently devise a plan to get her to the border on the same night chosen by Mayday for June’s escape attempt. Accordingly, it is not until Emily and Joseph arrive at the tunnel that June can know that Emily is joining the pick-up that she and her baby have been waiting for. This means that June’s decision to remain in Gilead can be made only after Emily arrives at the tunnel. Despite this indication of a sudden change of plan for June, her decision is mitigated by some key developments of the season, these intensifying from Episode 8 onward. The most significant of these is the increased anxiety that June begins to feel about her daughter Hannah (now ‘Agnes’), in view of what June has learned this season about the dangers of growing up female in Gilead. Although June has rarely stopped worrying about Hannah, her anxiety seems to spike after Fred, having raped her, seeks to ‘make amends’ by arranging for her to meet Hannah in an empty countryside residence (2:10). June’s unexpected meeting with Hannah reveals that, although the child was young enough to have forgotten her mother, she remembers and still loves her. While June answers Hannah’s genuinely difficult questions of ‘Why didn’t you try to find me?’ and ‘Why didn’t you try harder to find me and rescue me and be with me?’ as convincingly as she dares, these suggest that Hannah, until now at least, has believed that June abandoned her. Another development, which intensifies June’s fears for both of her daughters, is the disturbing realisation that arises from the regime’s

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spectacular public drowning (2:12) of Eden and Isaac, a young couple accused of infidelity, who refuse to renounce their love in order to be spared. From June’s viewpoint, Eden’s fate stings all the more sharply because, as a Gilead child with no memories of ‘before’, the fifteen-year-old Econowife seems an almost flawless product of Gilead’s ideology but for two transgressions. Eden has not only erred by heavily annotating her Bible (defying Gilead’s law that women may not read or write) but also begun an affair with Isaac, a Guardian assigned to the Waterford household, when the regime had already married her to Nick. While it engenders significant anxiety about what a Gilead future holds for both June’s daughters, Eden’s fate inflames June’s rage at the regime itself, which provides the rationale for her audacious acts of rebellion in Season 3. A third development arises from the understanding June gains as to the vulnerability of even Gilead’s most powerful women. The example is Serena Joy, a Gilead founder and the Wife of an influential Commander. Whilst close-ups emphasise June’s distress when Fred requires her to witness his whipping of Serena (2:8) in punishment for forging his signature, there is worse to come. Having convinced Serena that Gilead women should be permitted to read the Bible so as to understand the ‘Word of God’ by which they are expected to live, June learns that the punishment Serena receives after reading from the Bible at a meeting of Commanders (2:13) is no different from the standard ‘first offence’ punishment (the removal of a finger) for women of lesser status. June is more aware than Serena, because Fred has admitted it to her alone, that ‘Rules can be bent for a high-ranking Commander’ (2:13). She understands from this conversation that whilst Fred can arrange for her to stay in his service so that they can try for a second child (and Fred would like ‘a boy this time’), he chooses not to use the same influence to protect his Serena. Because June knows more about the extent of Fred’s disloyalty to his Wife than Serena herself, the contrast between Fred’s interventions on June’s behalf and his failure to prevent or reduce Serena’s own punishment (2:13) seems to permanently alter the relationships between June, Serena and Fred from this point, one repercussion of which is the legacy of greater mutual trust between June and Serena and very little of this between Serena and Fred. A fourth and final development contributing to Season 2’s ending is that June gives birth to a second daughter. While her postpartum



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state contributes to June’s anxieties discussed above, for Bruce Miller June’s decision to stay in Gilead is mitigated by the change in priorities that follow the birth of the child whom she names Holly (after her mother) and whom Serena calls Nicole. As Miller sees it, this turn changes June’s priorities by placing her two daughters on a more equal footing in respect of her responsibilities to them. As Miller (cited in Wigler 2018b) explains, [June] spent the whole season regretting that she had to carry one child out and leave the other behind, and then as soon as she got to the point where the child in her belly was not in her belly anymore, and she could actually hand it off to another human, there’s an opportunity to go back and save the first one […] Until that baby’s born, you can’t separate yourself. If the baby’s getting out, so are you. But as soon as this was not true, she realised that the thing that was pulling her all season toward Hannah was that she would not be able to live with herself if she left.

Miller’s perspective helps to account for the change in June’s ambitions since the beginning of THT’s second season, when she was committed to escaping Gilead. Notwithstanding Miller’s rationalisation as to why June’s aspirations change so much that she decides to stay in Gilead, as the following analysis of the final sequence of Season 2 demonstrates, there remains the not insignificant narrative question of who, other than June herself, will carry Baby Nicole across the border to safety.

Analysing June’s decision The ‘moment’ under analysis is a sequence that consumes twenty minutes of Season 2’s 63-minute final episode. Its setting is the late evening of what has been a particularly eventful day for the Waterfords, given Serena’s rebellion and punishment. It begins after Nick, reconciling his conflicting responsibilities as Fred’s Guardian, the father of Baby Nicole and a Mayday activist, has prevented Fred from leaving the house (and possibly discovering June in the garden) by instructing him to remain inside because ‘It’s too dangerous out there, Sir’. As the build-up to the surprise ending for Season 2, this sequence comprises four contributing scenes, which (apart

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from the flashback inserted into the third scene) are temporally interconnected. The first scene depicts June and Nicole’s wait in the Waterford garden. As she passes close to the garden glasshouse, June confronts her first significant obstacle: a wounded and bewildered Serena. The intense conversation between June and Serena that follows exploits not only the latter’s anaesthesia-fuelled confusion after the surgical removal of her ring finger but also the intensified anxiety, which the two women share, about the vulnerability of Gilead’s women and girls. Whilst their anxiety is escalated by the spectacular drowning of Eden (2:12), it is refreshed by Serena’s own punishment. This shared anxiety temporarily convinces Serena, during what is a pivotal moment of decision for her, that Baby Nicole ‘cannot be allowed to grow up’ in Gilead and June must be permitted to remove her. The second scene is a montage devoted to June’s flight from the neighbourhood to the pick-up point, assisted by Mayday’s small army of Marthas. Whilst viewers are well aware of Mayday and the Marthas who lead it, their role and orchestration of June’s escape attempt offer THT’s first demonstration of their efficiency and organisation. This scene opens with an overhead ‘eye-of-god’ shot of the neighbourhood streets, houses and gardens which, in the rest of this scene, are depicted from June’s eye level. The successive images and sounds of the neighbourhood and of brief conversations between June and the Marthas are underscored and linked by music. An ongoing sense of the risks for everyone involved is enhanced by the continuing sounds of sirens, dogs, flashing lights, vehicles and helicopters. As a journey depicted mostly in wide and medium shots, June and Nicole traverse the neighbourhood through a series of gated gardens. They are guided each step of the way by local Marthas, a different one for each section of the route, ensuring that the pair arrive safely at a tunnel, the nominated pick-up point. The third scene, an aesthetic contrast with the preceding two for its quiet introspection, spans June’s wait, as she crouches in a cornfield adjacent to the tunnel. Deploying lingering close-ups of June and a flashback, its narrative purpose is to psychologically probe the conflicting emotions that she is only now at liberty to feel as she assesses the new trajectory that Mayday’s plan has opened up. Inserted into the mid-point of this scene, and flanked by tearful big close-ups of June’s agonised face, is a flashback to ‘before’. June and Hannah

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lie on a bed in a warmly lit room as Luke watches from the doorway. The flashback depicts a treasured memory of emotional intimacy and physical closeness between June and a much younger Hannah, during which June softly sings The Velvet Underground’s ‘I’ll be your mirror’ to her adoring child. The flashback emphasises the strength of the bond between them, as one that June seemed to re-establish during the encounter that Fred ‘arranged’ for them three episodes earlier (2:10). Although this flashback points to the decision that June will make, its evident purpose, in a momentary interval between two possible lives for June, is to foreground the moral and emotional conflict that Mayday’s plan entails for her. Given what June knows and does not know at this juncture, it is unsurprising that she thinks of Hannah, the daughter she is poised to leave behind. June introduces Hannah to her new half-sister by way of the crumpled, but prized photograph that was one of Fred’s gifts to her. As the flashback concludes, June tucks the photo of Hannah into Nicole’s shawl rather than returning it to her pocket herself; this providing the first indication that June is reconsidering Mayday’s plan for her to accompany Nicole across the border. The fourth and final scene begins with the arrival of Joseph and Emily at the tunnel; a development that makes it possible for June to reassess her options. This scene gathers momentum as Emily sees June and realises, assisted by Joseph Lawrence’s admission ‘I’m getting myself in deep shit!’, that she is finally ‘getting out’ of Gilead. June’s ‘WTF’ decision is directly preceded by the contrasting reactions of herself and Emily to the arrival of the escape vehicle, an SUV. While Emily jumps straight into the vehicle and waits for June to hand her the baby so that she too can climb aboard, June (with Nicole in her arms) hangs well back. Ensuring that there is no time to debate or revoke her decision, June hands the baby to her friend at the last possible moment, instructing Emily to ‘call her Nicole’, a gesture of respect for Serena. As Emily protests, June closes the rear door on them both, hammering it with her fists to signal the driver to leave. Given the sequence of events that immediately precedes it, June’s decision occurs not evidently because she feels she cannot leave without Hannah, but instead because Emily’s arrival introduces an additional option. With the arrival of Emily, someone whom June can trust to ferry the baby to safety, she has an opportunity to save both daughters. Gazing into the camera, her final lingering

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1.1  The Handmaid’s Tale: Offred/June prepares to return to Gilead.

close-up implying a new level of determination (Figure 1.1), June raises her hood against the heavy rain, turns away and walks off into the night. As this happens, the music wells up. The song that ends this episode is Talking Heads’ ‘Burning down the house’. Whilst its title recalls the house fire that heralds Mayday’s escape attempt, ‘Burning down the house’ also references the dangerous position in which June’s decision has placed her.

Repercussions and conclusions Picking up THT’s narrative in Season 3 from exactly the point at which Season 2 left it, its writers found the means not only to ensure June’s survival, despite the seriousness of her transgressions, but also to develop her determination and capacity to inflict more considerable damage on the Gilead regime than the loss of Baby Nicole. Whilst one reviewer cites June’s decision as evidence of a TV drama so devoid of ideas and momentum that ‘all the show can do is walk in circles’ (Lyons 2018), this chapter foregrounds the complexity of this same decision, as one mitigated by key developments in the second half of this season and indebted to a last-minute change in June’s circumstances. Explained within Gilead as a kidnapping, Nicole’s escape to Canada drives key story strands in Season

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3. But, unsurprisingly, June’s decision has more significant repercussions for THT’s trajectory in this third season. Important among these is that Serena’s breakdown, which follows her loss of Nicole, triggers June’s reassignment as Handmaid to Commander Joseph Lawrence, a position that facilitates her increasing autonomy and agency, despite the continuation of her tenure as a Gilead Handmaid. Whilst this chapter argues that THT is complex rather than simplistic, a binary between complexity and simplicity is evidently operating. The foremost vehicle for THT’s narrative complexity is the primary character, June, whose predicament as a Handmaid embodies this show’s concept and overarching story, ensuring that lead character, predicament and show are inseparable. Pivotal to THT’s complexity, therefore, is the ongoing psychological investigation of June to examine and emphasise her own problems and progress, within which her direct communication with viewers via extra-diegetic voice-over allows them to know her concerns and changing priorities. THT’s capacity for simplicity is most strongly evident in the deployment of Gilead not merely as a televisual approximation of the place, regime, and ideology established by Atwood’s novel but as the kind of situational problematic that is highly characteristic of long-format TV fiction. This usage of the Gilead construct, which derives from the decision to adapt this novel as multi-season television, allows THT to generate new narrative material while maintaining the situation in which this serial ‘is grounded’ (Eaton 1985: 33) as a TV drama. These indicators of complexity and simplicity can be seen to converge in the moment of June’s ‘WTF’ decision. Even though this decision has been perceived by some reviewers as inauthentic and unmitigated, especially because it failed to deliver the grand resolution they expected, this chapter’s analysis of contributing narrative developments, and of the narrative context in which the decision is taken, foregrounds the victory of complexity over simplicity in this instance. The lengthy sequence analysed in this chapter is an outstanding example of the tension between narrative progression and stasis, which THT, as a multi-season drama, is obliged to negotiate successfully. Its four interlinked scenes provide an effective demonstration of how progression and stasis, as two seemingly conflicting narrative requirements, are reconciled in the high-stakes context of the last

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act of a season finale episode. Although contributions to this reconciliation have a larger range of sources than June alone, the sequence examined here provides an effective demonstration of THT’s approach to this because of the extent to which this sequence develops the show’s ‘overarching story’ and directly confronts the moral and emotional conflicts that this larger story entails for June. Whilst THT’s narrative progression is foregrounded most overtly in the changing actions, objectives and capabilities of June as primary character, the physical and ideological limits of Gilead, which are also evident throughout this sequence, are seen to push back against June’s own ambitions so as to ultimately limit narrative change. As such, the Gilead construct – as a place, regime and ideology – provides the situational stasis that sustains June’s conflicted position in order to recharge THT’s larger narrative for further seasons.

Notes 1 Receiving a number of prestigious nominations in 2017, THT subsequently won four Emmy Awards. In 2018 THT won three Emmys, two of the most coveted Golden Globe awards for drama and five awards from leading US TV industry guilds, and was voted the American Film Institute’s best TV programme. 2 This is ‘faux’ because whilst Gilead’s fundamentalist theocracy is represented in its various rituals – such as the monthly ‘ceremony’ for handmaids and their commanders – there are no church services, women are not permitted to read even the Bible, and Gilead’s Commanders are privileged men but not clerics, committed only to the exercise of power. 3 This is an important difference from Atwood’s novel in which (although readers may deduce the narrator’s real name) the central character is known only as Offred, the handmaid name she has been assigned, whose two syllables acknowledge her effective bondage to Fred Waterford. 4 See Gross 2018. 5 In Season 1 June is bustled into a foreboding black van, leaving a question mark about where this vehicle is taking her and what her fate will be. In Season 3, June, albeit jubilant that she has enabled the escape of a large group of Gilead children, is seriously wounded and in more danger than ever. 6 An industry catchphrase, ‘jump the shark’ recognises moments devised by creators to combat the declining popularity of a show; often referring



‘WTF June?’

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to those in which spectacle is deployed as a substitute for more authentic narration or depiction. This reset button is pushed again at the end of Season 3, when June opts once again to remain in Gilead so that others can escape. The preferred US writers’ room practice for serial TV dramas is to first conceive developments for a given season and second to devise the key story beats for individual episodes (see Dunleavy 2018: 82–7). I have argued that ‘complex serials’ are distinguished by six features; these are outlined in Dunleavy 2018: 105–6. Eaton’s assertion was made about TV sitcom but is equally true for many hour-long drama series; indicatively ‘crime procedurals’.

References Atwood, Margaret (1985) The Handmaid’s tale. London: Vintage Books. Berman, Judy (2018) ‘The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2 finale: burning down the house’. The New York Times, 11 July 2018. www.nytimes.com/2018/07/11/ arts/television/the-handmaids-tale-recap-season-2-finale.html. Accessed 14 November 2018. Bradley, Laura (2019) ‘Blessed be the fruit: Handmaid’s Tale showrunner breaks down a darkly heroic Season Three finale’. Vanity Fair, 14 August. www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/08/the-handmaids-tale-season3-finale-bruce-miller-interview. Accessed 4 September 2019. Cook, John (1998) Dennis Potter: a life on screen. Second edition. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Dunleavy, Trisha (2018) Complex serial drama and multiplatform television. New York: Routledge. Eaton, Mick (1985) ‘Television situation comedy’. In Tony Bennett, Susan Boyd-Bowman, Colin Mercer and Janet Woollacott (eds) Popular television and film. London: British Film Institute, pp. 26–52. Ellis, John (1988) Visible fictions: cinema, television, video. London and New York: Routledge. Gitlin, Todd (1994) Inside prime time. Revised edition. London and New York: Routledge. Gripsrud, Jostein (2002) Understanding media culture. London: Arnold. Gross, Rena (2018) ‘The Handmaid’s Tale: Season 2, Episode 13 recap: 19 startling moments in “The Word”’. Billboard, 7 November. www. billboard.com/articles/news/8464908/the-handmaids-tale-season-2-episode13-recap-19-startling-moments-in-the-word. Accessed 14 November 2018. Howells, Coral Ann (2006) ‘Margaret Atwood’s dystopian visions: The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake’. In Coral Ann Howells (ed.) The

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Cambridge companion to Margaret Atwood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 161–75. Lyons, Margaret (2018) ‘The strains of dystopia’. The New York Times, 11 July 2018. www.nytimes.com/2018/07/11/arts/television/handmaidstale-season-2.html. Accessed 14 November 2018. MacCabe, Colin (1985) ‘Realism and the cinema: notes on a Brechtian thesis’. In Tony Bennett, Susan Boyd-Bowman, Colin Mercer and Janet Woollacott (eds) Popular television and film. London: BFI, pp. 216–35. Miller, Lisa (2018) ‘The relentless torture porn of The Handmaid’s Tale’. The Cut, 2 May. www.thecut.com/2018/05/the-handmaids-tale-season2-review.html. Accessed 14 November 2018. Mittell, Jason (2013) ‘Vast versus dense seriality in contemporary television’. In Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock (eds) Television aesthetics and style. London and New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 45–56. Mittell, Jason (2015) Complex TV: the poetics of contemporary television storytelling. New York and London: New York University Press. Newcomb, Horace (2007) ‘“This is not al dente”: The Sopranos and the new meaning of television’. In Horace Newcomb (ed.) Television: the critical View. Seventh edition. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 561–78. Rothstein, Mervyn (1986) ‘No balm in Gilead for Margaret Atwood’. The New York Times, 17 February. http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/00/09/03/ specials/atwood-gilead.html. Accessed 10 September 2019. Wigler, Josh (2018a) ‘Handmaid’s Tale creator Bruce Miller defends divisive finale’. The Hollywood Reporter, 12 July. www.hollywoodreporter. com/live-feed/handmaids-tale-season-2-finale-bruce-miller-defendsbacklash-1126662. Accessed 29 November 2018. Wigler, Josh (2018b) ‘Handmaid’s Tale creator on surprising finale twist, “Dangerous” Season 3’. The Hollywood Reporter, 11 July. www.hollywoodreporter. com/live-feed/handmaids-tale-season-2-finale-explained-bruce-millerpreviews-season-3–1126208. Accessed 16 November 2018.

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Being Frank? Breaking the ‘fourth wall’ in Netflix’s House of Cards Christa van Raalte and Maike Helmers

It is pitch black. We hear a car skid, then crash and the yelp of an injured dog. Centre screen, Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) appears from behind the grand front doors of his Washington townhouse with a look of concern. He hurries to the site of the hit-and-run where, sending his security guard off to find the owners, he squats down to soothe the whimpering animal. He muses aloud: ‘There are two kinds of pain: the sort of pain that makes you strong, or useless pain, the sort of pain that’s only suffering.’ He looks straight to camera: ‘I have no patience for useless things’ – and with that he breaks the dog’s neck. He continues to talk to the audience, as his theme music emerges from sounds of the street: ‘Moments like this require someone who will act. Do the unpleasant things, the necessary thing … There,’ he reassures us, as the dying dog ceases to struggle, ‘no more pain’. In that moment we know everything we need to know about Frank, from his Machiavellian pragmatism to his overweening self-regard. We have also been introduced to the dramatic device of direct address that is stylistically central to House of Cards (Netflix, 2013–18) and the focus of much critical debate. We have been inducted, moreover, into the conflicted audience position that the text creates for us, largely by means of this same device, which makes us the confidants of a morally abhorrent protagonist. The device works here on a number of levels. On one level it provides a simple and effective introduction to his character: we see both the kind of man he is and the kind he pretends to be (with his expressions of condolence to the owners). On a rather more complex level, it allows Frank to tell us how he sees himself – how he rationalises his actions – so contextualising the many future occasions on which he

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will put the human victims of his machinations out of their misery. At the same time it serves a metanarrative function, foreshadowing the events of the first episode and indeed establishing a key theme of the series as a whole. The storyline is predicated on pain that makes one stronger (specifically Frank’s pain at being denied promotion, which will galvanise him to higher ambitions) – as opposed to pain that does not (represented by the suffering he will inflict on others). Thus, simplicity and complexity are intertwined in the way Frank’s opening speech ‘sets up’ the drama that will ensue.

Introduction House of Cards charts the rise of the ruthless politician Frank Underwood from Chief Whip to Vice-President (Season 1), then President (Season 2) of the United States, and subsequently his immoral exploits in that role, until his impeachment forces him to step down, passing the mantle to his wife at the end of Season 5. In an uncanny instance of life imitating art, Spacey was accused of sexual abuse while Season 6 was in production: Netflix reacted by announcing the end of the show, killing off the character and editing him out of the final season, which limped to an ignominious end dogged by continuity gaps and critical opprobrium. This chapter will focus on the (largely well received) first season of the show, and in particular the first two episodes which set up Frank’s character, along with the stylistic tropes that shape his relationship with his audience. At the beginning of the show, Frank, having been instrumental in the election of Garrett Walker (Michel Gill) as the new Democrat President, expects to be nominated for Secretary of State. When the President’s new Chief-of-Staff Linda Vasquez (Sakina Jaffrey) informs him that there has been a change of plan, he is wounded and furious. With the support of his wife Claire (Robin Wright), and his aide Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly), Frank sets out to destroy Walker and take the Presidency for himself. Along the way he recruits a company of unwitting and dispensable foot-soldiers whom he manipulates into supporting his campaign. Chief among these are Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara), an ambitious young journalist to whom he feeds regular leads that serve his interests, and Peter Russo (Corey Stoll), an alcoholic senator, whom he blackmails into becoming his

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political puppet. Having served their purpose, each will eventually become a liability, and be summarily murdered by Frank. House of Cards is a show of considerable cultural, historical and industrial significance.1 Released in 2013 to great excitement in the popular and trade press, it represented ‘a lot of firsts’ (Satell 2013) in television history. It was the first ‘Netflix original’, directly commissioned by a streaming service without network involvement; it was the first series to be released a whole season at a time; it was the first show developed and marketed with the help of an algorithm. A cynical antidote to NBC’s idealistic The West Wing (1999–2006), House of Cards was uncannily prescient in foreshadowing both Trump’s tumultuous presidency and impeachment, and the fall from grace of its star. The show was adapted from the Michael Dobbs novel (1989), and the UK mini-series of the same title (BBC, 1990–95) scripted by Andrew Davies. Both Dobbs and Davies were given writers’ credits for the Netflix series, and Davies’s creative influence is evident in the plotting of the first season and, most significantly, in the critically controversial dramatic device of breaking the notional ‘fourth wall,’ in order for the antihero to directly address the audience.2 It is this narrative device of direct address that will provide the focus for this chapter. Operating on both simple and complex levels, the device is key to the characterisation of the anti-hero and to the viewer’s relationship with him. At a simple level, it gives us access to Frank’s character and provides some much-needed exposition to help us navigate the byzantine labyrinth of Frank’s political sphere. At a more complex level it offers degrees of reflexivity and metanarrative, and a shifting tone that subtly informs the dynamics of the narrative and of our engagement with the show.

Complexity and simplicity in House of Cards Jason Mittell, in his book Complex TV (2015), positions his subject as a twenty-first-century phenomenon, defined primarily by the intertwining of episodic, seasonal and series-long story-arcs; ‘narrative pyrotechnics [that call] attention to the narration’s construction’ (2015: 43), ranging from temporal shifts to metanarrative commentary; and elaborate characterisation supporting the contemporaneous

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rise of the anti-hero. Eschewing the repetition and exposition that make wallpaper TV a convenient secondary activity, ‘complex TV’ demands close attention and rewards repeat viewing with a wealth of conceptual and expressive detail. From an institutional perspective this development is underpinned by generous production budgets, manifested on screen in high production values and stellar cast – often persuaded to ‘cross over’ from the more prestigious world of cinema. It is also underpinned by the advent of the ‘box-set’, initially a DVD collection but latterly the backbone of streaming, subscription and catch-up services, which has been instrumental in establishing television as a substantial rather than an ephemeral cultural form. These criteria provide a useful starting point for reviewing the interplay of complexity and simplicity in House of Cards. In institutional terms the show bears many of the hallmarks of ‘appointment to view’ television: Netflix’s promotional strategy relied heavily on the star status of Spacey and of the Hollywood director David Fincher, who was an executive producer on the show and directed the first two episodes. Data harvested from systems designed to track the viewing habits of their thirty-three million users (Leber 2013) gave Netflix sufficient confidence to invest $100 million (Davies 2019), ‘a considerable percentage’ of the company’s quoted value at the time (Anderson 2018) in the first two seasons. Its ‘box-set’ release, coupled with the literary conceit of naming each episode a ‘Chapter’, represents a statement of intent on the part of a company confident not only in its market knowledge but also in the quality of its product. The narrative of House of Cards is relatively simple compared with many of the shows Mittell discusses. It is entirely linear, structured around a single lead, and devoid of temporal complexities. Subplots revolving around secondary characters eventually (and often predictably) converge on the central strand. Indeed, the show has been criticised for its slow pace and a dearth of the plot ‘twists’ that sophisticated audiences have come to expect (Stanley 2013). The viewing pleasures offered by the show, however, reside less in the ‘what’ than the ‘how’. The interlocking story-arcs, which can last from a single scene to several seasons, resonate with one another as the scheming protagonist repeats signature strategies, offering the pleasures of recognition and prediction as we follow his progress. Mittell suggests that the self-conscious flourishes that often

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characterise a complex narrative produce an ‘operational aesthetic’ (2015: 43), inviting the viewer to marvel at the virtuosity of the storytelling.3 It is a voyeuristic fascination with the ‘operational aesthetic’ of Frank’s elaborate confidence tricks and cynical manipulations, as much as any emotional investment in his success, that keeps audiences engaged with the ongoing narrative of House of Cards. As an anti-hero, Frank Underwood is also a relatively simple creation compared with the complex psychological portraits discussed by Mittell. Starting out bad and staying that way, he has more in common with the malcontent of early modern drama,4 or even the ‘Vice’, the allegorical personification of wickedness found in medieval morality plays.5 Morally, he has no redeeming qualities, and the show employs none of the usual strategies to keep an audience ‘on-side’. Unlike the eponymous anti-hero of Dexter (Showtime, 2006–13), Frank has no explanatory backstory. Unlike Walter White in Breaking Bad (High Bridge, 2008–13), he experiences no personal journey to the dark side. Unlike the much-therapised lead in The Sopranos (HBO, 1999–2007), Frank reveals no special insights to explain (away) his misdeeds. Moreover, he rarely has recourse to the fig-leaf of moral relativism, as has Dexter for example, who is positioned as less culpable than other serial killers. Whilst Frank’s victims may be less than exemplary, even the nastiest political operators among them are no worse than Frank himself. If the character of Frank is in many ways very straightforward, however, the audience’s relationship with him is anything but. The show invites us take on a range of positions: to be seduced by Frank’s superficial charm (and Spacey’s charismatic performance), amused by his witty turn of phrase, intrigued by his Machiavellian connivances and appalled by his utterly unscrupulous behaviour and the havoc he wreaks in the lives of anyone unfortunate enough to fall foul of him. Murray Smith proposes that audience engagement with a character is shaped by a ‘structure of sympathy’ that works to align us with that character, in part by affording us ‘subjective access’ to his or her inner life, and in part by our ‘spatial attachment’ to his or her actions and experiences within the narration (1994: 41). This alignment informs an allegiance which rests on our moral evaluation of the character – and necessarily presents some challenges in the case of the anti-hero. Critically, as Smith explains, this evaluation is as much affective as it is cognitive – music and iconography

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can be as salient as action, for example, in influencing our response to a character – and complex texts have an armoury of narrative devices at hand to render their immoral protagonists, if not exactly sympathetic, then certainly attractive to an audience. For House of Cards, a key weapon in this armoury is Frank’s ability to breach the fourth wall and directly address the audience. But this is a weapon that, in terms of sympathy for the protagonist, seems rigged to backfire, for, whilst Frank’s confidences may ‘trick’ us into a position that would be untenable in our real lives, they also expose the cynicism and sheer wickedness of the speaker. Frank’s shifting tone during these moments suggests a decidedly ambivalent attitude towards us – his unseen confidants – and one that does not always inspire our allegiance. John Scott Gray (2016) notes three very different readings of this relationship. At times, Frank speaks to his audience as though addressing a friend – indeed this is how Spacey himself describes his performance (Molloy 2014). More often he adopts a didactic manner, dispensing object lessons and aphorisms as though instructing a political apprentice. And sometimes he seems intent on manipulating us as he manipulates other characters on the show, conjuring a perverse understanding of right and wrong. The tension is exacerbated by the fact that he is not an entirely reliable narrator, as Mario Klarer has observed (2014); whilst Frank does not actually lie to us, as he does to his fellow players, he nevertheless edits his narrative to ensure we are at best kept ‘outside’ of his confidence at key moments,6 and at worst misled alongside his adversaries.7 The use of direct audience address in House of Cards is, at its simplest level, a convenient storytelling device, combining as it does the potential for character insight, plot exposition and moral commentary. It is also a form of ‘narrative pyrotechnics’, a complex artifice that calls attention to itself and thus to the constructed-ness of the narrative as a whole. The emotional distance this can produce may account for the fact that, in film and television, the device is almost unknown outside of comedy. Indeed, in his discussion of the ways in which ‘complex narration often breaks the fourth wall’, Mittell’s examples of ‘visually represented direct address’ are exclusively comedic, whilst the dramas are described as featuring a ‘more ambiguous voice-over that blurs the line between diegetic and nondiegetic’ (2015: 49). Frank’s direct address to camera in House

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of Cards, then, is unusual, combining the arch, subtly distancing effect of the ‘asides’ that provide a comedy such as Fleabag (BBC, 2016–19) with its distinctive tone8 with the seductive, boundaryblurring effect of the inter-diegetic voice-overs that justify the actions of the anti-hero in Dexter. The degree to which House of Cards is considered sophisticated and innovative drama, or stylistically fussy and overly theatrical in its approach, depends a great deal on the viewer’s attitude to the show’s use of direct address. In the following section we will demonstrate that the device is in fact extremely effective in its elegant simplicity, while also working at more complex levels of metanarrative and audience engagement – and that, despite its apparent theatricality, it is utilised in a particularly televisual manner.

The Education Bill The moment selected for detailed analysis is the scene in Chapter 2 in which Frank tricks Education Secretary Donald Blythe into sacrificing himself to save ‘his’ Education Bill. The scene portrays a virtuoso piece of manipulation by Frank – what a confidence trickster would call a ‘short con’. This in turn provides a pattern book for the many ‘long cons’ Frank is to perpetrate over the course of the series. Because individual scenes in House of Cards are typically brief, this moment will be contextualised by a number of associated moments that serve to ‘set up’ the scene, both in terms of the Education Bill story-arc and in terms of the metanarrative that is such an important feature of the show. The Bill is first mentioned in the scene near the start of Chapter 1, where Frank learns that the President will not make him Secretary of State – indeed it is part of the rationale given for keeping him in Congress. It seems fitting, therefore, that it is co-opted by Frank as a weapon of revenge. From the administration’s point of view, the Education Bill is a key plank in the political agenda; from Frank’s perspective, it is a key plank in his plot to take over the administration. His plans are set in motion a little later in Chapter 1, when Linda Vasquez requests his help with the Bill. The scene is framed by ‘asides’ that work at their simplest level to alert the audience to the gladiatorial subtext of what might otherwise seem

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an innocuous, even dull, conversation. On a more complex level they also work with the studied staging and composition to place us as Frank’s co-conspirators, passive but explicitly present participants in the drama. Frank is sitting at his desk when he is informed that Linda is about to visit. He turns to confide in us that it is ‘rare for the President’s Chief-of-Staff to climb the hill’ which he interprets as an act of desperation. Frank’s eye-line and the camera angle suggest that we are seated beside him – an impression reinforced in the next moment as he gets up to cross to the door. He predicts, ‘She’ll say Donald Blythe for Education’, drawing us into his little guessing game with a backward glance to camera: ‘Let’s see if I’m right’. The downward angle of his eye-line maintains the illusion that the viewer, his unseen companion, has remained seated beside the desk. Linda begins by proffering ball tickets for the Presidential Inauguration, a move calculated to keep the slighted Frank on side; Frank graciously accepts – while flicking a glance to camera as though to make sure we’ve spotted the ruse. Linda then goes on to confirm Frank’s prediction that Donald Blythe will take the lead on the Education Bill; Frank feigns surprise, while once again throwing us a conspiratorial look. This time the silent ‘aside’, and the implied relationship with the audience, are more marked as Frank turns to look over his right shoulder, a gesture captured by a brief close-up from an angle that again reinforces our privileged position at his side (Figure 2.1). The combination of this particular gesture and shot is to become a standard trope within the series. Whereas the ‘within shot’ glance to camera breaks the ‘fourth wall’ represented by the lens and acknowledges the presence of an audience in general terms, this more deliberate aside, featuring a turn of the head (as though to address another character within the drama) and dedicated close-up (as though from the point of view of that character) places us in the room. The former example renders the ‘fourth wall’ permeable; the latter leads us, the audience, through it and into the action in a particularly televisual way. The visual geometry of the scene suggests that we are not looking on, as if from a theatre seat, but physically present in the moment, like a supporting character in the diegetic world. As the scene continues, it is established that Blythe’s Education Bill will be too left-leaning to pass unless Frank can ‘guide him to

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2.1  House of Cards: Manufacturing consent? Frank keeps his co-conspirators on board.

the middle’ and that the President wants to commit, during his inaugural address, to having the Bill on the floor in his ‘first hundred days’. Frank promises to ‘deliver’ (although not without stressing the scale of the challenge) and sees Linda out. At this point another visual trope is established as Frank stands in the doorway to deliver his next soliloquy. The doorway, a liminal space traditionally occupied by Janus the two-faced god of Roman mythology, is a particularly appropriate setting for our duplicitous anti-hero to deliver soliloquies that directly contradict the assurances and promises doled out to his antagonists. Doors are also, at the simplest level, a means to walk through walls, so an equally appropriate site at which to render permeable the notional fourth wall boundary. Thus Frank stands in his office doorway, to watch Linda leave, lowering his voice to confide in us: ‘Did you see that? The smugness? The false deference? She thinks I can be bought with a pair of tickets!’ The urbane charm on display during the meeting has been replaced by unvarnished contempt: ‘What am I? A whore in post-war Berlin, salivating over free stockings and chocolate?’ The sudden use of such coarse language and distasteful imagery provides a simple dramatic shock, contrasting as it does with the civilised mundanity of the office environment. At a more complex level, the imagery is particularly disturbing because of our implied complicity, reinforced by Frank’s use of rhetorical questions as he invites us to share his

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opinion of Linda’s amateurish subterfuge. A cut on the word ‘whore’ to a medium close-up from inside the office emphasises the term, while placing us back in Frank’s inner sanctum. Shallow depth-of-field renders Linda’s retreating form small and indistinct among the political minions (although, critically, she remains recognisable in her bright white jacket). At the same time, it creates an uncomfortable intimacy with Frank, who refers us back to his masterplan: ‘What she’s asking will cost far more than that’. This use of shallow depth-of-field to separate the soliloquising Frank from the diegetic background action is another trope we will see throughout the series, along with linguistic flourishes that are reminiscent of Shakespearean or Jacobean villains, employing a register and a form of imagery very rarely found in Frank’s diegetic speech. Both make a simple and immediate dramatic impact, providing much-needed relief from the minutiae of Frank’s political manoeuvring. On a more complex level, both serve to create an inter-diegetic space offering both insight into Frank’s inner world, and access to a metanarrative perspective from which we watch the Machiavellian anti-hero at work. The Education Bill story-arc is picked up a little later when Frank visits Donald Blythe (Reed Birney) in his office. The scene sets the tone for their working relationship as Frank performs an elaborate pantomime which both demonstrates his disdain for Donald’s ‘life’s work’ and presages the little drama he will enact at their next meeting. As Donald looks on, Frank makes a great show of reading the Bill and consigning it to the shredder – then pulling out the mangled document and dumping it in the waste bin. Having instructed the bewildered Donald to start working on a more acceptable draft, Frank heads for his next appointment, telling us: ‘Two things are now irrelevant: Donald Blythe and Donald Blythe’s new draft. Eventually I’ll have to rewrite the Bill myself’.’ In a reverse tracking shot, Frank strides purposefully along the corridor, sharing his philosophical position on this, and indeed all political causes: ‘Forward! That is the battle cry. Leave ideology to the armchair generals; does me no good.’ 9 These two very different kinds of ‘aside’ offer an audience very different pleasures. There is something perversely delightful in the shameless contradiction between what Frank says to us in his first statement, and what he has said to Donald – a simple pleasure akin to that offered by the gleeful confidences of the medieval stage villain. A more complex set of pleasures is offered by the ‘cod’

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philosophy of his second utterance – expressed here, as throughout the show, in heightened language, to create memorable aphorisms as though for an audience of eager students. We recognise in these pronouncements a kind of truth about the art of realpolitik – but, for the reflective viewer it is at the same time apparent that the ‘superficially sensible’ maxims that serve to justify Frank’s actions are in fact untenable, illogical or fundamentally amoral, running counter to actual moral aphorisms (Dressen and Taliaferro 2016: 250). Frank paints himself as the practical man of action, in contrast to the despised ‘armchair generals’ of popular discourse – but at the expense of any principles whatsoever. Returning to the Bill, the next few skirmishes in Frank’s campaign go smoothly, and are depicted with a light narrative touch. We witness Doug retrieve the shredded remains of Donald’s draft, which Frank ‘leaks’ to Zoe Barnes, who in turn reassembles the document and persuades her paper to print it. On the morning of publication Frank is seated outside ‘Freddie’s’ rib joint, chatting amiably to us over his breakfast rack-of-ribs. Extolling the virtues of his favourite meal, Frank cuts himself off with delight as he unfolds his newspaper to reveal the incendiary front page, where President Walker’s inaugural speech sits side by side with the leaked Education Bill. The simple device of the paper, juxtaposed with the atavistic imagery of Frank’s carnivorous breakfasting habits, provides an apt finale to the Chapter. Frank’s running commentary has been utilised to render simple (and thus more dramatically effective) the mechanics of his political manoeuvring; at the same time, however, by lifting the lid to expose those same mechanics, his commentary has highlighted the complexity of planning involved, ensuring that we do not overlook any of the intricate details of Frank’s handiwork. We are invited, in other words, to enjoy the operational aesthetic – with the newspaper furnishing the ‘Ta-Da!’ moment concluding Frank’s first trick.

Stacking people The prologue to Chapter 2 finds Frank still outside Freddie’s. A close-up of Walker’s photograph shows Frank’s finger smearing a blood-red line of ketchup across the President’s throat. ‘You know what I like about people?’ he asks, and looks up at the camera,

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‘They stack so well’. The idea of ‘stacking’ (ordinarily something one does with cards) is an explicit reference to the title of the show. Its use here fulfils a relatively simple dramatic purpose, confirming that people, for Frank, are mere objects to be manipulated, as one might manipulate cards. The idea also operates at a more complex level, however, providing the kind of metanarrative commentary that is regularly featured in the show. For card stacking has three distinct meanings, all of which are pertinent to the ensuing chapter: to stack cards is to build a ‘house of cards’; to stack the cards is also to manipulate the pack in one’s favour – to cheat; finally, in advertising, ‘card stacking’ refers to the way in which information is used selectively to suggest the superiority of a product, or the desirability of a course of action. Chapter 2 shows Frank assiduously stacking people (including Linda, Zoe, Peter – and of course Donald) to erect the structure that will elevate him to the Vice-Presidency and, ultimately, to the Presidency itself; it shows him cheating at politics to achieve his ends; and it shows him, particularly in his encounter with Donald, stacking information to present an apparently inevitable course of action for his victim to follow. The scene at Freddie’s ends with Frank realising he is late for his meeting: ‘Every Tuesday I sit down with the speaker and the majority leader to discuss the week’s agenda’. Rising from his seat and walking toward his chauffeur-driven car, Frank is every inch the polished politician; however, the words with which he describes his imminent meeting reveal an alarming level of vitriol: ‘Well, “discuss” is probably the wrong word: they talk while I quietly imagine their lightly salted faces fried in a skillet’. This atavistic imagery beneath the veneer of civilisation is another feature we will encounter throughout the series; moreover, it endows the subsequent scene with a contrapuntal subtext, mobilised when (during the otherwise routine meeting) Frank glances briefly to camera over the top of his teacup. Once again, the dramatic impact of Frank’s asides proves to be twofold, combining the simple and immediate ‘shock value’ of the imagery with the layer of interpretative complexity it brings to future scenes.

The martyrdom of Donald Blythe Later that morning, Frank is summoned to a meeting with Linda, who is, of course, furious about the leaked Education Bill. Frank

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assures her that such setbacks are normal, and promises to fix the mess. His strategy for doing so is revealed in the next scene, in which six young lawyers are briefed to write a replacement Bill from scratch: having previously pronounced both Donald and his new draft to be irrelevant, Frank has already taken steps to ensure that this is indeed the case. It is in this context that we witness Frank’s second meeting with Donald Blythe, at which he misrepresents his meeting with Linda to suggest that she and the President intend to make a scapegoat of the hapless Donald. Depicting himself as a loyal ally, disgusted with the way his friend has been treated, Frank begins to enact a charade of honourable self-sacrifice – a charade designed to provide his victim with a blueprint for action. Declaring ‘I’ll fall on this grenade myself’, Frank picks up the phone and demands ‘Get me John King at CNN!’ Donald is thrown into a panic, pleading with Frank not to go through with it; he cannot allow Frank to take the rap on his behalf – and, besides, he needs Frank to get the Bill through the House. After a show of resistance, Frank ‘relents’, placing the ball in Donald’s court: ‘Well then, what do you suggest we do?’ While Donald struggles with his conscience, Frank turns to camera in a now familiar gesture to invite our appreciation of his card-stacking skills – the operational aesthetic at work. ‘What a martyr craves more than anything is a sword to fall on’, he explains, adopting a sardonic, sing-song tone that reflects his contempt for Donald (and martyrs in general) as he provides his recipe: ‘so … you sharpen the blade, hold it at just the right angle, and then …’ he counts the beats with his hand, as though conducting an orchestra ‘three, two, one …’. At this point he turns, showman-like, to Donald, who, right on cue, declares: ‘It should be me!’ (Figure 2.2). Feigning protest at Donald’s suggestion, Frank none the less replaces the phone receiver, which has now served its purpose. Sitting down opposite his deflated victim he mirrors his body-language (and, apparently, his emotions) as Donald confides that ‘my heart is not in this fight. I’m not a wheeler-dealer. I’m no good at this brand of politics’. The irony is not lost on us as we watch the master wheeler-dealer at work. Frank appears to wrestle with the question of who, aside from Donald, could possibly head up the Bill. ‘Well if not you, then who?’ he wonders, turning aside, as it seems, in search of inspiration – only to be picked up in close-up from that familiar angle, as he throws us a conspiratorial look. Once more,

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2.2  House of Cards: The operational aesthetic: Frank sharpens the blade of martyrdom.

Donald seizes the bait: ‘It should be you, Frank!’ At this point a wistful, yet recognisable, variation on Frank’s musical theme begins to swell – the arpeggios of wheeling and dealing – as Donald sets about the task of ‘persuading’ Frank to take over delivery of the Bill, and persuading himself that he has made the right choice: ‘at least people will know where I stand’. Donald having been dispatched, we find ourselves back inside Frank’s office, and in his confidence. Closing the door on his latest victim, Frank turns to us: ‘He has no idea I’ve got six kids in the next room working on a new draft’. Although the phrase suggests all the simple, self-satisfied glee of a pantomime villain (‘little does he know …’), Frank retains his usual veneer of urbanity, delivering his lines at pace as he strides across the room, to perform a virtuoso blend of diegetic dialogue and direct address. He turns away from us to call ‘Stamper!’, then back to us, continuing with only the faintest hint of sarcasm, ‘but why dampen his mood by telling him. We just gave him a great gift: a chance to fulfil his destiny.’ Like the dog at the start of Chapter 1, Donald has been put out of his misery – and the use of ‘we’ here suggests our complicity in the process. This complicity is reinforced by the way in which the next few shots work to situate us in a specific position in the room. The camera angle, together with Frank’s eye-line, places us immediately opposite Frank, our intimacy marked again by a shallow

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depth-of-field. From this vantage point we see Doug enter through a door behind Frank, who looks down at the mobile phone in his hand to start texting Zoe Barnes,10 talking to Doug at the same time: ‘Write up a statement for Blythe: stepping aside, fresh ideas etcetera, etcetera. Make it dignified, he’s a good man.’ Acknowledging his brief without breaking his stride, Doug walks on past us and out of frame to exit behind us, as it seems, with Frank calling further instructions over our shoulder. We remain in the room, where Frank looks down to send his text, slowly back up at us, with the faintest suggestion of a conspiratorial smile, and slowly down again. We may consider ourselves dismissed. The simplicity of the con perpetrated in this scene only adds to a perverse sense of satisfaction at its neat resolution – whilst the complexities of the set-up, and the subtlety of the technique with which Frank misleads and manipulates his victims reward the attentive viewer. The use of direct address serves simultaneously to simplify through explication of Frank’s strategies, and to complicate by revealing the number of moving parts involved and by offering the audience a range of subtly shifting subject positions from which to engage with the action and the anti-hero.

Simplicity, complexity and the usages of direct address Direct address to camera in House of Cards is as variable in form as it is in function, combining elements of simplicity and complexity at both the stylistic and the conceptual levels. The most memorable instances, perhaps, are the relatively protracted soliloquies Frank delivers when we are alone with him or when other characters are relegated to the background – out of focus or out of shot. These moments benefit from a certain epistemic simplicity, making a clear distinction between the diegetic action and the extra-diegetic commentary; however they vary considerably in style of delivery and serve a complex array of functions which often merge within a single speech. Thus some are staged in a self-consciously theatrical manner, such as Frank’s many static speeches framed by doorways or similar architectural features; others are given on the move, often to a tracking camera, echoing a common trope of political drama. Some take us into Frank’s confidence to share his plans, his frustrations and his

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resentment of others; others adopt a more didactic dynamic, featuring Frank’s dubious aphorisms, which, as Sandrine Sorlin observes, use an impersonal register to create a ‘convenient’ distance between us and Frank’s wrong-doing (2015: 138). Some adopt a conversational tone, while others utilise heightened language and imagery – often sliding from one to the other as in the scene outside Freddie’s, which takes us from the casual ‘Every Tuesday …’ to the cannibalistic ‘lightly salted faces’ in mid-sentence. Overall, they tend to create a degree of affective disorientation, both in terms of our cognitive and emotional alignment with Frank and in terms of our immersion in his story-world. We are lured into an imaginative investment in Frank – who both seduces us with this cleverness and charisma, and repels us with his cynicism. Simultaneously we are reminded that both he and his world are fictional constructs, enabling us to set aside our own moral judgement and enjoy his wickedness. Given their dramatic impact and the way in which they inform the overall tone of the show, it is notable how few of these soliloquies actually feature in the majority of episodes. The number of times when Frank directly engages with the audience in the course of an episode varies from just one to as many as twelve. Most instances of direct engagement, however, consist of a brief comment aside or simple look to camera in the midst of the action. These instances have more of a native televisual aesthetic, integrated as they are into the flow of the drama rather than creating ‘time out’; on the whole they are stylistically simpler than the longer speeches but they are epistemically more complex, erasing the clear distinction between Frank’s world and ours. Typically, the verbal asides are informal, often inviting speculation (‘Let’s see if I’m right’) or complicity (‘He has no idea I’ve got six kids in the next room’), placing the viewer, as Sorlin notes, in the ambivalent position of participating without really interacting, hovering between diegetic planes (2015: 35). Frank’s ‘looks’ have a similar effect, varying between casual glances to camera within the frame of the ongoing action, and marked cuts to close-up. Much like the use of ‘we’ or ‘us’ in Frank’s verbal asides, his looks aside assume our alignment with his perspective – and in doing so reinforce it. Many reference Frank’s previous remarks, sharing moments, for example, when his predictions are proved correct (such as ‘Donald Blythe for Education’) or are about to be (as when we wait for Donald to declare ‘it should

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be you, Frank’). Others are more ambiguous, often arch, simply inviting us to share Frank’s particular combination of amusement and contempt towards lesser mortals. So ingrained is the device of direct address in the fabric of the show, and so central to the dynamics of viewer engagement, its absence becomes tangible – a feature in itself. The show takes advantage of our expectations, offering moments when the occasion and the framing suggest a conspiratorial word or look might be afforded us – only to disappoint. This teasing manipulation of the audience is explicitly acknowledged in Chapter 14 – the first episode of Season 2, in which we witness the murder of Zoe Barnes. Frank fails to acknowledge the audience at all until the final scene, when he catches our eye in the mirror as he dresses for dinner: ‘Did you think I’d forgotten you?’ This moment encapsulates both the playful simplicity that makes Frank’s confidences so seductive and the conceptual complexity that underpins them. Frank’s mischievous question erases the distinction between a dramatic device within the text and a deliberate strategy on the part of the protagonist, in a move calculated to produce disorientation and delight in equal measure for the well-trained television audience. A key achievement of House of Cards is to re-invent the theatrical artifice of direct address as a specifically televisual device. In so doing the show creates an inter-diegetic third space, allowing a formal freedom rarely found in television drama, restricted as it so often is by the tyranny of the realist aesthetic. The televisual strategies employed, and their effects, range from the deceptively simple to the technically and conceptually complex. One simple but effective technique is the use of shallow depth-of-field to separate Frank from the diegetic world and create a sense of intimacy; on a more complex level this can also create a sense of background action being suspended to facilitate Frank’s longer soliloquies – such as the lengthy commentary ‘aside’ with which he interrupts his ‘sermon’ from a Gaffney pulpit in Chapter 3. The use of frames within frames in the visual composition is an elegantly simple strategy to give Frank’s extradiegetic speeches dramatic weight, but often operate at a more complex, metaphorical level – as for example the setting of his speech about the primacy of power over money early in Chapter 2, which is set, quite literally, in Washington’s corridors of power, framed by neo-classical marble pillars (Figure 2.3).

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2.3  House of Cards: Metanarrative and metaphor: Frank stalks the corridors of power.

Signature shots (such as the much-repeated close-up on Frank’s ‘look’ aside) fulfil a simple function of highlighting the subtext in a scene, while also luring us into a complex, conflicted state of alignment with the antihero and his perspective. Meanwhile televisual space, delineated by shots and eye-lines, is configured to position the audience as a supporting character in the drama as, having breached the ‘fourth wall’, Frank invites us to step through it. We routinely invite the characters of television drama in into our living space: Frank is unusual in returning the courtesy. Finally, the simple fact of seriality itself is utilised to build a knowing relationship with an audience prepared to have our expectations undermined, to have the ritual pleasures of serialised drama disturbed by radical variability in the degree to which each episode relies on direct address, and the form it takes. Indeed, the sophistication of the audience becomes another opportunity for metanarrative comment in Chapter 13 during an extended soliloquy in a deserted church. After haranguing God in vain, and before directing his grievances to the Devil, Frank looks straight to camera to speculate ‘Perhaps I’m speaking to the wrong audience’. Like so many of Frank’s asides the line operates on simple and complex levels: at one level it simply represents Frank ‘thinking aloud’; at another the playful double entendre draws us into his



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confidence; at still another it challenges us to prove ourselves a worthy audience by engaging with one of the more surreal scenes the show has to offer; whilst at its most complex it references the extra-diegetic world – our world – in which television commissioners use a range of marketing strategies to ensure that their creations, for the most part, address the ‘right’ audience. There is no doubt that we are addressed quite explicitly here as a television audience.

Conclusion House of Cards offers a range of textual pleasures, simple and complex, to the invested audience – pleasures largely mediated by the device of direct address. At its simplest level direct address offers us privileged access to Frank’s thinking; this is critical given that his behaviour towards others is so often misleading. At a more complex level that access allows us to share in Frank’s subjective position of knowledge and power, providing us, as Kajtár argues, ‘with a feeling of exceptionality’ (2016: 234). As a narrator he may be unreliable, and the degree of intimacy on offer may be variable, but that feeling of Nietzschean superiority may provide more than adequate compensation. By aligning ourselves with Frank, moreover, we can explore the role of Machiavellian villain, imaginatively crossing diegetic boundaries while exonerated from even vicarious responsibility by narrative pyrotechnics reminding us that it is all only a game. Also on offer are the more reflexive pleasures of the operational aesthetic – both in terms of watching Frank’s elaborate plans unfold, and in terms of enjoying the artifice of the metanarrative commentary that twists its way around the diegesis. Ultimately direct address in House of Cards is far more than a narrative flourish. It is as fundamental to the tone and structure of the show as it is to the character of Frank who is defined by his ability to stand apart from the world he inhabits. Just as the quality of our engagement as audience is dependent on our relationship with Frank, so the delineation of Frank’s character is dependent on his relationship with us – both bound up in our ability to break through the ‘fourth wall’ and meet somewhere in an inter-diegetic space. There is a complex dichotomy that lies at the heart of this ‘house of cards’. We may be alienated, even horrified, by Frank – a cold-blooded, narcissistic

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sociopath, who will not even stop at murder to achieve what he feels is owed to him. Yet we are fascinated by the fruits of his deviancy, which are laid out for before us like so many corpses – magnified and dissected by his self-regarding commentary. The simplicity of Frank’s didactic transcendence of the fourth wall continually ensures that we remain entangled in a complex and ethically compromised voyeuristic relationship, while we linger to discover how low Frank Underwood is prepared to go.

Notes 1 Industry accolades include a slate of Emmys, and the 2013 Peabody Award, the citation for which praised the show ‘for broaching new possibilities for television storytelling’ (Peabody Awards 2013). 2 On the whole the opening season was well received but critics were divided on the subject of Frank’s ‘asides’ to camera, which some American writers in particular found stagey (e.g. Stuever 2013). 3 The term was coined by Neil Harris (1981) in relation to the shows of P.T. Barnum, and appropriated for film studies by Tom Gunning (1995). 4 Critics, both popular and academic, have noted the parallels between House of Cards and Shakespeare’s Richard III (for example Stanley 2013, Hestand 2017, Reichmann 2017) – and indeed Spacey, who had played the role on stage, was keen to stress the connection in promotional interviews (Crouch 2013). 5 James Keller (2015: 114) makes a convincing argument for Frank as a latter-day manifestation of ‘the Vice’, highlighting the ways in which he shares his evil plans with the audience, manipulates characters and effectively authors the action of play. 6 Klarer (2014) describes a television interview in Chapter 6, in which Frank misspeaks, resulting in a humiliating viral campaign by the teachers’ union; for Klarer, the fact that Frank does not confide in us about the incident is a form of bad faith, rendering him an unreliable narrator. 7 Earlier in the same episode a brick is thrown through the window of Frank’s house, which serves to turn public opinion against the strikers. We later discover, from a conversation with Doug, that Frank has stage-managed the entire incident – but in the interim we, alongside the population of the diegetic world, are kept in the dark. 8 This distancing effect is – perhaps counterintuitively – an important adjunct to the ‘structures of sympathy’ in keeping an audience engaged

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with the show and its problematic protagonist, for as Margrethe Bruun Vaage (2012) has argued, an audience is better able to suspend moral judgement and form some form of allegiance with an immoral character where the status of the text as fiction is foregrounded. 9 This corridor scene is neatly echoed by a similar tracking shot in Chapter 7, just after Frank has used his success with the Education Bill to gain political traction ‘precisely when I needed it most’. 10 The show uses the relatively new televisual convention of an on-screen display to share the content of texts with the audience.

References Anderson, Chris (2018) Interview with Netflix CEO. Ted Talks, April. www. ted.com/talks/reed_hastings_how_netflix_changed_entertainment_and_ where_it_s_headed? Accessed 10 August 2020. Bruun Vaage, Margarethe (2012) ‘Fictional reliefs and reality checks’. Screen 54:2, pp. 218–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjt004. Crouch, Ian (2013) ‘Richard III’s House of Cards’. New Yorker, 4 February. www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/richard-iiis-house-of-cards. Accessed 1 January 2021. Davies, Aran (2019) ‘How big data helped Netflix series House of Cards become a blockbuster?’ Sofy.tv. https://sofy.tv/blog/big-data-helped-netflixseries-house-cards-become-blockbuster/. Accessed 15 July 2020. Dobbs, Michael (1989) House of Cards. London: Harper Collins. Dressen, Austin and Charles Taliaferro (2016) ‘Francis Underwood’s magical political mystery tour is dying to take you away; dying to take you away, take you today’. In J. Edward Hackett (ed.) House of Cards and philosophy: Underwood’s republic. Chichester: Blackwell, pp. 245–53. Gray, John Scott (2016) ‘Being versus seeming’. In J. Edward Hackett (ed.) House of Cards and philosophy: Underwood’s republic. Chichester: Blackwell, pp. 6–27. Gunning, Tom (1995) ‘Crazy machines in the garden of forking paths’. In Kristine Brunovska Karnick and Henry Jenkins (eds) Classical Hollywood comedy. New York: Routledge, pp. 87–105. Harris, Neil (1981) Humbug: the art of P.T. Barnum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hestand, Zac (2017) ‘House of Cards as Shakespearean tragedy’. Film Criticism 41:3, pp. 42–4. https://doi.org/10.3998/fc.13761232.0041.311. Kajtár, László (2016) ‘Rooting for the villain: Frank Underwood and the lack of imaginative resistance’. In J. Edward Hackett (ed.) House of Cards and philosophy: Underwood’s republic. Chichester: Blackwell pp. 229–44.

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Keller, James R. (2015) ‘The vice in Vice-President: House of Cards and the morality tradition’. Journal of Popular Film & Television 43:3, pp. 111–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/01956051.2015.1027649. Klarer, Mario (2014) ‘Putting television “aside”: novel narration in House of Cards’. New Review of Film and Television Studies 12:2, pp. 203–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2014.885818. Leber, Jessica (2013) ‘House of Cards and our future of algorithmic programming’. MIT Technology Review, 26 February. www.technologyreview. com/2013/02/26/16555/house-of-cards-and-our-future-of-algorithmicprogramming/. Accessed 15 July 2020. Mittell, Jason (2015) Complex TV: the poetics of contemporary television storytelling. New York and London: New York University Press. Molloy, Tim (2014) ‘House of Cards: who Kevin Spacey is talking to when he talks to camera’. The Wrap, 5 February. www.thewrap.com/ house-cards-kevin-spacey-talking-talks-camera/. Accessed 15 July 2020. Peabody Awards (2013) www.peabodyawards.com/award-profile/house-ofcards-netflix. Accessed 19 July 2020. Reichmann, Brunilda T. (2017) ‘House of Cards: Shakespearean DNA in the trilogy and the series’. Raído 11:28, pp. 141–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.30612/ raido.v11i28.6316. Satell, Greg (2013) ‘What Netflix’s House of Cards means for the future of TV’. Forbes, 4 March. www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2013/03/04/ what-netflixs-house-of-cards-means-for-the-future-of-tv/#63c88dd27551. Accessed 16 July 2020. Smith, Murray (1994) ‘Altered states: character and emotional response in the cinema’. Cinema Journal 33:4, pp. 34–56. https://doi.org/10.2307/1225898. Sorlin, Sandrine (2015) ‘Breaking the fourth wall: the pragmatics of the second person pronoun in House of Cards’. In Laure Gardelle and Sandrine Sorlin (eds) The pragmatics of personal pronouns. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 125–46. Stanley, Alessandra (2013) ‘Political animals that slither’. New York Times, 31 January. www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/arts/television/house-of-cardson-netflix-stars-kevin-spacey.html. Accessed 1 January 2021. Stuever, Hank (2013) ‘House of Cards: power corrupts (plus other nonbreaking news)’. Washington Post, 31 January. www.washingtonpost.com/ entertainment/tv/house-of-cards-power-corrupts-plus-other-non-breakingnews/2013/01/31/b72c54b6–6bd0–11e2–8740–9b58f43c191a_story.html. Accessed 1 January 2021.

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3 ‘You’ve got to expect this kind of thing in the priesthood’: simplicity and complexity in Father Ted Karen Quigley In 2015, the British broadcaster Simon Reeve made a documentary for the BBC called Ireland with Simon Reeve. In it, he travelled around Ireland discovering a country he admitted to knowing relatively little about before making the programme, despite its proximity to the UK. What was particularly striking about Ireland with Simon Reeve was its (and Reeve’s) emphasis on Ireland as a still-Catholic country in 2015. In the first four minutes of the programme alone, Reeve notes that ‘this is a land steeped in religious faith’ and that ‘there’s lots of words that spring to mind when you think of Ireland, but faith and identity, I think, are very high up the list’. Whilst he acknowledges that there have been ‘dramatic changes [in Ireland] in recent years’, Reeve describes ‘an Ireland that is generally considered to be overwhelmingly Catholic and conservative’. Thinking through the overarching theme of this edited collection, Ireland with Simon Reeve strikes at the heart of a simplicity/ complexity binary about perceptions of Ireland internationally. Whilst I am not suggesting that centuries-old colonial tropes of the ‘simple’ Irish peasant and the ‘complex’ British landowner continue to permeate such perceptions, it cannot be denied that cultural stereotypes of Ireland and Irishness have always included variations on drunken stupidity, mystical spirituality and fervent Catholicism. However, when the global gaze fixed on Ireland in 2015 as it became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote, and again in 2018 with the removal of the country’s long-held constitutional ban on abortion, the persistent image of Ireland’s Catholicism and conservatism began seemingly to melt away. Of course, the breakdown of the relationship between the Irish people

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and the Catholic Church has complex and profound political, social and psychological roots, but I hope to show in what follows that culture, particularly comedy, can be central to the contemporary understanding of this relationship and its disintegration. Amongst other things, this chapter’s re-evaluation of Father Ted (Channel 4, 1995–98) hopes to remind the reader of a moment in 1990s British sitcom television when the international perception of Ireland shifted in unexpected directions, led by a simple sitcom format concealing complex comedic chaos and intricate contextual force.1

Father Ted Written by Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, Father Ted revolves around three priests, Fathers Ted Crilly, Dougal McGuire and Jack Hackett (played by Dermot Morgan, Ardal O’Hanlon and Frank Kelly respectively) and their housekeeper Mrs Doyle (Pauline McLynn) living together in the shabby parochial house of Craggy Island, an isolated island parish off the coast of Ireland (comparable to the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway). In the conventional sitcom mode, reliant upon the entrapment of a core cast of characters within a limited physical and social situation, Ted, Dougal and Jack have all ended up on Craggy Island without any clear means of escape. Dougal is extremely stupid and cannot be trusted with regular parish duties; Jack is a voracious alcoholic with almost no ability to relate to or engage with others; Ted has displeased the bishop (Bishop Brennan) who distributes priests amongst parishes, and also appears to have had some dodgy financial dealings in the past. Across three seasons and one Christmas special, Father Ted details small-island life, the world of the parish and the adventures of the four central characters as they deal with the everyday and (more often than not) the unexpected. The series’ very positive critical and popular reception at the time of initial broadcast has paled into insignificance alongside its continuing legacy as one of the most important British–Irish comedy series of all time (see Hill 2016). In a wider social context, aspects of its writing have passed into colloquialism in Ireland and the UK. In the 2010s, signs featuring the phrases ‘Down with this sort of thing’ or ‘Careful now’ (direct references to Ted and Dougal’s protest signs in ‘The Passion of Saint Tibulus’) were common sights at protest marches; saying ‘go on,

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go on, go on’ to encourage someone to have a cup of tea is a widespread practice (this is a catchphrase for Mrs Doyle throughout the series); and reminding someone of the difference between size and proximity by saying ‘this X is small; this X is far away’ (as Ted tries to explain to Dougal using miniature toy cows on the table and real cows outside the window in the distance in ‘Hell’) is an evergreen pedagogical moment.2 At the time of writing, the entire series is available to watch on All 4, Channel 4’s online streaming platform for UK residents, and the Christmas episode (of which much more below) is broadcast every year. This chapter explores Father Ted in relation to, on the one hand, its (sometimes deceptive) simplicity of sitcom format, plot structure and comedy performances, and, on the other, its (sometimes obscured) complexity, particularly in relation to the intertextual, social, political and cultural references woven through the series’ structure and content. The chapter closes with a consideration of Father Ted’s more contemporary complexity, specifically in relation to gender performativity, and examines how a series purporting to be almost entirely about men can develop a wider resonance in terms of the politics of representation. Whilst I will invoke a wide selection of reference points ranging across all three seasons, the chapter will focus in detail on a sequence from one of Father Ted’s most popular episodes, which represents many of the series’ principal achievements in relation to comedy, religion and contemporary references. The simple set-up of Father Ted as a sitcom follows well-established rules and conventions, which usually involve binaries of problem/ solution, trial/error and status quo/extraordinary. Each episode tends to have a short opening articulating a problem of some kind for the protagonists to solve, usually through trial and error. There is frequently a main storyline or plot with one or two subplots. Status quo is usually re-established by the end of the episode. As Jonathan Bignell puts it: The movement of sitcom narrative keeps repeating and developing incompatibilities and compatibilities, playing on the already established position of each character in the system of binaries. But the audience’s pleasure partly derives from the anticipation that these conflicts will be resolved satisfactorily. The audience needs to recognise the narrative codes of sitcom and the stakes of the binary oppositions in order to accept the surprising reversals and conflicts that the narrative requires. (Bignell 2013: 100)

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John Hill suggests that Father Ted subverts the sitcom genre via the relationship between its apparently conventional or ‘classic’ formal and structural roots, and the ‘surrealist’ and improbable humour and silliness that pervade the content and tone (Hill 2016). Adding to Hill’s argument, and drawing on Bignell’s suggestion above that binaries are crucial to writing sitcom television, I want to suggest throughout this section that the basis for much of Father Ted’s comedy is a simple, conventional sitcom structure, the plot of which becomes more complex – and funnier – as each episode progresses and the actors’ performances unfold. For example, in ‘And God Created Woman’ (Season 1, Episode 5), the main plot revolves around the Craggy Island newcomer Polly Clarke, a novelist who has come to the island looking for peace and quiet away from her bustling urban life as a literary celebrity. This is a problem for Ted – he finds himself attracted to Polly and cannot process or act on his feelings – but a relatively simple problem if we abide by the rules of the context, as he is a Catholic priest and as such cannot have romantic relationships. However, Polly’s invitation for him to join her for a drink at her cottage throws Ted into a tailspin. He assumes that the offer is romantic, and, when he realises that the invitation clashes with his scheduled Mass for some visiting nuns, concocts a series of lies in order to bypass saying the Mass. These lies are undone, and he realises he has to deliver the Mass after all, but he does so in record time, racing through the ceremony and then into his car to Polly’s house. When Ted arrives at her front door, Polly’s sexy dress and suggestion in gesturing to the room behind her that she has ‘everything you might want in here’ delights Ted for a brief moment, before he realises that the evening is in fact a drinks reception for the nuns and all those attending his speedy Mass (Figure 3.1). To add to the complexity of the plot (and Ted’s growing misery), Polly reveals that she’s decided to become a nun. In a rare moment of truth-telling for Ted, he informs Polly that she has pronounced his surname incorrectly for the entire duration of their acquaintance (Curley instead of Crilly), shakes her hand and walks out of shot. Turning to this chapter’s central case study, it is clear that Linehan and Mathews, even with an extended episode length, prioritise these simple conventions of comedy – in this case, pitching a recognisable film genre into an inappropriate and silly setting.

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3.1  Father Ted: Ted and the nuns.

‘A Christmassy Ted’ The Father Ted Christmas special, ‘A Christmassy Ted’, is the fifteenth episode of the series (Season 2, Episode 11, first broadcast 24 December 1996), and appears between the second and third seasons. At fifty-five minutes long, it is more than twice as long as the standard twenty-four-minute episodes of Father Ted, and much of its plot and structure falls into two distinct narrative halves. As Linehan notes on the episode’s DVD commentary, in the published scripts and in interview, his and Mathews’s decision to write a Christmas special after the second season ‘because we didn’t want to do another [season]’ was misjudged because it ‘was infinitely harder to write than any other episode’ (Linehan and Mathews 1999: 232). Nevertheless, the popularity of this episode with viewers has seen it broadcast on Irish and/or British television (usually Channel 4) every Christmas from its first broadcast in 1996 until today.

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In the first part of the episode, Ted saves himself, Dougal and six other priests from certain scandal when they become trapped in the lingerie section of a large department store while Christmas shopping, and he is presented with the prestigious Golden Cleric award in recognition of his services to the priesthood. The second half focuses on the actions of a mysterious guest at the Golden Cleric award ceremony on Christmas Day, a so-called Father Todd Unctious, who seems to know Ted extremely well from their days at the seminary together, but of whom Ted has no memory at all. At the climax of the episode, Todd’s intricate plan to steal the Golden Cleric (complete with a Mission Impossible-style harness to lower him from the ceiling of the living room, in order to avoid the creaky floorboard over which Ted has placed his trophy case) is foiled. He is revealed to be an imposter by local police, and order is restored in Craggy Island Parochial House (and Todd’s harness is bestowed upon Mrs Doyle, whose frequent falls from the windowsill while decorating the house for Christmas come to a stylishly buoyant end). There are also a number of overarching plotlines and subplots. Throughout the episode, Mrs Doyle tries to come to terms with (and then secretly to sabotage) an automated tea-making machine, the Teamaster, which Ted buys for her for Christmas, in order to ‘take the misery out of making tea’. The machine upsets her deeply as it renders her dispensable (and disrupts her extreme passion for ‘the whole tea-making thing’, which is revealed as the climax of this subplot in a short monologue towards the end of the episode). Ted seems to be struggling with the demanding nature of his life as a priest, though any attempts to seek comfort or guidance from his community are consistently foiled. The episode opens with a dream sequence featuring a romantic entanglement between Ted and Assumpta Fitzgerald, a fictional character from Ballykissangel (BBC, 1996–2001), another 1990s television series set in Ireland and made in the UK with a priest as its central character (Father Peter Clifford, whose sexual tension with Assumpta provided one of the most striking storylines of the show). However, Dougal rouses Ted from his dream to offer him a peanut, and, when the latter falls back asleep, his previous dream has been replaced with a chase sequence in which he is pursued by people in giant peanut costumes. Later on in the episode, Ted wonders aloud about the passage of time and the meaning of life (though Dougal misreads Ted’s question

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‘What’s it all about?’ as an enquiry about the content of his Shoot football annual), is upset when Mrs Doyle suggests that he’s (only) the second-best priest in the country and takes a solitary, brooding beach walk. Ted even phones a chatline for priests, selecting the option for those who ‘want to speak about being vaguely unhappy but not being able to figure out exactly why’, though his inability to respond correctly to the chatline’s automatic voice-activated system results in him getting through to a different chatline option about ‘how to break the news of a death’. The elation (and hubris) at winning the Golden Cleric is punctured by Todd’s escapades, and this aspect of Ted’s storyline leaves him reflecting on the fact that he could have turned out like Todd, and remembering that his life as a priest is ‘not about awards and glamour’. Jack has a more subdued role in this episode, with a few key moments. Dougal leaves him in the children’s soft play area while they are in the department store. Jack spells out his favourite four-letter words in alphabet bricks and then apparently teaches them to the children, leading to a memorable scene where a sleeping Jack snores loudly as children scream ‘feck’ and ‘arse’ at him. Back at the parochial house after the Golden Cleric ceremony, one of the guest priests sits in Jack’s chair, so Jack sits on top of him, partially suffocating him. After a number of vain attempts to encourage Jack to stand back up, Ted and Dougal play a recording of ‘La Marseillaise’, which sees Jack rise to his feet in proud salute, insisting that all the other priests do the same.

‘It’s Ireland’s biggest lingerie section’ Focusing on a short sequence towards the start of ‘A Christmassy Ted’ and returning to the theme of the simple set-up, Ted, Dougal and their six comrades (Fathers Billy, Terry, Deegan, Cleary, Reilly and Fitzgerald) realise that there’s no obvious way out of the dilemma in which they find themselves in ‘Ireland’s biggest lingerie section’, an apparently simple problem that could have an equally simple resolution (asking for directions). However, Ted sets the scene for the other priests, presenting a rather more complex predicament: Right, this is the situation. We’ve got eight priests hanging around the lingerie section. With one or two of us, that would be embarrassing, but eight? We’re talking national scandal. (Figure 3.2)

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3.2  Father Ted: Lost in the lingerie section.

At this point, Neil Hannon’s score introduces a drumroll leading into a series of menacing, chromatic tones on a marimba or xylophone, and a running track of cicada sounds to give the impression of a jungle setting.3 This soundtrack builds the scene’s crucial (and wonderfully silly) juxtaposition between the visual setting of priests cowering amongst shop racks filled with bras and underwear, and the sonic setting of a pre-battle stalking scene in a Vietnam-era war film such as Platoon (1986) or Apocalypse Now (1979).4 Of course, this juxtaposition is merely sonic/visual – for Ted, Dougal and their companions, the situation is precisely as serious and the stakes as high as any war zone, which is where the comedy lies for the audience. This is their Vietnam. The cinematography at the beginning of the sequence is reminiscent of a documentary, giving the impression of an embedded camera operator within the fictional jungle world physically moving with the priests, as well as a low stationary camera position narrating their experience from a slight remove. As they embark on a possible

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escape route, each priest passes by the stationary camera in single file, keeping a low stance and looking around constantly for the enemy (women shopping). The performances throughout this sequence demonstrate instantly recognisable conventions of the war film genre, with the priests playing versions of soldiers in a platoon, transposed to the farcical setting of the department store. Father Deegan lingers in the shot as he straightens his lapels and backpack straps as if readying himself for the task ahead. At the front of the line (‘on point’, as Ted specifies in military nomenclature), Father Billy is smoking a cigarette without his hands as he keeps watch, evocative of soldiers in war films needing their hands for weapons and stability, but eager for the steadying and familiar effects of a smoke. Without looking behind him he raises his right arm silently, indicating for the line of priests/soldiers to halt. The camera follows Ted as he moves from the back of the line of crouching priests to the front, asking each man sotto voce if he’s all right, patting them on their arms and backs. All the priests look worried, clutching their reusable shopping bags and other purchases as if they are inexperienced soldiers with dangerous weapons. As Ted reaches Billy, we see the latter desperately sucking on his cigarette, visibly sweating and beginning to crack under the strain of being on point. Similarly, Deegan, the new recruit who ‘only left the seminary two weeks ago’, is wide-eyed, clammy and hyperventilating. When Ted asks him how he is faring, he responds that ‘There’s no way out, there’s just no way out, they’re gonna get us, they’re gonna get us’, gives into his panic and stands up, shouting wildly. Ted lunges for him and drags him back down, scouting around for any enemy observers. From Ted’s point of view, we see a woman glance in their direction as if she’s heard something, before continuing along the aisle away from them. Ted calms Deegan by imagining aloud the latter’s future parish, and how the two of them will make it out of the current horrible situation, recalling various other rousing ‘we’re going to get out of here’ speeches from any number of films across a range of genres including The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972): One day, we’re going to be in that new parish of yours, sipping iced tea on the lawn, and this will all be just a memory. Can you hold onto that thought? Can you? Can you do that for me?

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Immediately, we hear a sound like a muffled gunshot, the priest at the back of the line falls to the floor, and Ted races towards him, with the camera in pursuit. Father Cleary has been injured: ‘I was messing about with one of these bras and the strap flew back and hit me in the eye. I’ve twisted my ankle as well’. The well-trodden war film trope of ‘leave no man behind’ rears up as Ted drags Cleary to his feet. Deploying the mop he’s bought as a makeshift crutch, and with Ted on his other side, Cleary limps on. The shot cuts to a scene of Jack asleep in the soft play area, surrounded by small children screaming ‘feck’ and ‘arse’ at him, before cutting back to a full body shot of a lingerie mannequin dressed in a green silky robe. This figure begins to seem like a tree as Ted slowly emerges from behind it, eyes on the prize. He’s spotted an emergency exit door, but women shopping for lingerie surround it, and there’s no way past them. Billy suggests that if ‘[they] actually buy some underpants it wouldn’t look so strange’, a proposition which is witheringly quashed by Ted. However, after hearing an announcement over the shop’s PA system, Ted has an idea to borrow the PA microphone and announce an imminent closing time. As the ‘lady shoppers’ scatter, the shot finds the emergency exit door once again, framed by racks of bras and another lingerie mannequin. At this point, the music takes on a more triumphant and epic quality, with brass instruments and a faster pace – escape is within the priests’ grasp with one final push remaining. Ted runs into shot and kicks the door open, letting in a tremendous gusting wind (as if the door of a plane or helicopter has been opened). He stands to the right of the door and shoves each priest through it in turn (as if helping them into or out of a helicopter that’s about to take off or explode). The priests are all wearing backpacks or clinging to shopping bags, which begin to look like parachutes in this context. The music builds in a crescendo as the action moves to slow motion for the last couple of seconds of the escape. The final priest is thrust through the door. Ted glances back to make sure they haven’t been spotted. He allows himself a tiny moment of self-congratulation, nodding his head and smiling as the wind blows through his hair (and the hair of the mannequin standing beside him in the shot). Then, in the scene’s final moment, with a hand on either side of the door jamb, Ted launches himself through the doorway as if jumping out



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of a plane or a burning building, bringing additional references to films such as Die Hard (1998) to mind.

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Performances The nature of the performances in this scene provides further evidence of the relationship between simplicity and complexity as it pertains to all aspects of the writing and filming processes. As I will show later, many of the characters in Father Ted are trapped in the extreme performativity of the Catholic priest before we even consider individual characteristics, so the performances (of roles by actors, and of priests by characters) are perhaps more complex than they appear. However, this knotty point is countered in the lingerie department scene with a range of caricatured and superficial performances by the supporting priests/soldiers. Kevin McKidd (as Deegan) and Joe Taylor (as Cleary) occupy particular character types with relish (the newbie who panics, the old-timer who gets injured and suggests that the team leave him behind), and their over-the-top performances speak playfully to the juxtaposition between the war film’s tonal set-up and the lingerie department setting. To take another example, in the sequence’s climax with the escape through the emergency exit, Ted uses the department store’s PA system to get rid of the lingerie shoppers, as mentioned above. He needs the announcement to feel authentic, and Linehan and Mathews take this particular dilemma as an opportunity to squeeze another joke from their accomplished comic performers before the final slow-motion section. Ted asks who amongst them has the most boring voice. Father Fitzgerald (Sean Barrett) volunteers his services, almost by audition as he drearily explains how very dull his voice is while Ted almost loses his patience trying to get Fitzgerald to the end of his interminable sentence. Immediately, Father Reilly (Colum Gallivan), having misheard Ted’s request, counter-offers with his ‘dramatic exciting voice’, which he showcases for the group. This classic comic performance of the misstep takes on the characteristics of the bizarre when we learn from Linehan’s DVD commentary that Fitzgerald was wheeled into shot beside Ted on a foot trolley as he demonstrated his ‘awful, dreary, monotonous voice’, so it looks as

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though the character’s physicality shows him to be moving very smoothly in an odd way. Playing our central character, Dermot Morgan as Ted explores his role as parish priest/platoon commander/leader of the pack with his usual hovering between a straightforward comedy performance and a much more complex pathos, frequently born out of panic, or the dawning realisation that a situation cannot be resolved to his satisfaction or advantage. However, this particular scene prioritises the conventions of tone (war film) versus setting (lingerie department) over depth of performance, and Ted operates more as a foil or a facilitator of the scene’s plot progression than as its star. Nevertheless, later in the episode we see multiple examples of Morgan’s particular skills of comedy performance. Throughout Father Ted, Ted’s particular brand of aside (in the dramatic or theatrical sense) is to turn away from the action of a scene towards either the camera or another player in the scene, while performing an over-extended facial grimace, sometimes with a shrug of his shoulders. This expression usually occurs when Ted has no idea what is going on, and is simultaneously trying not to let it show and feeling an imperative to release in some way. For example, in ‘And God Created Woman’, when Polly is telling a literary joke about Joyce, Keats, D.H. Lawrence and Dostoyevsky, Ted fakes an enormous laugh at the punchline, which is itself a joke for the audience. Not content with this, he then turns his head and neck away from Polly in order to contort his face and roll his eyes in confusion, prompting a further punchline for the viewer. Similarly, in ‘A Christmassy Ted’, Dougal enters the room and asks the stranger, Todd Unctious, who he is. Todd replies, ‘Who. Am. I?’ and laughs while looking knowingly at Ted. Ted replies, while laughing, ‘Who is he?’, as if to match Todd’s knowing tone and to pretend that he knows or remembers him, but then immediately looks away and grimaces while shrugging his shoulders. No other characters in the show make this kind of meta-comic move, and, in his puncturing of the naturalistic frame through his facial physicality, Ted draws the audience further into his world and Morgan’s classic comedy performance (keeping the joke running). Morgan’s exuberant performance of Ted also tips into the frantic excess of farce at times, usually at an episode or plot’s point of denouement. In ‘And God Created Woman’, Ted has had to tell the

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nuns a lie about why he cannot say Mass for them when they have come to Craggy Island especially to hear him: a friend is dying. This lie is completely undone by Dougal’s inability to play along, and, in a particularly unfortunate turn of events, the very man (Jim) who was supposedly dying ends up calling in to the parochial house, proclaiming that he is fit and well. As he scrabbles for excuses and the lies threaten to overwhelm him, Ted tells Jim that it was in fact the local doctor who told him in confidence that Jim was dying (and, of course, that the doctor has gone deaf so cannot be contacted by phone). Dougal then sees the same doctor through the window, calls to him (‘He heard that all right, Ted’) and invites him in to confirm Jim’s prognosis. At this point, Ted, who has been frantically trying to keep the lie going, can hold it no longer: ‘Actually, wait … I’ve just remembered. Jim’s actually not dying, and Doctor Sinnot’s not deaf. I was thinking of two completely different people.’ The excess generated by Morgan’s performance at this point denotes a character who has reached the very limits of his capacity to make up excuses and remember his web of lies. His line delivery bursts through the confusion of the scene with enormous vocal power (shouting above the volume of any other character) and manic energy (speaking extremely quickly as the truth tumbles out), as if attempting to use sheer decibel force to erase the chaos that has gone before from the minds of the other characters in the scene. His physicality stiffens and becomes jerky and gestural, with enormous arm movements as his torso moves in the direction of each member of the room in turn. Taking another example, consider the moment in the second half of ‘A Christmassy Ted’ when Todd Unctious appears. Due to Ted’s complete lack of recognition of Todd, he asks Mrs Doyle to guess what Todd’s name might be, in the desperate hope that his own ignorance will not be revealed. As she begins to guess random names, Ted physically leans in to observe Todd’s reaction to each name, leaning back and joining in Todd’s laughter (at a slight delay) as each wrong answer emerges. The scene fades out as Mrs Doyle continues to guess names. As it fades back in, we see Ted and Dougal slumped in boredom at the table while the guessing game continues. When Mrs Doyle finally produces the correct answer (Pauline McLynn’s smug facial contortions at this point of success have spawned a thousand memes in the digital age), Ted springs

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to his feet and gleefully uses Todd’s name in as many ways as he possibly can, vocally emphasising and over-pronouncing the ‘t’ sound in Todd alongside the word ‘tea’ (‘Would you like a cup of tea, Todd?’), or the obvious connection between Todd’s name and another warming drink (‘Or maybe a hot toddy, Todd?’), and physically almost dancing on the spot with delight that this has been resolved without anyone catching him out. This kind of performance is, in many ways, adhering to a range of conventional, almost dated sitcom requirements which can trace their lineage from Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army (BBC, 1968–77) to Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers (BBC, 1975; 1979) to Edina Monsoon in Absolutely Fabulous (BBC, 1992–96; 2001–4; 2011–12), neatly responding to the apparent simplicity of the sitcom format, and the set-ups of the episode plots, as we have seen. However, turning now to the complexity of the connotations of the lingerie department sequence, which are mirrored in the broader series, it will become clear that Father Ted is much sharper, edgier and more relevant than its conventions may suggest.

Complex contexts and intertextual references As reviews and journalistic reflections on the series have noted, Father Ted is complexly laden with in-jokes for an Irish and/or Irish Catholic audience at home and abroad. Thinking across the series, from references to Ireland’s most popular temporary post-Christmas theme park Funderland (rebranded as ‘Funland’ in ‘Good Luck Father Ted’) to its national beauty pageant The Rose of Tralee (now colloquially known in Ireland as the ‘Lovely Girls’ contest after the event received the Father Ted treatment in ‘Rock a Hula Ted’) to Father Noel Furlong’s frantic Irish dancing (in the style of Riverdance) in a small caravan in ‘Hell’, the comedy in these examples operates at two distinct levels. All of the above moments could be seen as simply funny things in the context of the series (Funland’s most popular ride is a garden bench being raised and lowered into the air; the Lovely Girls competition tiebreak sees Ted judging which girl has the loveliest laugh; Noel dances as if he’s on stage at the Royal Albert Hall, regardless of the spatial constraints), but the additional references to Irish life and culture see a complex doubling

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of the comedy as those in the know flit between Father Ted and their own knowledge of the contextual references, reminiscent of Linda Hutcheon’s diagnosis of ‘oscillation’ when watching screen adaptations of literature (Hutcheon 2006: 121). Returning to the lingerie department scene, this sequence encapsulates the more complex achievements of Father Ted in politically sensitive as well as culturally benign ways. The series as a whole consistently uses comedy to critique the very concept of an Irish Catholic priest, and to explore concerns about how priests in the Catholic Church were perceived at the time of broadcast, in tune with the steep decline in Mass attendance and general turn away from the Church in Ireland from the 1990s onward. The deep anxiety around this throughout Father Ted means that, of course, the priests in ‘A Christmassy Ted’ could not simply be lost in the lingerie section of a department store, nor could they ask for directions or laugh the incident off. On the one hand, the simple conflict or dissonance seeded by the moment of getting lost is where any conventional sitcom form lives and breathes, and where its storyline can be found; the classic, conventional norms of comedy are plotted, written and performed in order to make things funny for an audience. On the other, the complexity and edginess of this particular sitcom’s context and connotations (as we will see below) show a comedy that is playing much more closely to the nerve, resulting in a series that is not so simple after all. In Ireland, the period of Father Ted’s creation and initial broadcast (1995–98) saw the first victim of clerical child sex abuse go public, the revelation of the information that the Church had attempted to cover up the extent of this abuse by making compensation payments to victims, and the charging and sentencing of a large number of Catholic priests for abusing children.5 In ‘A Christmassy Ted’, the absolute compulsion to avoid any public misbehaviour by priests in Ireland in the 1990s drives Ted’s determination to get the gang out of the department store without detection, to the point where the stakes and aesthetics of a war film seem absolutely appropriate. Ted’s relief the following day when there’s ‘nothing in the Catholic scandal supplement about the lingerie episode’ (the joke that a newspaper needs a Catholic scandal supplement in the first place is a clear nod to the 1990s context) is palpable, and Bishop Tom McCaskell’s response to his actions (awarding him the Golden Cleric

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for ‘prevent[ing] another scandal in the Church’) is also seen in these terms. Looking across the series more broadly, the melancholy loneliness of the clearly depressed titular character in ‘Entertaining Father Stone’ (Season 1), or the troubling actions of newcomer Father Stack in ‘New Jack City’ (Season 2) become increasingly complex. Father Stack’s bizarrely anti-social behaviour at the parochial house (playing ‘Jungle music’ in the middle of the night; drilling holes into the walls at random; crashing Ted’s car) reaches its apotheosis in an uncomfortable scene in which Stack notices Ted and two other priests (Fathers Ken Dillon and Rory Shanahan) watching themselves in a video of the local sports day, which included a number of races for the priests. Stack accuses the other priests of being more interested in watching the schoolboy races: Young fellas runnin’ around a field in shorts … I bet you like that … you’re probably imaginin’ what they’d look like without shorts … You’re sittin’ there imaginin’ that, aren’t you? Thinkin’ about it with a big smile on your face. You dirty fecker.

This scene is by far the series’ most direct reference to the clerical child sexual abuse scandal in Ireland, which came to national press attention in 1994 when Father Brendan Smyth was sentenced to four years in prison for child abuse in Northern Ireland, and which would reverberate through the country and around the world over the decades that followed. In ‘New Jack City’, the impact of this scene and the priests’ uncomfortably silent reaction is immediately undercut by the biggest (and simplest) comedy distraction possible: Dougal enters the room, completely drunk. His drunkenness, inevitably attributable to Father Stack, is not just the last straw but ‘the last bit of straw left in the thing. There’s no straw left, basically, is what I’m saying’, according to Ted. Back to the Christmas special, and the lingerie department sequence’s detailed and playful use of tropes and images found in war and disaster films presents a microcosm of one of Father Ted’s most sustained and successful approaches to story, plot and style: direct and recognisable intertextual and intermedial (and sometimes intramedial) references, even to the extent of pointing towards such references in the titles of the episodes. For example, ‘Speed 3’ (Season 3, Episode 3) uses the structure and objective of Speed (1994) to

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weave a story about Dougal getting trapped on a milk float, which will explode if the speedometer dips below four miles per hour. Furthermore, the reason why Dougal has ended up doing Craggy Island’s milk round is motivated by another intertextual reference: in the manner of 1970s sex comedies such as Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974) or Benny Hill’s ‘Ernie (The fastest milkman in the West)’ song, the previous milkman, Pat Mustard, has been found to be seducing (and in some cases, impregnating) all the local housewives and housekeepers during his milk round. Drawing these two genres together, the newly unemployed Mustard plants a bomb on the milk float in order to kill off his replacement milkman. Other examples include the hand of a crazed Eoin McLove fan smashing the parochial house living-room window in ‘Night of the Nearly Dead’, a clear reference to the break-in scene in Night of the Living Dead (1968). In ‘Flight into Terror’, Dougal’s accidental emptying of one of their plane’s fuel tanks by pressing a forbidden big red button (the latter a recognisable inciting incident in many a blockbuster film plot) leads to a need for an emergency landing, and an unexpected hero who steps up in a crisis (Ted). This episode is filled with references to other on-screen instances of unexpected mishap mid-flight, including Ted’s ‘it’s been an honour’ speech to Dougal (‘I’m just saying I like you, Dougal’), which appears in a range of film and television programmes from Ghostbusters (1984) to The Blues Brothers (1980) to Blackadder (BBC, 1983–89). In the same episode, Father Cave’s declaration of romantic love to Father Gallagher (a cameo from Linehan) when it seems clear that they’re all going to die makes them the only two passengers not fully delighted when Ted saves the day. This both refers to and subverts similar declarations in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Frasier (NBC, 1993–2004) and ER (NBC, 1994–2009). The networks of references in Father Ted to 1990s social, political and cultural events in Ireland, and to a range of films and television programmes, epitomised in the war film / lingerie department scene, reveal parallel ways of engaging with the series. Alongside an appreciation of the series as sitcom and as comedy, an awareness of mainstream film and television successes, and the Irish Catholic context of the 1990s, provides an intricate backdrop to the conventional plot structures and payoffs. The kinds of references I have

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explored above made the series particularly salient in its time, and, as I argue below, makes a case for the programme’s relevance today as, from our contemporary perspective, we continue to analyse the characters and the context in which they find themselves.

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Father Ted: a new complexity Watching a series which focuses on Catholic priests (who cannot be cisgender or transgender women, and must be completely celibate men) through a feminist lens allows for a surprising reassessment of the characters and their situation, and suggests a reading which is almost completely absent from any journalistic or academic literature on the series (see McGonigle 2012 and Free 2015). While I do not intend to reclaim Father Ted as a feminist text per se, reevaluating the series in 2020, when questions of identity and equality feature heavily in screen media and their analysis across all genres, reveals that its gender politics might be more significant to the series’ stories and more complex in their rendering than immediately assumed. Looked at in this way, Father Ted takes a particularly singular masculine identity (Irish Catholic priest) with extreme codes of behaviour and focuses on the performativity of various aspects of that identity, not to mention the punishments on offer if that performativity is not upheld. Mapping this on to gender theory, if Judith Butler suggests that we perform our gender identities into being through ‘a stylised repetition of acts’ and that ‘those who fail to do their gender right are regularly punished’, Ted, Dougal, Jack and the other priests they encounter are arguably sutured into a performative loop, from which there is no escape (Butler 1988: 519, 522). Seen in this light, the more melancholic aspects of Father Ted (the depression of Father Stone, the retirement home for priests, Ted’s interminable stint on Craggy Island) begin to seem directly linked to the inability to escape the particular performance of identity that has begun. Thinking through the apparently simple (and simplistic) female characters on offer in Father Ted presents a further level of complexity in articulating a feminist critique of the series. At first, the women in Father Ted seem quite one-note and two-dimensional, particularly those who have a significant role in a single episode. For example,

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the Niamh Connolly character in ‘Rock a Hula Ted’ (based on Sinead O’Connor according to Linehan and Mathews) is a preachy rock star character with no interests or conversational abilities beyond the topic of sexism, and she is viewed with eye-rolling disdain by everyone in the parish when she unexpectedly arrives on Craggy Island. The Polly Clarke character in ‘And God Created Woman’ (based on Edna O’Brien, or public perception of her at a particular point in time) is portrayed only as a sex object, even as Ted suggests that his attraction to her is based on their shared classiness and intellectual interests. In ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol and Rollerblading’, Sister Assumpta handles Ted, Jack and Dougal’s respective withdrawals and rehabilitations from the title’s vices with a singular gleeful fury, with no characteristics other than ‘full battleaxe’. The priests in Father Ted are terrified of women throughout the series. In ‘Rock a Hula Ted’, Dougal needs to write a crib sheet on his hand in order to attempt to talk to Niamh. Ted has no way of dealing with his emotions about Polly, and his unreliable body sees him struggling to control an erection when she’s talking about sex with her exhusband. Jack is clearly sexually attracted to women in a general way, but beyond bellowing ‘girls!’ any time he sees one, or leeringly calling for ‘more water’ when he dreams about judging a wet T-shirt competition in ‘Rock A Hula Ted’, we see no indication that he is capable of interacting with women. However, when we consider the series’ longest-running female character, Mrs Doyle, the feminist analytical possibilities of Father Ted deepen. Mrs Doyle is at the beck and call of her three charges at all times, and her duties range from housekeeper to personal chef to groundskeeper to comforter. Her Catholicism is devout, if slightly context-specific – in an attempt to convince Ted to have a cup of tea in ‘Hell’, she suggests that ‘Our Lord himself on the cross pause[d] for a nice cup of tea before he gave himself up for the world’. Mrs Doyle evokes a stereotypical (and sexist) ‘Irish mammy’ personality, with a teapot and plate of sandwiches always to hand, an ability to hold not just the parochial house but the whole of Craggy Island (and possibly the entire country, given the chance) together, and a loyal network of colleagues and friends with whom she shares all the island’s gossip and goings-on.6 This last point allows us to consider Father Ted via a methodology such as the Bechdel Test, based on an extract from Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For comic

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strip, which measures gender representation and bias according to three criteria. In order to pass the test, a given piece of fiction must evidence the presence of (1) two named women who (2) talk to each other about (3) a topic other than men.7 Whilst this relatively informal test is a blunt instrument on the whole (and indeed can be seen as an appropriation of Dykes to Watch Out For’s original aim to study queer visibility), it remains a helpful tool for navigating gender representation in screen media. Using the Bechdel Test’s metrics, Mrs Doyle has a range of female allies (usually named characters), and they talk together about topics other than men, supporting each other’s needs while providing companionship and solidarity. They watch football together, once Mrs Doyle has learned the key related actions of drinking beer from a can and shouting, ‘Go on, my son!’ They sit in cafés for hours with seemingly endless cups of tea, though this lands Mrs Doyle and her friend Mrs Dineen in police custody in ‘The Mainland’ over their shared inability to let the other woman pay the bill for the tea. As a result, they physically fight with each other, but not in a way that objectifies them for the gaze of the maker or the viewer. Women Mrs Doyle’s age in Craggy Island are frank about sex and sexuality, and it is clear that they talk about these subjects together. In ‘The Passion of Saint Tibulus’, Mrs Glynn and Mrs Sheridan recall seeing The Crying Game (1992) when they are talking to Ted and Dougal outside the cinema, and both suggest that the male nudity in the film reminded them of Mrs Sheridan’s husband’s penis (in different ways). In ‘And God Created Woman’, the nuns visiting Craggy Island are clear about their needs (to watch Ted saying Mass), and do not conceal their disappointment with the turn of events when Ted says a microlength Mass in order to rush off for what he thinks is a date with Polly Clarke. In the Christmas special, the only women (of a listed cast of thirty-four on IMDB) to appear are Mrs Doyle, the character of Assumpta Fitzgerald from Ballykissangel, an unnamed woman who accidentally leaves her unwanted baby on the parochial house doorstep instead of at another house (realising her error just in time) and the co-host of the Golden Cleric ceremony (whose introductory speech manages to emphasise all of Ted’s ‘bizarre financial irregularities’). As indicated above, the priests’ deep fear of and inexperience with

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women reveals itself in the lingerie department sequence. Just before they get lost, Ted and Dougal are discussing Christmas presents for Mrs Doyle. Ted reminds Dougal that, conveniently, ‘God invented perfume, so you don’t have to put any thought into [buying presents for women] whatsoever’. When they do become lost, the first two priests they encounter are Billy and Terry, who seem much less lost than their colleagues, but are instead deep in conversation together while intently staring at and touching a bra and matching suspenders set as if comparing them. Whilst Billy and Terry immediately grasp at the excuse offered by Ted for their presence there (i.e. that they, too, are lost in the lingerie section), the need to cover up what might be the true purpose of their shopping trip speaks to, perhaps, the desperation to perform ‘priest’ correctly, though also points more troublingly towards the deep problems faced by the Irish Catholic Church in relation to inappropriate and illegal sexual behaviour, and the general perception of priests in 1990s Ireland as predatory and creepy as a result. Later on, the point-of-view shots where we see both Ted and Billy spotting women shopping in the lingerie department are framed as moments of real fear, tapping into a clear sense that this half of the population is almost completely closed to priests in their context.

Conclusions Father Ted’s perennial relevance lies in its ability, both within the world of the series and in terms of the series’ position in the world of television sitcom, to speak truth to power (even sometimes inadvertently), to poke fun at the establishment, to examine the danger of petty tyrannies and to consider the relationship between minuscule stakes and the enormous significance of events for the characters involved. Its simple comedy set-up reveals an intricate thematic network of intertextual and contextual references, and re-evaluating Father Ted for 2020 and beyond positions it as a series from which we can continue to learn a huge amount about human relationships, the danger of overly prescriptive religion and the value of speaking the truth. The detailed discussion of ‘A Christmassy Ted’ brings critical attention to an extremely popular episode of the

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series, particularly in relation to the episode’s ability to explore critique of the Catholic Church, precise comedic detailing and roving intertextuality. I opened this chapter with an invocation of Ireland with Simon Reeve, and raised a concern that some of Reeve’s principal descriptors of Ireland even in 2015 continued to revolve around faith, conservatism and Catholicism. As I have demonstrated throughout, the simple assumption that twenty-first-century Ireland continued to subscribe to a religious practice that had essentially destroyed so many communities and families in the previous decades requires revision. We can develop a much more nuanced understanding of the complex relationship between the Irish church and state at national level in the 1990s and early 2000s, and help towards that understanding comes from a surprising source. Father Ted’s evocation of priesthood and its multiple fears and failings was as illustrative of its time and context as all good satire should be, and Linehan and Mathews’s complex undertaking within a simple sitcom frame has created a series for generations of audiences to come.

Notes 1 I refer to ‘British sitcom television’ because, whilst Father Ted was written by two Irish men and had an almost entirely Irish cast, it was made by Hat Trick Productions for Channel 4. 2 All quotations from the series are taken from Linehan and Mathews 1999. 3 The script specifies a ‘muzak version of “The End” by The Doors coming through the department store speakers’, the lyrics and music of which would have created an entirely different scene (Linehan and Mathews 1999: 237). 4 Linehan and Mathews specify Platoon as a reference point in their DVD commentary on this scene. 5 For a brief overview of this history, see ‘Clerical child abuse – an Irish timeline’, The Irish Times, 13 July 2011, www.irishtimes.com/news/ clerical-child-abuse-an-irish-timeline-1.880042. Accessed 26 October 2019. 6 See the Irish comedian Colm O’Regan’s Twitter account @irishmammies for an extremely clear and full definition of this particular figure in Irish society and culture.



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7 The interactive Bechdel Test website allows users to apply the test to a range of films and television programmes. Bechdel Movie Test List, https://bechdeltest.com/. Accessed 27 May 2020.

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References Bignell, Jonathan (2013) An introduction to television studies. Third edition. Abingdon: Routledge. Butler, Judith (1988) ‘Performative acts and gender constitution: an essay in phenomenology and feminist theory’. Theatre Journal 40:4, pp. 519–31. www.jstor.org/stable/3207893?origin=JSTOR-pdf. Accessed 12 July 2021. Free, Marcus (2015) ‘“Don’t tell me I’m still on that feckin’ island”: migration, masculinity, British television and Irish identity in the work of Graham Linehan’. Critical Studies in Television 10:2, pp. 4–20. https:// doi.org/10.7227%2FCST.10.2.2. Hill, John (2016) ‘Subverting the sitcom from within: form, ideology and Father Ted’. In Jürgen Kamm and Birgit Neumann (eds) British TV comedies: cultural concepts, contexts and controversies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 225–39. Hutcheon, Linda (2006) A theory of adaptation. Abingdon: Routledge. IMDB, ‘A Christmassy Ted’, full cast and crew, www.imdb.com/title/ tt0578500/fullcredits/. Accessed 2 November 2019. Linehan, Graham and Arthur Mathews (1999) Father Ted: the complete scripts. Basingstoke and Oxford: Boxtree. McGonigle, L. (2012) ‘“Doesn’t Mary have a lovely bottom?”: gender, sexuality and Catholic ideology in Father Ted’. Études Irlandaises 37:1, pp. 89–102. https://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/2999. Accessed 5 June 2021.

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Depth in two dimensions: complex/ simple moments in Rick and Morty James Walters

This chapter explores themes of complexity and simplicity in relation to the animated television series Rick and Morty (Warner Bros Television, 2013–present). The programme is considered as an example of the kind of narrative sophistication and intricacy that is the hallmark of a number of contemporary television animations, and which connects them to broader notions of complexity that have influenced key debates in television studies. The discussion moves on to reflect upon the particular ways in which fan audiences have responded imaginatively to Rick and Morty’s narrative complexity by using brief moments from the show to formulate their own extra-textual connections and meanings. The chapter concludes by returning to a moment from Rick and Morty to look again at features that, against a backdrop of elaborate plot speculation, may be considered simplistic but can equally be understood as complex expressions of creative choice, in turn providing rich opportunities for critical engagement.

Complex cartoons The third episode in Series 2 of Rick and Morty is entitled ‘Auto Erotic Assimilation’ and features a plotline that is symptomatic of the programme’s ambition and its achievement. Rick Sanchez, a genius inventor in possession of an obdurate rationality that borders on the sociopathic, and his two grandchildren, Morty and Summer, stumble across a planet whose people have been colonised by a hive-mind gestalt entity called Unity. It emerges that Rick and Unity are former

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lovers, and they quickly resurrect their relationship through a series of elaborate and debauched sexual exploits. Morty and Summer, meanwhile, wander the world that Unity has colonised, and Summer becomes increasingly unsettled by its inhabitants’ loss of free will through mass psychic assimilation. However, when Unity’s intoxicated feats with Rick hinder their1 ability to maintain the mind control of an entire planet, some of its citizens regain their autonomy and a race war very quickly breaks out among them. Unity rescues the grandchildren from the violence, with Summer now considering passive enslavement to be the lesser evil than the potential immorality that freedom offers. In order to preserve the benign unanimity of the planet, Summer insists that Rick should return home but, when he refuses, she and Morty leave without their grandfather (via Rick’s portal gun that allows the characters to travel between alternative realities). Rick’s time with Unity is cut short, however, when the latter realises the toxicity and self-destruction inherent in their relationship. Unity deserts the planet entirely, leaving a continuous array of identical break-up notes, penned by every single member of the hive-mind population. The notes’ conclusions include the sentences: ‘I know how it goes with us. I lose who I am and become part of you. Because, in a strange way, you’re better at what I do without even trying.’ Rick leaves the world and returns home. Episodes of Rick and Morty last for around twenty-two minutes, yet the narrative layering of these short instalments is considerable, often relying upon ideas of a quantum multiverse that, whilst relatively familiar within popular culture, nevertheless require a degree of thoughtful engagement on the part of the viewer. The direction of inter-dimensional traffic within ‘Auto Erotic Assimilation’ is fairly linear, in that the characters apparently travel straight from one version of the universe to another and back again. Yet, even the concept of the hive mind, and the ways in which it is explored within the episode, is an elaborate science fiction conceit that bears an overt relationship to established examples of the genre such as Star Trek (Norway/Desilu/Paramount, 1966–69) and Doctor Who (BBC, 1963–89/2005–present) or dystopian anthologies such as The Twilight Zone (CBS, 1959–64) and, more recently, Black Mirror (Zeppotron, 2011–13; House of Tomorrow, 2014–present). In common with these shows, Rick and Morty exhibits confidence in exploring complicated ideas with the expectation that its audience

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will understand them. This structural and thematic density might easily be related to key notions of complexity in contemporary television, as defined perhaps most influentially by Jason Mittell in his 2015 book, Complex TV: the poetics of contemporary television storytelling. Mittell’s preference for a poetics-led approach, which at its heart asks the question ‘how does this text work?’ (Mittell 2015: 5), seems indicative of a desire to find an analytical approach that somehow corresponds with the intricate narrative patterns he perceives in examples of serial television and meets the challenge of examining workings that are inherently detailed and multifaceted. We might view this as an approach designed to navigate complexity, to somehow stay across it and avoid getting lost within it. As Mittell remarks, ‘You cannot simply watch these programmes as an unmediated window to a realistic world into which you might escape; rather, complex television demands that you pay attention to the window frames, asking you to reflect on how it provides partial access to the diegesis and how the panes of glass distort your vision on the unfolding action’ (2015: 53). The metaphor works as an endorsement of formal analysis, but it also inherently advocates remaining at a critical distance from complex programmes, looking at the window on to a world as a framing device rather than simply getting drawn (‘escaping’) into the world it frames. Though clearly distinct from the live action drama series that have tended to feature most regularly in work on television complexity, Rick and Morty can certainly be seen to fit with the critical perception that shows have become increasingly more sophisticated in terms of plotting and structure. For Rick and Morty, this manifests not only in elaborate science fiction framing concepts, such as hive-mind planets and infinite multiverses, but also in the weight and depth afforded to character development and insights. In ‘Auto Erotic Assimilation’, for example, even the responses of the various characters to Unity’s colonisation become telling insights. Summer is at first outraged by the citizens’ loss of liberty before quickly reversing her stance to support Unity’s total control over them. We might take this wavering to stem from Summer’s lack of experience with the interdimensional travel that Rick and Morty are familiar with, and which often results in situations that resist secure definitions of moral correctness. In contrast, then, Morty’s casual acceptance of the population’s enslavement, contentedly accepting stacks of

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burgers as he watches them build a Mount Rushmore-like monument of him and Summer, references the extent to which his travels with Rick are having a desensitising effect on him, resulting in a form of moral apathy. For Rick, Unity represents an opportunity for hedonistic excess, which corresponds with his exploitative attitude towards interdimensional travel (at the beginning of this episode, he answers a distress signal because ‘nine out of ten times it’s a ship full of dead aliens and a bunch of free shit’). The programme thus presents three characters at different stages of experience, expectation and response, but resists making firm assertions about which attitude is morally superior. We can conceivably recognise three levels of sophistication here: in the contrasting of differing character perspectives, in the programme’s reluctance to demarcate any response as better or worse, and in the expectation that an audience will appreciate these levels of moral ambiguity. These characterisations are allowed to shape and develop across episodes as Rick and Morty employs a continuing serial format.2 This marks a departure from the discontinuous episodic patterns observable in traditional television animations, such as Hanna-Barbera productions The Flintstones (1960–67) and The Jetsons (1962–63), which tend not to tie together events as a progression between episodes and, as Amy M. Davis, Jemma Gilboy and James Zborowski point out, have the capacity to ‘run for years without time seeming to pass in the show’s fictional world’ (2015: 175). They mention this more conventional format as a means of emphasising how another animated show, The Simpsons (Fox, 1989–present), utilises a ‘floating timeline’, in which time does and does not advance for characters in various ways (Davis et al. 2015: 175, 176). Davis et al. draw attention to the fact that The Simpsons, due in part to its unique on-screen longevity, is required to take a flexible attitude towards its own history and even, from time to time, rewrite character biography; an act of creative ingenuity that can nevertheless be met with fan hostility. As they conclude: while The Simpsons’ handling of time deserves to be vaunted as something complex and even slightly mysterious, this should not cause us to overlook or deny that it can also often justly be described as opportunistic. Some fans want the programme’s history to be treated as an obligation; the programme’s writers treat it as a resource, to be called upon, ignored, or even rewritten at will. (Davis et al. 2015: 184)

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The agelessness of characters in The Simpsons runs against the natural passage of time in its broadcast history, setting up points of tension that can be retained, resolved or even played with. As a result, the programme builds in further layers of narrative complexity as it continues to develop a fictional world that is both consistent and inconsistent, orderly and mischievous. Holly Randell-Moon and Arthur J. Randell propose The Simpsons as a central influence for the growth and development of ‘adult oriented cartoons’ such as South Park (Viacom, 1997–present) and Family Guy (Fox, 1999–present), and the advent of Cartoon Network’s dedicated animation programming block, Adult Swim, in which Rick and Morty appears (Randell-Moon and Randell 2013: 136). Randell-Moon and Randell observe that The Simpsons helped to counter the standard associations made between television animation and children’s programming, by ‘demonstrating that the format, style and aesthetics of animated television are broad enough to allow a range of thematic concerns for both younger and older audiences’ (2013: 136). Rick and Morty, like South Park and Family Guy, illustrates the development of this tradition, whereby animated shows are produced for an intended adult audience, rather than spanning younger and older groups. The titling and content of ‘Auto Erotic Assimilation’, for example, provides an obvious indication of the extent to which Rick and Morty can confidently depart from any traditional associations made between television animation and child viewers. (Although it is important to note that animations targeted at adults are also watched by children, regardless of any creative intentions, scheduling or broadcast platform, as Helen Nixon points out in her study of South Park’s child audiences (Nixon 1999: 12–16).) At the same time, whilst the programme does not strive to capture the breadth of The Simpsons’s audience, Rick and Morty does incorporate that earlier show’s achievements in terms of narrative complexity, selfreferentiality, sophisticated humour and formal efficiency (and similarly covering thematically dense material in twenty-two-minute episodes).

Complexity, moments and fandom Rick and Morty’s serial format creates lines of complex continuity from the outset, to the extent that it is often admired by fans as a

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densely interwoven large-scale, seasons-spanning narrative. This perception has given rise to an array of fan theories about the programme emerging on various online platforms. This phenomenon is hardly particular to Rick and Morty and, indeed, even The Simpsons – a show that makes a self-referential play of its loose continuity – has been the subject of theories that propose an underlying yet undisclosed coherence that ‘makes sense’ of events on screen. For example, one theory creates a causal link between an episode in which a joke reference is made to Homer’s six-month life expectancy and a subsequent episode, occurring six months later, when one of Bart’s pranks temporarily puts his father in a coma. The theory, posted by the user ‘Hardtopickaname’ on a Reddit forum, suggests that Homer never wakes from that coma, that subsequent events take place only in his subconscious, and this explains why no one ages in The Simpsons. Like conventional conspiracy theories that circulate in popular culture, this whimsical reading takes a small article of textual detail and uses it as a key to unlock a wider set of meanings, ‘hidden’ in plain sight. However, whereas conspiracy theories involving subjects like climate change or vaccinations derive from various psychological conditions and can pose far-reaching risks (Douglas et al. 2019: 3–35), fan theories about television shows instead represent a more positive interaction with plots and characters, reinforcing processes of engagement and enjoyment. It seems unlikely, for example, that ‘Hardtopickaname’ holds a genuine belief that the creators of The Simpsons have actually embedded a narrative detail, without ever referring to it in any form, that would profoundly alter the meaning of a vast majority of episodes; or that it necessarily matters. Indeed, the post responds to the fact that Al Jean, former showrunner on The Simpsons, has said it isn’t true by asking jokily: ‘what does he know about the Simpsons?’ In the case of Rick and Morty, the process of theory-creation takes on sometimes forensic levels of analysis as fans scrutinise moments from the show in often very close detail, posting their speculations online in the form of videos, blogs and articles. The resulting theories are wide-ranging and often represent an imaginative response to the style, form and structure of the programme. They are prompted in part by Rick and Morty’s seriality, and partly by the relatively long gaps between seasons that create space for viewer speculation. Without any new material to engage with, there is the opportunity to return to previous episodes as a means of piecing

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together fragments of textual detail into a patchwork of evidence, resulting in theory creation. This results in layers of extra-textual convolution that, whilst clearly motivated by the show’s textual complexity, have the potential to take on a life of their own across digital and social media. Indeed, such theories can often maintain only tenuous connections to the shape and structure of events within Rick and Morty, so that even slight details can be used to formulate fairly elaborate fan speculations. For example, the show’s opening titles feature a series of very short scenes that perform the conventional task of ‘pitch[ing], or mak[ing] desirable, the show that follows’ (Davison 2013: 147). Some scenes are taken from episodes of Rick and Morty and some are apparently created specifically for this sequence which, again, is an established convention in television (Williams 2016: 60). One short scene depicts Rick and Morty running from some giant green frog-like alien creatures. Rick creates a portal in the ground and escapes into it but Morty trips over before he can reach the portal. The scene cuts just as the frog aliens pounce upon the stranded Morty with their jaws open. This brief moment serves the direct purpose, in common with many equivalent opening title sequences from other shows, of foregrounding certain aspects of Rick and Morty’s narrative premise (the existence of alien worlds and interdimensional travel) alongside thumbnail sketches of character attitudes and behaviour (Rick’s quick-thinking ingenuity and apparent disregard for his grandson’s safety; Morty’s helpless clumsiness) that may or not persist across episodes. Despite its somewhat innocuous status, this moment from the opening titles has nevertheless provided fans with opportunities for detailed interpretation. Specifically, a number of online contributions have created a link between the Morty that is abandoned in this scene and an ‘evil’ Morty that will feature in later episodes: namely, that they are the same Morty, that Rick simply acquires a replacement Morty from a parallel dimension, and that this act of abandonment creates evil Morty’s vendetta against Rick (Hadsell 2017). There is scant evidence for this conclusion (and, in fact, it is equally possible that Rick returns to rescue Morty immediately after we cut away, given that we have explicitly been shown his expert use of the portal gun already) but the theory nevertheless takes its place within an expanding network of theories that have built up around the programme.

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The incorporation of a title sequence into this kind of speculation exemplifies the extent to which an especially wide array of textual details from Rick and Morty can be employed by dedicated viewers to develop wider theories of continuity and coherence across seasons of the show. This search for clues and evidence is surely prompted by the programme makers’ tendency to include incidental details that reveal a greater significance once they have been discovered by viewers. These can include a broad variety of popular cultural references, the reappearance of features between episodes and even the insertion of items or themes from another animated show. For example, the Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland is good friends with the Gravity Falls (Disney, 2015–16) creator Alex Hirsch, and numerous references to the latter show can be found in the former. However, these are minuscule details whose appearance on screen is especially sparse, such as a mug, pen and notebook that were sucked into a portal in Gravity Falls being briefly glimpsed falling out of a portal in the background of a shot in Rick and Morty. Whether meant as a sight-gag or something more profound, the brief Gravity Falls visual references in Rick and Morty have been taken up by fans as a means of speculating about the potential scope of the programme’s fictional multiverse and whether it is shared with that of another programme. In these examples, it becomes apparent that a cohort of viewers is utilising moments from the show to create wider patterns of meaning and significance that are inspired by but not necessarily supported within the text itself. This illustrates not only a complex relationship between the text and certain members of its audience but also the consistent enthusiasm those audience members possess for engaging with intricate audiovisual detail within the text as means of creating their own stories. This is perhaps unsurprising. We are certainly a fair distance from the point at which scholars such as John Caldwell were moved to challenge the relatively dominant account of audiences contained within the various incarnations of ‘glance theory’, ‘surrendered gaze theory’ or the ‘myth of distraction’, as he termed them (Caldwell 1995: 25). Elsewhere, the work of commentators such as Matt Hills has consistently centred upon an understanding that ‘Fans are often highly articulate. Fans interpret media texts in a variety of interesting and perhaps unexpected ways’ (Hills 2002: viii). Certainly, the notion of Rick and Morty

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fans as attentive and imaginative viewers is not difficult to embrace. And yet, the use of moments is still striking. The spinning out of theories based on minor details brings viewers back to and away from the show’s on-screen audio-visual material. The process both mines that material for additional resonances and leaves it behind in pursuit of narrative patterns that can be perceived to lie beneath or beyond it. Inherent in this activity are choices about how television moments can be approached, understood and valued. The decision, by some fans, to use moments as fragmentary evidence for a network of meanings that join up off-screen expands those moments’ potential complexity by fitting them within wider extra-textual patterns. And yet, the activity also has the potential to narrow down an appreciation of those moments’ complexity on screen by leaving behind their intricate aesthetic design. Rick and Morty offers viewers especially rich opportunities for additional speculation about its thematic and narrative structures, extending our enjoyment of the programme. However, in following those leads, we might ironically risk taking for granted some of the detailed work, the sets of complex creative choices, that shape the show’s look and feel on screen. These latter interests correspond with seminal work on television aesthetics undertaken by scholars such as Sarah Cardwell (2006), Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock (2013), which has attended consistently to the intricacies of audiovisual design. However, narrative complexity in television also builds across hours of interrelated scenes, sequences and moments, culminating in a network of dense and interdependent meanings. As a result, equivalent discussions about complexity as a specific concern in television have tended to return to this weaving of broader narrative threads. Trisha Dunleavy, for example, provides a persuasive account of style and aesthetics in complex serial drama that concentrates on ‘approaches deployed in the production [emphasis in original]’ of serials rather than ‘the evaluative analysis that aesthetic criticism is considered to include’ (Dunleavy 2017: 124). Even within the parameters of this debate, and within a case-study section on the programme Stranger Things (Netflix, 2016–present), Dunleavy is driven to reference the fact that: Important to the narrative and aesthetic complexity of Stranger Things is the expectation that viewers will re-watch its text so as to mine it for additional understandings. The mystery surrounding Eleven



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[an enigmatic character in Season 1] provides a strong example of how viewers are motivated to do this and the additional details that are available to those who undertake repeated viewings. (Dunleavy 2017: 149)

Here, Dunleavy describes the act of repeat viewing as a means of building up a bigger picture, searching for clues to unravel overarching narrative riddles and mining the text for ‘additional understandings’, thus resembling a pattern observed in the fan analyses of Rick and Morty. Furthermore, in line with her overarching critical interests, she is careful to point out that this activity is invited by aspects of the show’s design: that the makers of Stranger Things deliberately prompt viewers to perform degrees of extra interpretative work. Indeed, the whole game of embedding slight narrative details that Dunleavy draws attention to in Stranger Things, and which we can observe in episodes of Rick and Morty, relies upon creative figures within the television industry recognising viewers as alert and attentive. As a result, the process of close, repeated viewing is rewarded in the design of these programmes, and it is perhaps unsurprising that fan theories generated in response to on-screen data should constitute fairly extreme extensions of this activity.

Complex simple moments These concerns bring us back to the central question of how we value moments in television. Specifically, there is an opportunity to explore in greater detail the relationship between small, discrete or ostensibly simple aesthetic elements and the complexity associated with the development of grand-narrative meaning and significance. From this perspective, complexity is embedded within a television text at all levels of its creative design, rather than emerging only through the accumulation of minutes and hours, episodes and seasons. As a way of exploring this idea in a little more detail, we can return to our framing episode of Rick and Morty, ‘Auto Erotic Assimilation’, and consider its final moments. Having travelled back to Earth, Rick walks in to the Smith family living room, in which Morty and Summer are staring at the television set with their parents, Jerry and Beth. Beth stops Rick in his path

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to confront him about the alien prisoner she and Jerry found, while looking for their weed-whacker, in Rick’s subterranean layer beneath his garage workshop. This references a subplot within the episode when Beth and Jerry’s discovery of the alien prisoner exposes their marital tensions and the divisive role Rick plays in their lives. (The alien chooses to leave the planet rather than listen to any more of their bickering.) Again, we might note the density of plotting in Rick and Morty, with this twenty-two-minute episode deftly balancing the weight of detailed concepts and characterisations across plotlines. Beth sets new ground rules for Rick: ‘No more alien prisoners and no more subterranean excavation without consulting us’. Within her speech, however, Beth makes references to her fear of her father leaving if he is presented with boundaries (‘I know I sound like mom, but I can’t sacrifice this whole family’s safety just because I’m afraid you’ll leave again’) and, when Rick responds with a simple ‘OK’, she is flustered and anxious, asking: ‘OK? “OK …” like you’re going to quietly teleport somewhere and never come back?’ The strains within Beth and Rick’s relationship are evoked precisely and economically in this short exchange. Beth’s underlying and unresolved fear of her father leaving is made overt and surely contributes to her rather weak demand that she and Jerry be ‘consulted’ on Rick’s dubious exploits in the future. Rick and Morty consistently retains visceral, inelegant vocal features such as pausing, stumbling and stuttering in actors’ audio recordings of character voices. In this moment, the technique is employed effectively as Beth emits a series of short indistinct noises while she struggles to process her father’s response, so referencing her lack of confidence and security (qualities reflected in her physical appearance, as she tilts her head downwards and joins her hands across her body in a self-conscious stance while she speaks). Indeed, her genuine lack of certainty around Rick’s use of the word ‘OK’ – whether it is a benign assurance or a potential rejection – stems from Beth’s reasonable and accurate acknowledgement that her father is especially difficult to read and prone to committing insensitive acts. These facts make Rick’s concluding remark – a resigned sigh of ‘No, it’s your house’ – precarious because it could signal either his acquiescence or a diversionary tactic designed to mask an intention to perform exactly the act that Beth fears: leaving his family again.

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Beth’s inability to read her father’s intentions is related not only to his vocal evasiveness but also to his lack of physical expression. As she speaks, he moves only to shrug, maintains the same blank focus on her, his mouth remaining fixed in an unchanging, slightly downturned, passive frown. In contrast, Beth’s apprehension is made overt as she swings her arms, clenches her fists, shifts position and tiptoes to emphasise her points, struggling to maintain eye contact with Rick as her gaze flits around him. These actions are certainly consistent with the character’s behaviour throughout episodes of Rick and Morty, but it is also the case that her inability to settle into one position is exacerbated by her father’s lack of physical responsiveness. As a consequence, we are presented with distinct textures of movement between Rick and Beth, which in turn creates a visual tension within the scene that complement the audial contrasts that exist between the characters. As Rick walks away from his family, Summer rises from the couch and asks what happened with Unity. He responds: ‘Who? Oh, Unity. Yeah, well, honestly, I mean we’re talking about an entity that thrives on enslavement, you know? It’s not cool. Fun’s fun, but who needs it? I’ll be in the garage.’ Again, this speech is characterised by ambiguity. Its casual dismissiveness runs counter to Rick’s experience of finding and reading Unity’s notes just seconds before. That earlier sequence maintained a ponderous pace, underscored by a brooding instrumental composition, which complemented Rick’s slow reflection as he took time to read sections of the note in different locations within Unity’s planet. His activity serves a storytelling function to illustrate the fact that every mind under Unity’s control has dedicated itself to composing the note, emphasising its significance to Unity and setting up a novel version of a conventional break-up letter sequence, but it nevertheless creates an on-screen depiction of Rick lingering over the sentences as he delays completing his reading of the notes. In this way, he responds to, reciprocates and extends the significance that Unity has sought to create in her writing and mode of delivery. And yet, Rick’s nonchalant dismissal of Unity when he returns home does fit a pattern of (what might be loosely termed) sociopathic nihilism in his behaviour, exhibited consistently throughout seasons, which frequently curtails his ability to act with instinctive human empathy. The response, then, balances elements

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of potential conclusion and conflict, asking us to consider not only whether it is an authentic representation of Rick’s state of mind but also whether we have a strong grasp of what an authentic representation of Rick’s state of mind might be. The silent stares that greet Rick’s words would suggest that this uncertainty is shared by the members of his family. As Rick exits, a transition between scenes is anticipated and initiated by the first chords of the American indie synthpop band Chaos Chaos’s song ‘Do you feel it?’ The suddenness of its impact is intensified by the force of the song’s dissonant opening bar, the heaviness of the synth chords creating an almost over-asserted melancholic tone. Indeed, the inclusion of the track at this point marks a particularly firm shift between moments not only through its audial definition but also because it introduces a mood of sadness that is far more emphatic than the moments in which Rick read Unity’s notes or gave an assessment of Unity’s character to his family. In this way, the Chaos Chaos track creates further, perhaps unexpected, levels of emotional intensity within the moment, reinforcing the suggestion that there were underlying levels of complexity within the moments we have already seen. The song’s opening chords play underneath a shot that tracks back from Rick’s family as he walks away from them, aligning its introduction with his character and, as a consequence, associating its form and tone with him. It’s a simple narrative technique, perhaps easy to overlook, but which nevertheless carries the implicit suggestion that we may have missed something about Rick’s character: that the music expresses an as yet unseen, unspoken emotional intensity. The moment in the living room might easily be overlooked or lost as it follows Rick’s climactic reading of Unity’s notes and precedes a following scene in the garage that has received substantial attention from the Rick and Morty fan community: Rick attempting and failing to kill himself with a death ray. On YouTube, for example, fan-created videos feature reproductions and re-edits that re-emphasise its emotional force, a process replicated in various videos depicting fan reactions to watching the ‘Auto Erotic Assimilation’ episode, with the garage scene featuring prominently. On the same online platform, the show’s creators discuss the moment with media polymath Kevin Smith in a video entitled ‘The Intricate Story Behind One of the Most Emotional “Rick and Morty” Moments,’

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which turns out to be co-creator Dan Harmon’s self-acknowledged ‘fan theory’ that Rick’s obliteration of a small alien creature he tests his machine on erases it from existence across all dimensions and, by implication, that he intends to perform this same act upon himself. This notion certainly bears the hallmarks of other Rick and Morty fan theories as it uses on-screen details as a basis for forming elaborate off-screen meanings. In this way, Harmon becomes aligned with the show’s actual fans and the manner in which they too seize upon material from Rick and Morty moments to plot out patterns of speculation. Against this, the moment between Beth and Rick in the living room might risk being classed as a necessary but limited transition between two pivotal scenes. Indeed, it might be characterised as simplistic when considered alongside the complex plotting of the Unity notes sequence or the scene in the garage that has provoked even its creator to offer extended hypothetical readings. These distinctions lean towards an understanding of complexity and simplicity that is framed in terms of narrative structure. Returning to the living-room sequence may provide an opportunity to consider in more detail the extent to which complexity can also be understood in terms of aesthetic design, even (or especially) when that moment’s plotting might otherwise be characterised as simplistic. As we engage with the task of interpreting Rick and Beth’s behaviour in this moment, we are confronted with the question of what we understand Rick and Beth to be. Each movement or gesture has the potential to suggest a psychological perspective, a path of motivation or an emotional response. If it seems inadequate to define Rick and Beth only as a collection of simple lines designed to communicate the intentions of the programme’s creators, it is perhaps because this is not how we experience the animated characters on screen. Even before we reach the stage of surmising their interior perspectives and thoughts, we instinctively regard Beth and Rick as beings imbued with human agency and complexity: we are able to talk about them looking and moving as we would with a live person in the frame because it feels natural to do so. Analysing the work of a live human may lead us towards a consideration of performance – the ways in which certain choices made by an actor make available a range of meanings for viewers. But, self-evidently, in Rick and Morty there is no live actor on-screen. Elsewhere in animation, the live actor

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almost always tends to be heard rather than seen: present as a voice. And yet, as Paul Wells has noted in relation to stardom and iconography in the film Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995), different meanings can occur between the way animated characters look and the way they sound: While the vocal performances of Tom Hanks (Woody) and Tim Allen (Buzz) may carry with them aural signifiers of their pre-established film and television personae […] this is significantly counterpointed by the graphic signifiers of the moving, visualised figures; figures which in turn embody traditional conceptions of the comic-book ‘cowboy’ and ‘astronaut’ while being rendered in animated form within a computer-generated aesthetic. In many senses, there is no ‘actor’ here who significantly impacts upon the iconography. (Wells 2003: 94)

If we shift the weight of emphasis from stardom and iconography to performance in animation, Wells’s description of the absent actor remains a guiding concern. With no human actor on-screen, are we entitled to describe Beth and Rick’s simple patterns of movements, gestures and look as a complex performance at all? Questions of this kind connect with Donald Crafton’s cornerstone study, Shadow of a mouse, which considers performance to be a fundamental and compound facet of American film animation of the 1930s. Crafton takes time to describe the qualities of cartoon acting on screen but also provides accounts of the production contexts in which this work was conceived. So, for example, he examines the especially close relationship between the animators in the Disney studio and the characters they created for a series of short films: The characters, as they give their performances as on-screen moving beings, act out the emotions and movements of the animators. As ‘Streep is Thatcher’ [a reference to the marketing of Meryl Streep’s on-screen portrayal of Britain’s first female prime minister], the animators are the characters. They try to ‘live’ them much as human actors, through study, rehearsal, and introspection, get into their roles. They clothe their characters in a vesture of psychology, personality, appearance and body language. (Crafton 2013: 45)

In emphasising the extent to which animators substantially invest aspects of themselves in the behaviours of characters (‘the animators

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are the characters’), Crafton references the series of intricate compositional choices that contribute to every single action undertaken by cartoon figures on-screen. The comparison with familiar processes undertaken by live actors when preparing for roles (study, rehearsal, introspection) not only draws attention to the meticulous approaches animators adopt but also stresses the fact that animated characters are the result of careful performance decisions. The animators must understand their characters as people and draw upon their own understanding of human behaviour in order to give them life onscreen. Consequently, it is not difficult to follow the line of Crafton’s reasoning and understand the behaviours of animated characters as performances. A further distinction between animated performance and live-action performance, however, is that the fact of creative collaboration is made especially apparent: with no physical actor on screen, we are obliged to at least acknowledge the many hands that have contributed to the work of the performer. The team working on Rick and Morty, for example, is extensive and it is reasonable to presume that moments such as the living-room scene are the product of numerous interweaving creative decisions. The tone and structure of the sequence rely strongly upon features such as Rick’s fixed countenance and his neutral style of movement in contrast to Beth’s taut, expressive actions. The performances are central and their significance would potentially be altered if a different set of choices had been enacted by the creative team. If Rick’s frown or posture were emphasised too heavily, for example, they might create a portrait of self-pity or disdain; if Beth’s glances and gesticulations were too emphatic they could become signs of a choreographed, melodramatic display. Their behaviour on-screen is thus the result of specific performance choices made off-screen. It is clear that the team responsible for these performances possess, for example, a detailed understanding of the tensions that can exist between external behaviour and interior emotion and can furthermore draw upon that knowledge to depict those aspects of human psychology in animation. Their achievement is to embed these complex choices within a simple aesthetic design: to construct performances that do not overplay their intricate design. Recognising animated performance to be a product of creative collaboration can remind us of the partnerships that exist at the

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heart of all performance on-screen. In his study of Team America: World Police (Trey Parker, 2004), a film featuring a cast of puppets, Alex Clayton contends that ‘in truth, actors are technicians among many who work to fashion a performance; they are not alone in pulling the strings’ (Clayton 2010: 129). Here, Clayton’s attention to the non-human performance of puppets helps to invigorate this view of actors as collaborative artists, in the same way that focusing on Rick’s singular performance offers a means of appreciating a wider framework of contributions. Inevitably, given the interests of this chapter, I would contend that a discussion of the living-room moment invites a consideration of at least two kinds of complexity: the complex interrelationship of aesthetic elements on-screen and the complex interplay of creative decisions at work in its production. Studies by scholars such as Dunleavy and Mittell rightly emphasise the narrative complexity that is characteristic of contemporary television, and we can appreciate the ways in which viewers of Rick and Morty have responded to that programme’s complexity by building up a yet more elaborate set of theories and speculations. However, asking ostensibly simple questions about the way an animated character behaves in a particular moment, what we understand that character to be and, consequently, the status of a performance on screen, can lead to a discussion of compositional complexity within the moment itself. This is not to imply that narrative and aesthetic intricacy are not interconnected or, indeed, to diminish the pleasures of responding imaginatively to a programme’s storytelling structures by plotting out additional possible meanings and relationships. Rather, it is a means of ensuring that aspects of Rick and Morty’s achievement are not potentially overlooked. It might be that the aesthetic design of the show is taken for granted as it follows the ‘minimalistic’ style that Paul Wells regards Hanna Barbera cartoons to have initiated in television, for example (Wells 2003: 17–20). But, equally, an enthusiasm to keep on engaging with the programme’s narrative complexity, whilst entirely understandable, might leave a detailed consideration of compositional elements behind, and, furthermore, the equally complex work involved in creating even the most apparently simple moments. This is perhaps reflected in those instances when certain Rick and Morty fans have voiced their frustration at the relatively long gaps between seasons appearing (Riley 2019).

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Although somewhat extreme, these responses illustrate the extent to which the programme creates an appetite for yet further narrative complexity among its viewers, which in turn becomes intensified with each new season. As an alternative but complementary approach, returning to a moment from Rick and Morty (such as the living room sequence) to consider its form and construction can develop an appreciation of the complexity that may be found even in the modest, the slight or the fleeting. It is unlikely that we would ever seek to define complexity and simplicity as binaries but, in the case of this animated television series, there is perhaps a particular danger in overlooking the intricate design of the ordinary or the familiar, such as the performance of human behaviour on-screen, against the more extraordinary and unfamiliar story themes, such as alternative realities and interdimensional travel. Every moment in television represents the choices made by its creators and the choices offered to the critical viewer. By focusing on those moments, we can appreciate that complexity is found not only in large-scale structuring (high concept, multilayered shows running for numerous seasons, for example) but also in small-scale compositions (which have the potential to express subtleties of character emotion in modest, unimposing or transitional moments). In looking again at these layers of complex design within apparently ‘simple’ narrative events, we are always engaging with the depth and richness of a programme and making claims for its achievement and its value.

Notes 1 The episode more consistently favours a female depiction of Unity throughout, although it is made clear that both male and female characters are assimilated. A gendered pronoun would therefore be inaccurate, hence my use of ‘their’ to describe Unity. 2 Here, I am drawing upon Glen Creeber’s definition of a serial as something that ‘generally moves towards a narrative conclusion over a number of limited episodes’ but in which ‘continuity between separate episodes is not as foregrounded as it might have once been, allowing greater entry points for viewers who have not followed the entire story. Final resolutions are also discouraged, leaving the opportunity for another series an option’ (Creeber 2004: 11).

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References Caldwell, John T. (1995) Televisuality: style, crisis and authority in American television. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Cardwell, Sarah (2006) ‘Television aesthetics’. Critical Studies in Television 1:1, pp. 72–80. https://doi.org/10.7227%2FCST.1.1.10. Clayton, Alex (2010) ‘Performance, with strings attached: Team America’s snub to the actor’. In Tom Brown and James Walters (eds) Film moments: criticism, history, theory. London: BFI, pp. 127–30. Crafton, Donald (2013) Shadow of a mouse. Berkeley: University of California Press. Creeber, Glen (2004) Serial television: big drama on the small screen. London: BFI. Davis, Amy M., Gilboy Jemma and James Zborowski (2015) ‘How time works in The Simpsons’. Animation 10:3, pp. 175–88. https:// doi.org/10.1177%2F1746847715602403. Davison, Annette (2013) ‘Title sequences for contemporary television serials’. In John Richardson, Claudia Gorbman and Carol Vernallis (eds) The Oxford handbook of new audiovisual aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 146–67. Douglas, Karen M., Joseph E. Uscinski, Robbie M. Sutton, Aleksandra Cichocka, Turkay Nefes, Chee Sian Ang and Farzin Deravi (2019) ‘Understanding conspiracy theories’. Advances in Political Psychology 40:1, pp. 3–35. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1111/pops.12568. Dunleavy, Trisha (2017) Complex serial drama and multiplatform television. London: Routledge. Hadsell, Brian (2017) ‘Is Rick and Morty’s “Evil Morty” Rick’s first Morty?’ TVOvermind, 19 April. www.tvovermind.com/rick-mortys-evil-mortyricks-first-morty/. Accessed 6 September 2019. Hills, Matt (2002) Fan cultures. London: Routledge. Jacobs, Jason and Steven Peacock (eds) (2013) Television aesthetics and style. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Mittell, Jason (2015) Complex TV: the poetics of contemporary television storytelling. New York and London: New York University Press. Nixon, Helen (1999) ‘Adults watching children watching South Park’. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 43:1, pp. 12–16. www.jstor.org/ stable/40017039. Accessed 12 July 2021. Randell-Moon, Holly and Arthur J. Randell (2013) ‘The Man from ISIS: Archer and the animated aesthetics of animated cartoons’. In Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock (eds) Television aesthetics and style. London and New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 135–43.

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Riley, Nick (2019) ‘Give us a new season: Rick and Morty fans left frustrated as new clip emerges’. NME Online, 3 January. www.nme.com/news/tv/giveus-new-season-rick-morty-fans-left-frustrated-new-clip-emerges-2426367. Accessed 6 September 2019. Wells, Paul (2003) ‘Smarter than the average art form: animation in the television era’. In Carol A. Stabile and Mark Harrison (eds) Prime time animation: television animation and American culture. London: Routledge (e-book). Williams, Kathleen (2016) ‘The wonder years: nostalgia, memory and pastness in television credits’. Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media 12 (Winter). www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue12/HTML/ArticleWilliams.html. Accessed 5 June 2021.

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Simplicity and complexity in the costuming of Killing Eve Josette Wolthuis

‘She doesn’t have a signature, but she certainly has style.’ This is how Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) describes the female assassin operating internationally, whom she has been investigating on her own time before joining MI6 in their mission to expose the organisation for which the assassin, Villanelle (Jodie Comer), works. Alongside its cultural diversity and suspenseful storytelling around the romantic relationship developing between Eve and Villanelle, a cat-and-mouse game in which the roles are often reversed, BBC’s Killing Eve (2018–present) is renowned for Villanelle’s eye-catching costumes. Characterised by the first season’s costume designer, Phoebe de Gaye, as a ‘chameleon’ who ‘changes her persona all the time’,1 Villanelle wears a variety of bold high-fashion looks that make her simultaneously stand out and blend into the cities she visits. This forms a contrast to Eve’s costuming, which consists of more ordinary, everyday or lived-in clothes that have received less attention in the press and online media. The series’ costuming raises the question of the extent to which clothes mean what they say, or how much they really reveal about the characters, and the challenges and contradictions raised by the show’s stylistic approaches rarely allow straightforward answers. Can costumes ‘lie’? In his book on contemporary television’s potential for complexity, Jason Mittell (2015) builds his poetics entirely on storytelling and character, and in the process not only neglects but actively rejects the value of costuming. In a section of Complex TV where Mittell writes about change in serial characters, he argues that only ‘overt actions’ can truly tell us about a character’s subjective state, but that ‘dialogue, costuming, and appearance all might be indications

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solely of superficial changes or characters’ attempts to change that viewers assume are ultimately futile’ (2015: 134). This implies that costumes are inherently superficial or simplistic in their meaningmaking, whilst it is only storytelling and character that can make a text complex and therefore valuable. The assumption that costume and character or narrative are separate or not equally valuable entities relies on a pre-theoretical perspective that neglects not only the value of costume (an under-researched aspect of television studies) and other aspects of style, but also that of the existing and growing scholarly work on the subject of fashion and costume design (e.g. Gaines 1990; Bruzzi 1997; Bruzzi and Church Gibson 2004; Bruzzi 2013; Street 2002; Munich 2011; Warner 2014).2 Whilst indeed not all instances of characters claiming to have changed turn out to be true (a discrepancy that can contribute to complexity), Mittell, focusing only on narrative action, does not acknowledge that costume often does contain this very complexity, even when it seems simple. Costume can, for example, signal through tailoring that the clothes do not ‘fit’ or capitalise on the discrepancy between who the character wants to be and who they actually are. The costumes are then not only a lie – they are lying. When we talk about complexity in television, we tend to talk about complex characters or complex storytelling. Through a study of costuming in Killing Eve, this chapter demonstrates that elements of style and mise-en-scène also play an important role in establishing the balance between simplicity and complexity in a television drama. We speak of ‘simplicity’ when we easily understand entirely what we see. Since costume design more often than not instantly tells us who characters are and how we, whether consciously or not, are to perceive them, we can call it ‘simple’ if what the costume says is indeed all it means. This does not necessarily mean that it is an unnoticeable look, or that there is not a complex process behind the design of the costume, but that its meaning-making process is straightforward. Costuming or indeed any other element of miseen-scène, character and narrative can be called ‘complex’ if there are multiple layers that we do not perceive or understand all at the same time. In this chapter, I consider simplicity/complexity on a broader level than just narratively (as Mittell does) and draw on a notion of complexity from aesthetic theory that allows me to attend to how television costuming can be complex as well. According to

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the aesthetician Monroe Beardsley, evaluative criteria that bear upon complexity and simplicity have to do with the scale of the work, whether it is rich in (or lacks) variety and contrasts, and whether it is subtle and imaginative (or not) (1981: 462). Beardsley claims that complexity is one of three valid reasons (next to unity and intensity) to judge a work of art positively.3 My textual analyses of four selected moments from Killing Eve (Villanelle talking to Eve’s husband in Oxford; Eve making herself Villanelle’s target; Villanelle in Amsterdam; Villanelle visiting her family in Russia) show that the text’s multiple layers, richness in variety and contrasts, subtlety and imagination are expressed also through costume design. At the same time, I challenge the assumption (as put forward by Beardsley and implied by many other theorists) that simple is bad and complex is good. Mittell also acknowledges that, although ‘we can see complexity as a criterion of value’, complexity does not guarantee value (2013: 46). Simplicity is a powerful tool for rapid meaning-making in its own right; that is how most costume design works. Conversely, complexity (if mismanaged) can also be just confusing. In Killing Eve, simplicity and complexity work together.

Femininity, genre and mise-en-scène Killing Eve builds on a foundation of crime dramas with women as protagonists or antagonists.4 Although crime, detection, spy or police dramas are traditionally male-dominated, innovations in the genre (alongside general developments in cultural ideas about women) since the 1990s have opened up possibilities for women in crime drama (see e.g. Brunsdon 1998 (below) or Piper 2015 and McElroy 2017 on Scott & Bailey, ITV, 2011–16). Throughout the series, the relationship between Eve, the detective, and Villanelle, the assassin, is developed through the use of spaces, objects and behaviours that are coded feminine; furthermore, matters of identity and sexuality are more flexible than in previous eras of television. In her article on 1990s British television crime fiction, Charlotte Brunsdon writes about Prime Suspect (ITV, 1991–2006) that detective Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) ‘not only shows that she can police, but also that her policing brings new competencies to the job’ (1998: 234).



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Brunsdon discusses a Prime Suspect episode in which two women, Tennison and her gofer, discuss an observation about the female victim’s manicure. As Brunsdon writes: Maureen’s tentative idea about the nails – ‘It could be nothing’ – an idea only accessible within feminine cultural competence, is both listened to and recognized by the squad room at large. Knowing about manicure is, like Tennison’s earlier recognition of a victim’s clothing, shown to make a critical contribution to a traditionally masculine game of detection. Similarly, it is Tennison’s respect for the prostitute women […] which elicits crucial information from them in a scene which shows both female solidarity and the way in which class differences fracture this. (1998: 234)

This type of detection, made possible through gendered competencies, is a feminised aesthetic and narrative strategy which suggests that such details and textures require a feminine eye and sensibility. In the first episode of Killing Eve, we learn that Eve knows that the assassin they are looking for is a woman due to the clues she has found. Upon their first, accidental meeting in a hospital toilet, Villanelle is struck by Eve; briefly losing control, she stares at Eve and then tells her to let her hair down. Only when untying her hair in the toilet of her MI6 base much later, does Eve realise that the nurse who told her to let her hair down is the assassin she is after, and that she met her moments before a mass kill. Throughout the series, detective and assassin communicate through the use of feminine cultural competencies: Villanelle kills using hair pins and perfume; she leaves clues for Eve through clothing; she hides her passport in the lining of a jacket, hidden in the house of a female ex-partner; she gives Eve lipstick with a knife in it; she uses toilets and other such gendered spaces that only women have access to. The difference is that, whereas in the time of Prime Suspect such uses of feminine competence were innovative, there are now plenty of crime detection series with competent women as lead characters.5 Thanks to this foundation, Killing Eve exists in a time where television texts do not need to prove that women can police (or be criminals). This allows the series to weave together a game of detection through feminine cultural competence with the suspenseful development of a same-sex romantic relationship between detective and assassin, and to deploy ideas of feminine competence and sexuality in a more

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complex way. The series uses these aspects not only to uncover the truth, but also to lie – adding layers; adding complexity. Neither Eve nor Villanelle represents overt or stereotypical traits of lesbian sexuality in their respective appearances across the series; rather, their sexuality is bi or fluid (they sleep with both men and women) and relatively unproblematic (the problem is that they are detective and assassin; not that they are two women). In her research on how dress constructs images of modern-day lesbianism in British and American film and television, Fiona E. Cox observes that costuming for lesbian characters ‘is subject to a contradictory triangle of demands’, with conflicting ideas around ‘butch’ stereotypes, (in)visibility and heteronormative femininity complicating representation (2013: ix). Whilst LGBTQ+ representation is not the focus of my chapter, this is relevant because Killing Eve seems to somewhat surpass this problem – not only because the lead characters’ sexuality is more fluid but also because they are dressed in traditionally feminine as well as androgynous outfits and the text challenges expectations and stereotypes. The choice of Jodie Comer for the role of Villanelle, a tall, blonde young woman whose looks, according to conventional standards, can be considered attractive, is significant, as she often uses her looks to excuse, or get away with, her brutal actions. Sometimes Villanelle represents the ‘lipstick lesbian’ trope of the hyperfeminine woman who performs excessive femininity as a refusal of convention, whilst in other scenes she looks more androgynous. The programme satirises toxic masculinity in film and television when in Season 2, Episode 1 (‘Do You Know How to Dispose of a Body?’), after Eve has stabbed Villanelle in the stomach in the previous episode, we see Villanelle in the streets with a blood-stained pink glitter jumper, holding her bleeding stomach with one hand, stealing a bottle of vodka with the other and taking large sips, before lifting her jumper to pour the vodka over the wound. She screams, but then storms off. This reminds us of the trope in film and television where extremely masculine men have to inflict more pain on themselves in order to heal after having been wounded.6 Intertextuality (an aspect which is often seen as adding complexity and value to a text) is woven into the design and mise-en-scène of the show. Villanelle often dresses in a way that is perhaps too explicitly representative of the culture of the place she is in. We can see this, for

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5.1  Killing Eve: Villanelle confronts Niko in Oxford.

example, at the end of Season 2, Episode 5 (‘Smell Ya Later’), when Villanelle confronts Eve’s husband, Niko Polastri (Owen McDonnell), in Oxford (Figure 5.1). Whilst Niko is dressed casually in an outfit that could be worn anywhere in the Western world (white shirt, jeans, khaki jacket), Villanelle is wearing an androgynous outfit which is strongly reminiscent of the British mini-series Brideshead Revisited (Granada, 1981): a white buttoned shirt with a peaked collar, a patterned tie, her hands in the pockets of oversized beige slacks (with a belt) and a cream/beige cable-knit jumper loosely tied around her shoulders. This could be considered a simply visually pleasing outfit that makes her blend into the culture and architecture of Oxford, but the androgyny and intertextuality of this outfit add complexity to the image and character. Brideshead Revisited centres on the life and relationships of narrator Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons) as he falls in love with Lord Sebastian Flyte (Anthony Andrews) at Oxford University in the 1920s and makes the acquaintance of his eccentric friends and family at their upper-class country estate. Villanelle’s style in the Oxford scene, and specifically the jumper tied around her shoulders, was popularised by the costuming of this 1980s period drama. There is also a specific moment in Brideshead Revisited where Charles is wearing a similar (paisley) tie as part of his new look, which mirrors Sebastian’s style and thereby communicates

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Charles’s gay sexuality.7 Villanelle’s costume in this scene makes meaning on multiple levels: it warns Niko that she is stealthy and can be anywhere; it hints at her sexuality and relationship with Eve, since the characters in Brideshead Revisited also engage in same-sex relationships; it fits within her chameleon-like dressing across the series which keeps us wondering who she is; and it forms a stereotypical or even satirical representation of Oxford culture. This performative costuming strategy reduces ‘how people dress in Oxford’ to the stereotypical image of the rich Oxford University student (although Charles and Sebastian’s sexuality did not conform), when we already know at this point in the series that Villanelle’s given name is Oksana Astankova and that she is from a presumably poor Russian background. This costume can be considered a disguise and a lie, as she is not actually an Oxford student, but it also plays an active role as part of her performance as Villanelle – a chameleon, adapting her style in complex ways. We are invited to consider the potential complexity of Villanelle’s costuming especially when she is positioned next to other characters in simple costuming – in this case: Niko. As a character who is coded ‘normal’, ‘plain’ or even ‘boring’, Niko’s costuming is consistently simple. The facts that his shirt and jacket are wrinkly, that he wears a dark T-shirt under his shirt and did not tuck the shirt into his trousers are undoubtedly the result of deliberate choices by the costume designer to make him look casual and unpolished, but Niko’s outfit in this scene is so generic that we are not invited to ‘read into it’, because what we see is all there is to him. Placed side-by-side, Niko’s costume seems even simpler and Villanelle’s more striking – creating a meaningful contrast that can be considered part of a complex text. In this example, then, we can see simple and complex costuming working together in the frame, as well as the difference between a costume that tells us the truth about who a character is (Niko’s) and a costume that needs unpacking (Villanelle’s). To unpack this, we need to look at costuming strategies across the series.

Do clothes always mean what they say? Just before receiving his last gunshot wounds, one of Villanelle’s victims in the first season’s second episode asks, ‘Who are you?’, to

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which she responds, ‘Huge question’. ‘Why are you doing this to people?’, the man asks; ‘I have absolutely no idea’, she replies, and kills him. Like the victim and MI6, we as viewers are wondering who Villanelle is and what motivates her actions. Our lack of understanding of the character behind her varied performances drives the narrative. In his classic 1956 sociological study The presentation of self in everyday life, Erving Goffman (1990 [1956]) argues that in social situations, as in theatrical performance, we show others the ‘front region’ of ourselves, whilst the ‘back region’ remains private; in other words, we perform our outward-facing identity. When an individual enters the room, observers take cues from this ‘front region’ to acquire information about the individual, which influences their social interaction. This information, Goffman acknowledges, is limited, as it is often based upon stereotypes; ‘the “true” or “real” attitudes, beliefs, and emotions of the individual can be ascertained only indirectly’, and there can be a disconnect between what the individual means to express and the impression they give (Goffman 1990: 2) – in other words, between the information one communicates intentionally and the information one communicates unintentionally (Tseëlon 2016). Goffman’s theory has been much discussed and nuanced since, but its basic premise remains: individuals manage impressions by presenting themselves favourably, and this can be deceitful. Goffman’s theory has been applied in the study of dress and fashion, as clothing is one of the key aspects that make up one’s performance (Tseëlon 2016). Since this is an aspect that individuals control to manage their impression, it is not, as Mittell implies, passive or insignificant, but part of an active performance – in life and, through design, on screen. There is the complication in television costuming that a character is ‘dressed’ in two ways: Villanelle has both been dressed by a costume designer (Phoebe de Gaye in Season 1, Charlotte Mitchell in Season 2 and Sam Perry in Season 3) and has dressed herself within the diegetic context. Both the costume designer and Villanelle have made choices that generate meaning. Although there are moments within the narrative where Villanelle has little control over what she wears (in Season 2: a hospital gown; a stolen doctor’s coat with Crocs; stolen boy’s pyjamas; stolen clothes from a launderette, etc.), I am mostly interested in the instances where the costume designer’s choices intersect with what Villanelle has chosen to wear. Characters or extras in Killing Eve who do not know Villanelle, or her style,

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would assume that her disguise as a nurse, waitress or teacher reflects her identity. We, the viewers, know that she is wearing a wig and an unusual outfit in those moments, so we know that this is deceit. However, when she dresses ‘as Villanelle’ (without a wig), she still wears a range of different styles – managing expectations wherever she goes; using clothes as a representation or even a stereotype or satire of the places she visits. If Villanelle dresses like a chameleon, then how do we know whether or when her costumes mean what they say, or who she is? This issue complicates our understanding of the function of costume in the meaning-making process of miseen-scène in most television drama. We must then actively distinguish who, what or where the characters dress for – what ‘front region’ they present to whom. In what follows, I will discuss the show’s balance between simple and complex costuming, and the difference between clothes that do mean what they say versus those that may be lying.

Eve and simplicity in costuming Eve Polastri’s ‘ordinary’ clothes exist as a contrast to Villanelle’s carefully curated fashions. In a BAFTA interview about the first season, the costume designer Phoebe de Gaye says that she dressed Eve in basic clothes from high-street stores like Uniqlo: ‘stuff you could just chuck in the corner of your room and then pick it up the next morning and put it [on], because that’s kind of how she lived’.8 Yet, these clothes function as costumes on-screen. Drake Stutesman sets (film) costume design apart from clothes or fashion design: It must express something far beyond the outfit: the costume designer must use clothes to create basic movie elements. They have to meet extreme demands such as coping with the cinematographer’s lighting, the dimensions of an actor’s body, the story’s character, and […] the close-up, all without being obtrusive.9 (2011: 20)

The idea that costume should not be ‘obtrusive’ is based on Jane Gaines’s foundational article ‘Costume and narrative: how dress tells the woman’s story’, in which she argues that costume (in classical Hollywood cinema) is designed to serve ‘the higher purpose of

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narrative’ and should not ‘distract’ from it (1990: 193). As discussed below, Gaines’s theory of costume’s relationship to character, narrative and fashion has been challenged since. As I further argue in the Substance/Style volume of this series, issues pertaining to the obtrusiveness of style warrant their own debate in the context of television, since the discourse on the spectacular versus the transparent is different for this medium.10 Important here is that, most of the time, costumes mean what they say; they communicate characters’ performed identity to make the viewers understand who they are. This is the case for Eve. Eve’s wardrobe consists of functional mix-and-match pieces in neutral, plain colours and loose-fitting shapes: T-shirts, blouses, trousers, jackets and raincoats in washed-out beige and blue shades. If Eve makes an effort to dress professionally, as she does in the first two episodes when she meets Carolyn and starts her new job at MI6, she wears a plain buttoned blouse and a plain skirted suit that look neither expensive nor cheap, but perfectly average – in other words: unobtrusive. Outside working hours, or when travelling, she wears casual, comfortable T-shirts, jumpers and slacks. If she does dress up, she still leaves the house in her usual practical raincoat rather than a tailored or matching jacket. As opposed to Villanelle’s, Eve’s wardrobe suggests that she prioritises comfort in her clothing, and that she is more focused on her work and other aspects of life than possessions and fashion. Rather than being adapted to where she is, Eve’s clothing style remains the same wherever she goes and she dresses the same privately as she does around other people, which suggests that her costuming tells the truth about her character identity. It is not the ordinary look of her clothes that makes her costuming ‘simple’, as even ordinary-looking costuming can have complex dimensions (which is the case for The Ghost, the other female assassin Eve is after, whose inconspicuous clothing obscures her crimes), but the simplicity of Eve’s costuming lies in how it functions as an unambiguous reflection of her character. This simplicity is affirmed by Villanelle in the first season’s third episode (‘Don’t I Know You?’), in which Eve chases her to Berlin, where Villanelle steals Eve’s suitcase. Villanelle swings the suitcase onto her bed, judges its contents and wraps Eve’s green scarf with zebras around her neck. During a brief meeting with Konstantin, Villanelle’s sexual partner from the night before enters the room

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and (after Konstantin has left) asks if the contents of the suitcase are for their roleplay.11 Although Villanelle mocks Eve’s lack of style (as she returns the suitcase with a set of brand-new, expensive, fashionable clothes), the fact that she is sexually attracted to how the clothes represent Eve suggests that she believes that the clothes offer her access to Eve; that they convey something truthful and intimate about her; that she can take control of their relationship by getting under Eve’s skin through her clothes. In Season 2, Episode 5 (‘Smell Ya Later’), Eve puts a hit out on herself to be Villanelle’s next target (to convince Villanelle to help her catch The Ghost). Shots of Eve travelling home from work, where her colleague has put a stab vest on her, are crosscut with shots of Villanelle getting ready to go after her; applying lipstick and preparing her costume. Eve pulls at the stab vest, uncomfortable with how it fits and how unflattering it is under her shirt. At home, she grunts as she looks in the mirror; the stab vest is bulky under her pale shirt, flattening her chest. She lets her hair down, as Villanelle once suggested she should upon their very first meeting. She sighs, tugs at the stab vest and buttons the shirt further up, only to frustratedly take it off. As the doorbell rings, Eve ditches the stab vest altogether and meets Villanelle at the door wearing only the brown tank top (and bra) she had underneath. Although her outfit looks casual and careless, we know that she did let her hair down and that she did take off that stab vest. This can be read as Eve controlling her appearance by removing aspects that make her less attractive to Villanelle, or as Eve being uncomfortable with having something untruthful under her clothes that would obstruct Villanelle’s access to her body and identity. The simplicity of the brown tank top, which does not contain hidden layers, is meaningful here. Eve is making herself vulnerable by removing the stab vest, but the vest is only a superficial type of protection; in the game of seduction between the assassin and the detective, simplicity, vulnerability and intimacy might keep Villanelle from killing Eve. There is an intricate balance of simplicity and complexity at work in this scene. Eve’s stripped-down, under-dressed brown tank-top look forms a contrast to Villanelle’s over-dressed look: a dramatic, ruffled, sheer, full-length black chiffon dress by Alexander McQueen, with a black polka dot veil across her face. Eve, playing unimpressed, somewhat diminishes the drama of this look by asking Villanelle

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5.2  Killing Eve: Eve has put a hit out on herself for Villanelle to kill her.

to take off her shoes (decreasing her height), retorting that there is no point to searching her and sarcastically asking, ‘Can I take your veil?’ Villanelle removes the veil as she enters Eve’s kitchen, but the atmosphere remains tense, implying a mix of fear and attraction as they both try to take control of the conversation (Figure 5.2). When Eve remarks, ‘Nice outfit’, Villanelle replies that she has dressed for the occasion, as she is ‘about to be in mourning’. Villanelle’s dramatic black dress symbolises the situation at hand in an extreme, overthe-top way – too explicit for costume’s regular meaning-making process. Its meanings are ambiguous: both affectionate and cold, Villanelle’s dress says that she cares so much about Eve that she already mourns her, but also threatens that she is about to kill her. Eve, then, is vulnerable in appearance, using only her knowledge of Villanelle to predict her actions – and, indeed, the pills she makes Eve take are harmless. Villanelle’s costume is lying because her front-facing performance is meant to scare Eve into thinking that Villanelle is in control and will go through with the kill, even though she could not actually kill her. For Villanelle, it is about the spectacle and the thrill; about being in control and managing others’ perceptions; about payback for Eve focusing on another assassin, but also about not having quite enough control over her feelings for Eve to kill her. The directness of representation and simplicity of Eve’s

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costuming versus Villanelle’s dramatic front-region performance encapsulates the series’ overall narrative tensions.

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Villanelle and costume as deceitful performance Villanelle loves expensive clothes and exquisite fabrics. We learn this in the very first episode when she caresses a silk bedspread and asks her soon-to-be murder victim where it is from. At the end of the episode, she unboxes the same Italian designer bedspread in her apartment, folds it out over the bed, softly caresses the silk fabric and lies down. As she picks up a postcard stating her next assignment in Bulgaria, the scene implies that this luxury is for one night only. This introduces her relationship to fashion as fleeting or faddish; only belonging to who she is in that moment. Her performance is different depending on place and situation; she is quickly bored and always looking for excitement. However, there is also a narrative undercurrent which suggests that she herself does not know who she is, and that she is looking for somewhere to belong. Villanelle’s overt actions (the staged murders and the way she reaches out to Eve) are no more indicative of her truthful identity than her spectacular costumes are; rather, costume might hint at what we do not learn from her actions. Spectacular costume has been theorised by Stella Bruzzi (1997) to understand costumes that draw the viewer’s attention away from the narrative and towards the impact of the visually appealing garment itself; challenging Gaines’s (1990) theory, Bruzzi argues that that ‘costume exists as a discourse not wholly dependent on the structures of narrative and character for signification’ (1997: xvi). Rather, it can forge meaning beyond script. Spectacular costumes usually tell us something that the diegesis will not. Yet, the use of costumes in Killing Eve that can be considered spectacular is more complicated, as neither the narrative nor the costume necessarily gives us truthful (or even useful) clues about Villanelle. The innovative use of costume in this series suggests that, as opposed to the way we have learnt to read clothes on screen, we cannot trust mise-en-scène (or narrative actions) to tell us the truth about the identity of a character. This section takes a closer look at Villanelle’s costuming in Season 2, Episode 4 (‘Desperate Times’), in which Villanelle is in Amsterdam and Eve in London, to offer

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some insight into Villanelle’s spectacular public-facing performance versus moments of private introspection in relation to the narrative’s dynamics of control and identity. Arguably one of the most memorable costumes Villanelle wears in the series is her pig costume in the Amsterdam-set episode.12 After seeing a painting in the Rijksmuseum of two mutilated, cut open corpses hanging upside down (The Corpses of the De Witt Brothers by Jan de Baen), Villanelle has sat down on a terrace to write a postcard to Eve with the painting on the front, when she notices her next target walking past with his wife and baby. That night, the man walks through the red-light district and insults a sex worker. Villanelle, dressed in a pink dirndl-style dress with a corset and petticoat and her face disguised by a cutesy pink pig’s mask, lures him into a brothel. Having tied up the man hanging upside down with a crowd watching and cheering from outside the red-light window, Villanelle puts on a show, waving a knife around, just as his wife passes the window with her stroller and witnesses the display. Villanelle cuts the man open and leaves him to bleed, just like in the painting. As the audience (including the man’s wife) leaves, she bows and places a second pig’s mask on the man. Villanelle puts on an exorbitant display; a performance, complete with dress-up and audience, presenting her work as a theatrical masterpiece in which she is the protagonist. When Konstantin meets her at the hotel later, Villanelle is still wearing the dress (but not the mask); taking off her shoes, she expresses her boredom with the assignment. Centred in the frame, she is slouched back with the rustling layers of the petticoat spread over a sofa. There are multiple contrasts at work here, as the ditsy look of the dress forms a counterpoint to its role in her brutal murder performance, and both are a contrast to her expression of boredom. Multiple layers of meaning contribute to making Villanelle’s spectacular disguise for the red-light-district kill into a complex costume: the costume is deceitful in the sense that she poses as a sex worker, when she is actually out to kill a man; that is a lie. There is also a satirical message to the display: her target, a cheating husband (whose wife ordered the kill), is a pig. Eve’s absence is relevant to her motivations; the postcard Villanelle wrote to Eve before the kill suggests that she put on her performance for Eve to see, whilst Konstantin tells Villanelle multiple times in this episode that Eve is no longer interested in her; Eve is now

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investigating The Ghost (Jung Sun den Hollander), whose modus operandi is the opposite of Villanelle’s. In the context of Villanelle’s costuming across the series, this is part of a motif in which Villanelle tends to dress up most spectacularly when she needs to grab Eve’s attention. This particular episode asks: what if she fails? A series of shots shows Villanelle lazing around on her bed in an expensive hotel room with a Dutch television channel on in the background, wearing a grey bathrobe and looking bored. This costume can be read rather simply: boredom is Villanelle’s greatest problem, which is reflected in how miserable she looks in the dull hotel bathrobe. Her patience runs out fast; the next scene shows her out in Amsterdam (despite Konstantin’s orders), hiring out a sex worker’s room in the red-light district just to look out of the window at the crime scene she caused. She is wearing little makeup, her hair partially tied back and an oversized satin green jacket over a black outfit as she waits for Eve to arrive at the crime scene. However, Eve’s boss, Carolyn, received the postcard before Eve could see it and sent her colleague instead. Heartbroken that Eve seems to have forgotten about her, Villanelle buys drugs in the streets (crosscut with Eve being disgusted at smoking a cigarette back in London) and goes to a club, where she chokes a girl in the toilets for cutting in line, is picked up by Konstantin just in time and wakes up hungover. Having passed out in her hotel room in the same clothes from the night before, Villanelle knows that she has lost control. Shots of Eve looking at herself in a one-way mirror at the police station in London, about to interview The Ghost, are crosscut with Villanelle looking at herself in the mirror of her hotel bathroom (Figure 5.3) – the ostensibly psychopathic assassin is crying and has puffy eyes; she then smiles through her tears. Compared to Villanelle’s usual looks worn for self-display, last night’s outfit is pared-back. This makes it ambiguous whether, the night before, she planned to stay hidden or for Eve to see her. One interpretation of this look would be that the green jacket can be read as a symbol of envy; of Villanelle’s jealousy of the other assassin who has Eve’s attention. It remains unclear whether she is capable of feeling such an emotion. Her expressions as she looks at herself in the mirror in yesterday’s clothes imply a moment of introspection: she is hurt, but she finally feels something – she feels jealousy and heartbreak, not boredom. The series presents us with the questions: if Villanelle is a psychopath,

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5.3  Killing Eve: Villanelle has a moment of introspection in Amsterdam.

then how can she fall in love? Is everything she does a farce or a lie, or has Eve changed her? Does her yearning for Eve merely keep boredom at bay, or does she really want someone or somewhere to belong to? These are the questions that drive the ongoing narrative, and they are communicated through the use of costume.

The truth behind the lie? There is a counter-question: what does a chameleon look like when it is in the dark? If ‘Villanelle’ is her alter ego, do we see Oksana Astankova behind the performances when others are not watching? The text insists that Villanelle/Oksana herself does not know who she is, why she does what she does and where she belongs. Insight into her background is finally offered when in Series 3, Episode 5 (‘Are You from Pinner?’), she travels to a small Russian village where her family resides.13 Most significantly, this episode features the only costume Villanelle chooses to wear that does not fit her perfectly – one given to her by her mother – which may tell us more about the complexity of her character than any of her overt actions.14 The scene opens with Villanelle looking up at the stairs from the living room of her family’s house as her mother, Tatiana (Evgenia

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5.4  Killing Eve: Villanelle/Oksana’s mother gives her a denim jumpsuit in Russia.

Dodina), descends and in the next shot swings a denim jumpsuit over the railing of the stairs, saying it was hers from the 1980s and she has adjusted it to her daughter’s size. She places the jumpsuit over the front of Villanelle’s body, from the shoulders over her arms, steps back and says she thinks she got the size right (Figure 5.4). When Tatiana asks if Villanelle likes it, Villanelle responds, ‘Love it’. Taken at face value, this scene may seem endearing, like an act of bonding between a mother and her long-lost daughter, but the tone of the scene is ambiguous. Villanelle’s facial expressions give away a sense of disgust as Tatiana places the embellished denim patchwork jumpsuit over her body, which is out of sync with the fashionable clothes Villanelle usually wears and reads as ugly. As her mother steps back, Villanelle tightly holds the jumpsuit against her body, stares at the garment and at the floor, and shows mixed emotions. Villanelle stretches her arm and looks at the denim sleeve as cheerful (non-diegetic) Russian music announces the upcoming scene at the harvest festival. This is a different expression from the look of pure disgust on her face when in the first episode of Season 2 she is forced to put on a pair of worn Crocs when escaping the hospital (a moment from the season trailer that became a meme before it aired). Rather, it is in subtle moments like these, where

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disgust over the style of a garment is mixed with emotion, that the ‘Mother Russia’ episode shows another side to the character’s identity and suggests that she is pondering whether she does belong here. At the same time, the scene implies that Villanelle’s mother does not know her at all and is not genuinely trying to. Apart from the fact that the jumpsuit does not suit her style, Tatiana says she adjusted it to Villanelle’s size, but, since there is no indication that she has taken her measurements, it must have been a guess. In the scene, Villanelle is wearing an oversized black bomber jacket over her clothes, which obscures her body shape. Her mother does not bother to ask her to take it off so she can see whether the jumpsuit actually fits but just places it on top of the oversized jacket and confirms that it fits. The ostensible act of care, then, also shows a lack of attention, which is crucial to understanding their relationship and the emotional arcs of the episode. A sense of contempt for the Russian village’s strange traditions mixed with a sense of potential belonging also determines the scene at the harvest festival, where Villanelle wins a game of ‘dung throwing’. In the next scene back home, we see Villanelle wearing the same clothes as at the festival (a 1970s-style orange and brown patterned long-sleeve top and a green pleated skirt, suiting the village’s colour scheme), now with a floral apron with a big heart across the chest. Villanelle expresses that she wants to feel like a child, asking her mother to clean off the fake blood tears she drew on her face with tomato in a failed attempt to make her mother laugh. The ditsy, doll-like apron contributes to this expression and forms a contrast to the stylish outfits she wore in other locations. Do we see Oksana here? Yet, her mother tells her to leave and that she does not belong in the family home; to not bring her ‘darkness’ into their life. Angry that her mother refuses to admit that she is the one who passed that darkness on to her daughter and then left her at an orphanage, Villanelle/Oksana blows up the house at night and kills everyone except her brother and Elton John-obsessed half-brother. As opposed to most of her kills, this is not a crime devoid of emotion, but one motivated by heartbreak and abandonment. The last scene of the episode shows Villanelle on a train out of Russia, wearing the denim jumpsuit. The style, colour, texture and embellishments of the garment do not suit her – the sleeves and legs are too boxy; white gathered chiffon inserts emphasise that the

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shoulders of the garment, which her mother fitted on to her, are far too wide; the garment’s stonewashed finish and silver studs have been out of fashion since the 1980s–1990s; the look of the outfit makes her appear slouchy, unkempt and unlike the personae she usually projects. Tense, abstract non-diegetic music accompanies the scene. Villanelle is wearing headphones and trying to control her emotions by nervously bopping along to a different beat – tears are forming in her eyes as she shakily fights a series of emotions. This costume moment raises key questions about Oksana’s personality, thoughts and feelings versus her stylish disguises or actions as Villanelle. It is due to the ugly denim jumpsuit, representing the clichéd image of a Russian, that we know she wonders whether she is no more than a poor girl from an insignificant Russian village that takes its traditions too seriously. Is she no more than an evil child, left behind by her mother for ruining the family? Is there nowhere she belongs? Did she burn her bridges? The denim jumpsuit is at the same time a comment on her background – ridiculing the styles worn by women in the Russian village; cheap, out of style, poorly fitting – and a garment that asks whether she is, in essence, Oksana or Villanelle. Are we inevitably the product of our background, or are we who we make ourselves through self-performance? How much can we really glean from outward appearances, if even her mother, who submerged herself in this authentic small-town culture, presents herself favourably as a loving mother even though allegedly she, too, contains a darkness? Were Villanelle’s stylish outfits no more than disguises, fads, lies, whilst she is actually ‘just a poor Russian village girl’? It is these questions that make Killing Eve into a complex work of art, and they reside in the working together of costume styles that seem simple and those that take on more meaning in relation to the complex layers and contrasts in the image and the serial narrative as it develops.

Conclusion Since the programme is ongoing, the questions raised by the first three seasons of Killing Eve continue to drive the narrative. In the first seasons, Villanelle mostly expresses her fractured sense of self through acquiring, wearing and leaving behind expensive clothes

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and possessions. As she travels from place to place, we learn that she does not belong in any of these places, and that her changes in style to fit into these environments never actually represent who she, Villanelle, is. Her personae are disposable, just like her clothes. These are performances in which she aims to take control by managing impressions, but her attraction to Eve destabilises her sense of control; she cannot possess Eve in the way that she can possess clothes. The denim jumpsuit Villanelle/Oksana wears in the ‘Mother Russia’ episode is the most emblematic of how the show uses costume to raise complex questions about identity. Killing Eve is an example of a complex television drama in which a character changes in appearance, but these changes are a lie. Challenging Mittell (2015), who claims that looks tend to be superficial and we can retrieve the truth about a character only through their actions, this chapter has shown that costume plays an active, not a passive role in the meaning-making process around matters of truth and lying in this series, and that this establishes complexity and value. Questions of truth and identity in Killing Eve arise from the balance between simplicity and complexity in its costuming, and, whilst most of the series’ costumes are simple in the sense that they unveil who a character is, Villanelle remains veiled in mystery. These dynamics of control, mystery, hiding and revealing as communicated through costuming are woven through Villanelle’s and Eve’s mutual pursuit and seduction throughout the series.

Notes 1 BAFTA Guru interview with Phoebe de Gaye, www.youtube.com/ watch?v=CqOegZj2ltQ. Accessed 12 July 2021. 2 See my theoretical discussion in the Substance/style volume of this Moments in Television series. 3 Beardsley’s narrow notion of (in)valid reasons to judge an artwork can be and has been criticised, as he claims that only ‘Objective Reasons’ pertaining to unity, complexity and intensity are valid, but my focus here lies only on his definition of simplicity/complexity. 4 Recent scholarship, published after this chapter was submitted, has further explored this aspect of Killing Eve; see, for example, essays by Kathleen Waites and Siobhan Lyons in Haas et. al. (2020).

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5 To name some examples from the UK: Scott & Bailey (ITV, 2011–16); Line of Duty (BBC, 2012–present); The Fall (BBC, 2013–16); Broadchurch (ITV, 2013–17); Hinterland (S4C, 2013–present); Happy Valley (BBC, 2014–16). 6 Pouring alcohol on to a wound; removing a bullet with a knife; blowing up a wound with gunpowder, etc. are examples of men in films inflicting more pain on to themselves, after which they are fine. Sometimes it is women who have to do this for men, but it is always men who receive pain to heal. 7 This is by the end of Charles’s second term at Oxford University, and his cousin criticises his new (gay) look. 8 BAFTA Guru interview with Phoebe de Gaye, www.youtube.com/ watch?v=CqOegZj2ltQ. Accessed 12 July 2021. 9 Although the chapter is about costume in film, Stutesman also discusses The Sopranos (HBO, 1999–2007). She calls the close-up ‘that unique cinematic feature’, which is debatable in the context of studying television, but this chapter is not the place for that debate. 10 See my chapter ‘New uniforms! Costume and the 1950s/60s in Call the Midwife’ in the Substance/Style volume. 11 Meanwhile, Eve conveys to Bill that she hates all of her clothes but feels bad about what her husband Niko will say about her losing them – especially the green scarf, which he gave to her. 12 Another is amongst the most well-known costumes of the series: the frilly, sheer, oversized pink dress she wears during a mental health review in Season 1, Episode 2 (‘I’ll Deal with Him Later’). 13 Eve is one of few characters who call her Oksana; Villanelle has made MI6 think that her whole family is dead. Konstantin hinted at the end of Season 2 that not all of them are dead. 14 The prison uniform, boy’s pyjamas, clothes she stole from a launderette and the dress provided by the man she stayed with also did not fit her, but those are all clothes she did not choose to wear. She chose to wear the denim jumpsuit from this episode.

References Beardsley, Monroe (1981) ‘Critical evaluation: reasons and judgements’. In Aesthetics: problems in the philosophy of criticism. Second edition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, pp. 454–99. Brunsdon, Charlotte (1998) ‘What is the “television” of television studies?’ In Christine Geraghty and David Lusted (eds) The television studies book. London and New York: Arnold, pp. 95–113.

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Bruzzi, Stella (1997) Undressing cinema: clothing and identity in the movies. London and New York: Routledge. Bruzzi, Stella (2013) ‘Dressing Mildred Pierce: costume and identity across the ages’. Screen 54:3, pp. 397–402. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjt033. Bruzzi, Stella and Pamela Church Gibson (2004) ‘“Fashion is the fifth character”: fashion, costume and character in Sex and the City’. In Kim Akass and Janet McCabe (eds) Reading Sex and the City. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, pp. 115–29. Cox, Fiona E. (2013) Dressing the part: costuming of lesbian identities in contemporary film and television. PhD thesis, University of Warwick. Gaines, Jane (1990) ‘Costume and narrative: how dress tells the woman’s story’. In Jane Gaines and Charlotte Herzog (eds) Fabrications: costume and the female body. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 180–211. Goffman, Erving (1990 [1956]) The presentation of self in everyday life. London: Penguin. Haas, Melanie, N. A. Pierce and Gretchen Busl (eds) (2020) Antiheroines of contemporary media: saints, sinners, and survivors. Lanham and London: Lexington Books. McElroy, Ruth (ed.) (2017) Contemporary British television crime drama: cops on the box. London and New York: Routledge. Mittell, Jason (2013) ‘The qualities of complexity: vast versus dense seriality in contemporary television’. In Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock (eds) Television aesthetics and style. London and New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 45–56. Mittell, Jason (2015) Complex TV: the poetics of contemporary television storytelling. New York and London: New York University Press. Munich, Adrienne. (ed.) (2011) Fashion in film. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Piper, Helen (2015) The TV detective: voices of dissent in contemporary television. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. Street, Sarah (2002) Costume and cinema: dress codes in popular film. London and New York: Wallflower Press. Stutesman, Drake (2011) ‘Costume design, or, what is fashion in film?’ In Adrienne Munich (ed.) Fashion in film. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, pp. 17–39. Tseëlon, Efrat (2016) ‘Erving Goffman: social science as an art of cultural observation’. In Agnès Rocamora and Anneke Smelik (eds) Thinking through fashion: a guide to key theorists. London: I.B. Tauris. Warner, Helen (2014) Fashion on television: identity and celebrity culture. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

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Complexity and clear-sightedness in The Wire James Zborowski

Towards the end of ‘The Buys’, the third episode of the first season of The Wire (HBO, 2002–8), we see an argument between two members of the Baltimore Police Department. Detective McNulty (Dominic West) is berating his immediate superior, Lieutenant Daniels (Lance Reddick). The case that they are working on has reached a critical juncture, and McNulty is accusing Daniels of bending to internal politics, while he (McNulty) is maintaining his commitment to real policework. Described thus, this type of exchange between characters in a television series featuring police detectives sounds familiar, but fuller description of the exchange and its context can identify complicating additions to the trope of a maverick cop clashing with a bureaucratic and careerist superior. First, Daniels is not entirely blinkered. It has been made clear repeatedly that he shares McNulty’s awareness that the course of action he is about to lead is not in the best interests of their investigation, and we have seen him struggle with his decision, prompted by pressure from above, to pursue it. These scruples, specifically concerning a choice between obeying superiors and pursuing real policework, constitute an early stage in Daniels’s character development over the course of the first season. Perhaps the most important deviation from the detective fiction trope just alluded to is that, in an inversion of typical character desires and motivations, it is company man Daniels who is leading his team into the field to take the direct action of arrests and drug seizures, and it is the maverick McNulty who, arguing that such action will prematurely alert the drug ring to the fact they are being watched, wants to stay in office and build a careful case. The episode, as we shall see further below, has taken considerable care to ensure that

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we share McNulty’s view of the situation. The Wire’s advocacy of careful, cumulative detection over the more kinetic, perhaps somewhat gratifying, but less effective practice of arresting a handful of streetlevel dealers and trying (unsuccessfully, as it will turn out) to raid a drug stash house, is both an embodiment and a demonstration of its own method of slow-burn serial storytelling and cumulative narration. The Wire, which concluded over ten years ago, has received extravagant praise within the realms of popular reviewing and criticism, as well as substantial academic attention, both within television studies and in a range of other disciplines. It is accurate to state that much of this praise and attention is focused, in one way or another, on various ways in which The Wire achieves complexity. My intention in what follows is not to overturn this judgement but rather to offer some complications to it. The binary at the heart of this collection can be used to formulate an initial statement of my argument (with other cognate terms to be introduced later): The Wire is indeed complex in many ways, but its particular brand of complexity is achieved thanks in part to aspects of simplicity in the programme’s structure and presentation. The first part of this chapter continues the analysis of ‘The Buys’ begun above, and challenges the idea, advanced by Erlend Lavik, that The Wire contains an unusually low level of narrative ‘redundancy’. It then explores the particular nature of, and, we might say, the limits to, the programme’s complexity, using as a main focus of analysis the musical montages that close each season of the series, and introducing as a focus for analysis and evaluation the notion of ‘clear-sightedness’.

Redundancy in The Wire Lavik in many ways characterises the particular complexity of The Wire with accuracy and nuance. Building upon Mittell’s work, Lavik suggests that texts which embrace narrative complexity (1) ‘offer a “cognitive workout”‘ and (2) deploy ‘narrational flourishes that draw attention to the process of narration’ (2010: 78). Lavik’s assertion that ‘The Wire is highly complex in the first sense, but not in the second’ (2010: 78) is correct, and illuminating.

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Lavik goes on to assert that The Wire’s narration is ‘exceedingly non-redundant’ (2010: 81). In the context of narrative theory, a text’s degree of narrative ‘redundancy’ is the degree to which it repeats narrative information. Although the term might be considered derogatory, in this context, it is not necessarily so (though it might well, of course, be a textual feature pointed to as part of an artwork that is evaluated negatively on the basis of being too obvious, simple, patronising and so on). It is closely related to the notion of narrative ‘exposition’ – that is, the establishing of narrative information, which Lavik (2010: 83) describes in The Wire as being ‘scarce’. Both of these contentions seem to me to be very misleading. Further analysis of ‘The Buys’ can begin to demonstrate why. How do we know that McNulty is right to tell Daniels that a drug bust will fail? Because we have been put in a position to share his understanding of how drug dealing in the low-rise ‘pit’ run by D’Angelo Barksdale (Larry Gilliard Jr) is organised. We have been shown, and told about, this organisation from a range of perspectives, and, we might say, with a high level of redundancy. The message is driven home across three consecutive scenes in the middle of the episode. The first of these scenes shows the planning phase of a bit of undercover policework: Detective Sydnor (Corey Parker Robinson) is being taught by confidential informant and drug addict Bubbles (Andre Royo) how to pull off the appearance of a ‘dope fiend’. McNulty, though impressed by Bubbles’s insight, is not impressed by the strategy. ‘Touts and children, that’s all you’re gonna get’, he tells Detective Greggs (Sonja Sohn). Perhaps, for a first-time viewer, McNulty’s meaning is not fully comprehensible. However, in the very next scene, McNulty’s words help us read the action, and the action fleshes out the meaning of McNulty’s words. We see Sydnor hand money to and receive drugs from a series of young men working at the bottom of the Barksdale hierarchy. At the end of the ‘hand-to-hands’, Sydnor and Bubbles sidle to Greggs in an unmarked van, and Sydnor offers a helpful summary of what we have just seen: ‘You don’t hand no money to nobody that matters, you don’t get no product from nobody that matters’. At the start of the next scene, the camera roves across photographs, mounted on a pinboard, of the hand-to-hands we have just witnessed, while off-screen dialogue once again reinforces how we should be reading the action: ‘Nothing but touts and runners here’, Greggs acknowledges to McNulty.

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This is not all: there is another strand running through the episode which further explains to the viewer the logistics of low-rise drugdealing. The character we will come to know as Omar Little (Michael K Williams) makes his first appearance in the series, and features in three scenes. In the first, from another unmarked van, he and his crew watch a runner enter what they deduce, correctly, to be the ‘stash house’, where the supply of drugs for the low-rise is kept. In a second scene, the crew briefly appears again, watching Sydnor and Bubbles talk to Greggs. And finally, Omar and his crew ambush the stash house and steal the Barksdale supply. In the first of these scenes, the dialogue that passes between Omar and his crew is terse – much more so that that between McNulty, Sydnor and Greggs summarised above – but still revealing and instructive. After they watch the runner go directly from the queueing addicts to a house door, their exchange is as follows: OMAR: Man, you see that? BRANDON: Oh yeah! JOHN: Third from the end. That’s the stash. OMAR: Some real raggedy-ass shit here boy. Very sloppy.

It is not wholly implausible that John would be so explicit as to state ‘That’s the stash’ to his partners in crime, who are presumably just as able to read the scene as he is, but it certainly feels like a partial concession to exposition. As well as adding ‘stash houses’ to the viewer’s mental schema of low-rise drug-dealing, the scene offers a judgement on what we are seeing. Omar judges the set-up to be sloppy. We need to work a little harder with this piece of information than we do with the stash house comment, but it is not too difficult to put this comment together with the other things we are learning about the organisation we are seeing, and surmise that, just as key figures in the Barksdale empire are insulated from direct connection with the drugs through layers of subordinates and an obfuscating division of labour (‘You don’t hand no money to nobody that matters, you don’t get no product from nobody that matters’), so the supply of drugs should be protected from prying eyes by a system that makes it difficult for a casual onlooker to deduce the location of that supply. The issue of the stash house’s location is the second element of failure in the anticlimactic drug bust that, despite McNulty’s protests, goes ahead towards the end of the episode. We have been given, as

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we have already seen, the epistemic pleasure of understanding before the bust occurs that the arrests will mainly comprise ‘touts and children’. We also understand why the stash house is an elusive target. When Daniels first tells McNulty that the bust is imminent (that is, before the confrontation scene we began with, in another example of redundant exposition), McNulty tells him, ‘Lieutenant, these guys change stash houses every other day’. By the time the bust occurs, the stash house has, unbeknownst to the police, been raided by Omar and his crew. And when it does occur, we receive instantaneous commentary, courtesy of one of the junior members of the drug crew, Bodie (J.D. Williams). ‘Wrong door’, he tells his boss. ‘Switched it yesterday.’ The above description of a couple of interrelated plot threads in a single episode of The Wire begins to describe one of the series’ key achievements: it renders comprehensible the complexity of human organisations, and places an unusual and gratifying degree of emphasis upon these institutions, rather than the personal motives of individual characters, as being the level of causality at which we can best understand why things are the way they are. This is a difficult task, skilfully executed. We receive the pleasure of being attached to many characters, and benefiting from their insight, and of occupying an epistemic position that is superior to any one of those characters. Bramall and Pitcher (2012: 88) put it beautifully when they suggest that ‘the show is a machine for the production of epistemological gratifications’. I agree with Lavik that The Wire achieves complexity; I disagree, however, with the idea that this achievement is founded upon strategies of narrative non-redundance, or scarce exposition. The Wire is in fact full of characters who love to stand back and analyse ‘the game’ that they play a part in, and share this knowledge with their peers and protegés (Zborowski 2010). This zeal for explanation is one of the defining features of the series as a whole. If we accept that The Wire’s narration is more ‘redundant’ than has been generally accepted, is this an element of simplicity, or simplification, that qualifies the series’ complexity? Not necessarily. First, some further reflection on the notion of ‘redundancy’ might be in order. As we have seen, various scenes in ‘The Buys’ communicate the same key pieces of narrative information. But, crucially, that is not all that they do. The ‘same’ narrative information is

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delivered in different ways, from the perspectives of different characters, and at the same time as the viewer is experiencing and enjoying other things that the scenes offer: listening to dialogue, hearing actors’ voices, observing the details of the fictional world and so on. ‘Redundancy’, like its close relative, exposition, is, to use a piece of conventional screenwriting wisdom, rendered invisible, or at least unobtrusive, when it is integrated plausibly into scenes which are driven forward by characters and their actions, desires and goals (Yorke 2013: 156). It might be useful to invoke briefly two axes of narration used by David Bordwell (who is drawing upon Meir Sternberg), and suggest that The Wire’s degree of narrational communicativeness perhaps appears lower than it is because of another feature of the series correctly identified by Lavik: its stylistic self-effacingness and sobriety, which Bordwell would characterise as a low degree of ‘self-consciousness’ – this being a measure of the ‘extent [to which] the narration display[s] a recognition that it is addressing an audience’ (1985: 58). A second reason to reject the idea that ‘redundancy’ straightforwardly reduces complexity can be found by adapting comments made Wayne C. Booth in relation to a similarly multifaceted and emergent property of a work of narrative fiction: distance. As Booth argues: ‘Aesthetic distance’ is in fact many different effects, some of them quite inappropriate to some kinds of works. More important, distance is never an end in itself; distance along one axis is sought for the sake of increasing the reader’s involvement on some other axis. […] When Brecht […] asks for a ‘pervading coolness’ […], he may seem at first to desire an increase in distance of all kinds. But what he really wants is to increase the emotional distance in order to involve the reader’s social judgment more deeply. (1983: 123)

This can help us to appreciate that ‘complexity’, like distance, is an emergent property, and part of a dynamic system. It is difficult to imagine an artwork embracing maximum complexity across all possible axes. To return to the point, made by Lavik, with which we began this section: The Wire pursues complexity principally in its representation of the world it depicts, not the mode of depiction (in its fabula rather than its syuzhet, we might say). In this pursuit it embraces a mode of presentation which we might call simple, or

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redundant, but which we equally, and perhaps more appropriately, call clear, or straightforward.

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The Wire’s clearly presented complexity Within The Wire’s generally abstemious mode of presentation and style, its end-of-season montages stand out as flourishes. The series’ restriction of the inclusion of music to that which is present in the world of the fiction is suspended. Non-diegetic music, in the form of a song played from start to finish, provides the soundtrack for a montage of moments that caps off each season. The idea I aim to defend in the analysis below is that, although these montages are a stylistic departure from the rest of the series, it is also important to recognise them as a continuation (and, in some ways, a distillation) of the series’ particular way of seeing, and of the combination of complexity and clarity this way of seeing constitutes. I suggest that these closing montages are complex in terms of their treatment of narration and closure, and their tone, but that the overall point of view, or way of seeing, that they present should not be described straightforwardly as complex, and instead requires other terms. Each season’s closing montage lasts approximately four or five minutes, and is accompanied by a rock, soul or blues track (performed in each case by a male vocalist or group). The song is the most prominent element of the sound mix, but diegetic sound often remains audible, and some sequences within the montage include brief exchanges of dialogue between characters. Each montage, with the exception of the first season’s, includes approximately fifteen ‘beats’, including various kinds of action or information (more on this below). (Season 1’s montage contains only around nine beats, and is shorter, at less than four minutes.) The montages continue the series’ much-vaunted paralleling and interweaving of multiple plot strands, giving the viewer a lot of information, and a rich and varied world of characters, to experience in a short span of time. The first element of expert balancing achieved by these montages that we can point to is their mixing of moments which function as epilogues to the main plotlines of each season, those which show characters engaged in reflection, those which show passages of time and experience ending, those which show

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new chapters beginning, and those which function as concrete visualisations of the expression ‘… and life goes on’. To take the Season 1 montage as our example: the sequence begins in a courtroom, marking the culmination and the (at least partial) success of a criminal investigation (Seasons 2 and 3’s montages also include such moments, though not at their beginnings). Later, we see a scene of Detective Greggs looking down, with something like longing, at a police car racing through the Baltimore night, standing at a window, and behind a walking frame, as she recovers from being shot in the line of duty. Detective Pryzbylewski (Jim True-Frost) boxes up the photos and tags on the pinboard that served as a visual overview of the Barksdale investigation, leaves the basement room that housed the investigation and (in a moment that further serves to underline closure) turns out the light (again, such a moment will recur in later season-end montages). We see Detectives Moreland (Wendell Pierce) and Freamon (Clarke Peters) go to wave off McNulty as he begins his work on a police boat. In a neat piece of parallelism, Freamon has had a professional resurrection, after being ‘buried’, as punishment, in a menial and cut-off role within the force for a long time; McNulty’s career has temporarily gone in the other direction. Season 1’s montage ends with a beat that will appear somewhere in the ending montage of every season except the fourth: a sequence of images of drug-dealing activity which feature unknown characters and are shot with long lenses, thus creating briefly the rhetoric of a documentary (albeit an exquisitely lit one), and a further expansion of the series’ already-expansive gaze. The interweaving of multiple narrative strands and the balance of openness and closure with respect to those strands are crucial contributors to the particular kinds of complexity achieved by the end-of-season montages. First, consider tone. Endings to the kinds of narrative action explored by The Wire will often, in terms of character outcome and experience, be addiction, prosecution, death, destitution, despair and defeat. These experiences are present in the closing montages, but are offset by moments of completion, success, rehabilitation, renewal and continuation. Second, we should note that, in order for an ending not to compromise or lessen the complexity achieved in the rest of the artwork, it must pull off a delicate balancing act. Both too much and too little openness are risks here. Too much openness, and the work of the artwork in organising and

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unifying its elements is felt not to have been achieved; there is not felt to be a sufficiently compelling reason for the artwork to have made these choices and not others. Too little openness, and there is the feeling that complexity is being cut off or destroyed by excessive neatness and implausible or impoverishing ‘wrapping-up’. The balancing and blending in each end-of-season montage of openness and closure, and of different tones, is, therefore, both an achievement in itself and a crucial contributor to (and preserver of) the series’ overall complexity. The tone and stance achieved by the montages also rely on elements of point of view. Music and montage fulfil some of the typical roles of the rhetoric of an ending by detaching us slightly from the characters, preparing us to take our leave of them. The music is placed in the audio ‘foreground’ and the diegetic sound and dialogue in the ‘background’, thus distancing us from the action to a slightly greater degree than in a regular scene. The vignette format of the montage sequences similarly encourages a moderately detached vantage point, which is helpful in smoothing the emotional transitions between sequences presenting disparate character outcomes and experiences. The songs chosen contribute further to the tone and point of view we are encouraged to adopt. At the risk of being overly general, we might state that what these songs have in common is that they offer us either a voice reflecting on the tribulations of worldly (and, principally, non-romantic) experience with insight but without sentiment (though Solomon Burke’s ‘Fast train’ at the end of Season 3 comes closest), or an endorsement of continued striving and stoicism, or at least motion – and, in many cases, they offer both of these features. It is also worth briefly noting that the montages that conclude Seasons 2 and 4 are bracketed by, and very loosely positioned as somehow relating to the reflections of, two characters – Nick Sobatka, played by Pablo Schreiber, and Michael Lee, played by Tristan Wilds – who have been presented as being markedly tougher and more stoical than their friends and associates. The songs are very much not ‘on the nose’, being connected to the world of the series and the sequence of images only by mood, rather than rhythm, or any clear paralleling between lyrics and images (the moment that comes closest to being on the nose is when we hear Steve Earle sing ‘betrayal and conspiracy’ moments before we see

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the crooked politician Clay Davis, played by Isiah Whitlock Jr, pose for a photograph at the launch of a property development from which he is illicitly profiting). What I would now like to suggest is that we can go a long way towards characterising The Wire’s particular effects and achievements by hanging them on the term ‘clear-sightedness’, which we can express, using the key terms of this collection, as presenting complex information and relationships as clearly and simply as their inherent complexity allows. Additionally, the term carries a moral evaluation: it is about seeing the world dispassionately, free of fear or favour. In the worldview that the series promulgates, clear-sightedness emerges as one of the cardinal virtues. It is what the series wants to cultivate in its viewers. It is a trait that appears abundantly among a surprisingly large proportion of The Wire’s characters, and acts as one that can secure our esteem for characters who are also unscrupulous murderers. (There are limits, however: the series distinguishes between characters, such as Omar and Avon (Wood Harris), who abide by a code that places limits on the legitimate targets and methods of violence, and characters, such as Marlo (Jamie Hector), who do not.) The tonal qualities and the point of view suggested above as characterising the end-of-season montage sequences can be assimilated to this notion of clear-sightedness. We are given an overview of the story-world that is poised between sympathy and detachment, permitting understanding, but holding back – through pace, duration and tone – from full emotional engagement with any single character’s fate. It is a way of seeing characterised by presenting the world as it is, not as one would wish it to be, and doing so with human sympathy, but without sentiment or despair. It is worth briefly adding some extra-textual context that constantly informs the experience of watching The Wire, even for those with limited knowledge of the specifics of this context: the programme’s way of seeing is built upon the sustained, close scrutiny of the real Baltimore by its creators, principally in the form of David Simon’s experiences as an investigative journalist in Baltimore’s homicide unit and on the city’s drug corners, and co-creator Ed Burns’s experiences as a police detective and a school teacher. Clear-sightedness stands as one of The Wire’s principal qualities, and at the centre of its

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extraordinary achievements. It is also a quality that possesses an intricate relationship to the programme’s overall complexity, enabling it in some respects, and – perhaps – qualifying it in others. To return briefly to some of the qualities of The Wire suggested during the earlier discussion of redundancy: the series’ narrational communicativeness, its self-effacing encouragement to the viewer to form perspicacious hypotheses about its story-world, and its provision of epistemological gratifications are three hallmarks of a classical approach to structure and style. We can draw upon the debates surrounding the classical in film and television studies to inform our exploration and characterisation of the way of seeing embodied by The Wire, and to clarify both its virtues and its potential limitations. The best model of the classical within film studies is to be found in Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson’s seminal tome, The classical Hollywood cinema: film style and mode of production to 1960 (1985), and elsewhere in Bordwell and Thompson’s work; however, the most useful account, for the purposes of this chapter, is Colin MacCabe’s extremely influential article, and central articulation of several key strands of ‘Screen theory’, ‘‘Realism and the cinema: notes on some Brechtian theses’ (1974). Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson’s principal purpose is to describe, in detail, the classical Hollywood cinema as a historical mode of film production and a stylistic system. MacCabe’s principal purpose is to subject the ‘classic realist text’ to ideological critique. The shortcomings of MacCabe’s model as a basis for detailed structural or stylistic analysis have been highlighted on several occasions (see Zborowski 2013 for an overview); however, MacCabe’s higher-level observations about the different subject positions implicitly offered to the beholder by the classic realist text and its alternatives remain suggestive and useful. MacCabe argues that the classic realist text ‘cannot deal with the real as contradictory’ and, ‘In a reciprocal movement [it] ensures the position of the subject in a relation of dominant specularity’ (1974: 12). MacCabe’s model is an example of ideological formalism, which is both too prescriptive and deterministic regarding how people engage with works of art and fiction (to echo Murray Smith’s excellent question: ‘How critical is the spectator who can only be constructed as such by an estranging text?’ (1996: 139)), and too dismissive of the possibilities of classical

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artworks (see Britton 2009: 317–19 and passim). But although we may need to qualify and soften MacCabe’s assertions, that should not necessarily lead to a wholesale rejection which blinds us to their potential usefulness. We overreach if we use MacCabe’s model as a mechanical way of dividing radical or modernist wheat from classical realist chaff, and assigning value accordingly, but the model can prompt us to consider how point of view works in particular artworks, and how we ought to evaluate it. That The Wire might be said to place its viewer in a position of ‘dominant specularity’ is not necessarily a shortcoming or a culpable failure which must lead us to judge it to be limitedly simple rather than rewardingly complex. But it is a feature of the series’ construction that is worth considering, especially if it qualifies claims for excellence that have been made on its behalf. Just as its reputation as a programme that uses minimal redundancy is somewhat misleading, the idea that The Wire presents the world as a complex system viewed from a large range of perspectives is true, but it is not the whole truth. The Wire does indeed use a range of individual and institutional perspectives to give a fuller view of contemporary Baltimore than would be possible from fewer perspectives, or a singular one. However, it is also the case that The Wire deals often in ironclad certainties which reduce the viewer’s experience of complexity, and offer a central vantage point and set of principles from which to view and interpret narrative events. When Detective Freamon, in one of the series’ many moments of rhetorical instruction to its viewers, tells a junior police officer that ‘all the pieces matter’, his comment highlights the fact that, although The Wire offers a truly impressive and expansive survey of characters and happenings in the city of Baltimore, those characters and happenings are interwoven into intricate but highly unified narrative threads, subtended by a deterministic worldview: each character’s narrative outcome is primarily a result of the logic of the systems to which they belong, not a more personalised level of causality. The metaphor of the jigsaw can serve to highlight the fact that the series, perhaps unusually for one so often celebrated for its high degree of realism, tolerates surprisingly few loose ends, or chance outcomes. David Simon is fond of comparing the postmodern institutions he sketches to Greek gods, but what ought to be added is that the position the viewer is invited to adopt is itself Olympian: we sit

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alongside the implied author and survey, with quasi-omniscience, what unfolds below. The Wire is probably at its worst, its least complex, and its most simplistic during Season 5, in its depiction of a venal journalist whose unethical practices are aided and abetted by a circulation- and prize-hungry management team. The series flatters its audience’s desire to be on the right side by clearly and continuously distinguishing between the good guys and the Pulitzer Prize-chasing assholes. This is a flaw and a lapse that can be (and, indeed, has been) highlighted with some confidence. However, when it comes to evaluating the way of seeing offered by the series as a whole, the matter of judgement becomes more delicate. The disciplinary conversations that have evolved within film and television studies have had the unfortunate side-effect of making it rare to hear enough about the potential virtues of the classic style. MacCabe’s intervention is avowedly and solely a critique. Within television studies, it stands alongside Troy Kennedy Martin’s ‘Nats go home’ as an intellectual justification for preferring modernism to classicism (or naturalism). In film studies, it has served a similar function. Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson’s model, within its description, highlights the art-historical virtues of a classical style, but has in general received a cool reception among film scholars who practise evaluative criticism (see, for example, Britton 2009 and Pye 1989). A brief digression to a non-screen-specific and recent articulation of the virtues of a classic style can help provide some terms for discussion. In his book The sense of style (2014), the psychologist Steven Pinker celebrates the classic style as a mode of writing, or, more broadly, for presenting information about the world. In Pinker’s account, all of the features of the classic style that constitute epistemological blind-spots or naivety for MacCabe are recast as positive qualities: The guiding metaphor of classic style is seeing the world. The writer can see something that the reader has not yet noticed, and he orients the reader’s gaze so that she can see it for herself. The purpose of writing is presentation, and its motive is disinterested truth. It succeeds when it aligns language with the truth, the proof of success being clarity and simplicity. The truth can be known, and is not the same as the language that reveals it; prose is a window onto the world. (Pinker 2014: 28–9)

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I do not want, here, to adjudicate the epistemologies of MacCabe and Pinker. What is striking about Pinker’s words in the context of the present discussion is that they could go some way towards articulating, and defending, The Wire’s approach to its material, and the series’ achievements and virtues, aesthetically and ethically. In the context of this collection more broadly, Pinker offers a useful defence of the virtues of simplicity. It is also worth noting that the terms of evaluation being proposed here apply even more strongly and straightforwardly to one of the key professional contexts from which The Wire emerges: investigative journalism. Nevertheless, MacCabe may still have a point. Politically, or aesthetically, or ethically, a position of ‘dominant specularity’ does not seem to be a good position to be placed in. The key critical question for our discussion is: does The Wire indeed place us in such a position? And, in doing so, does it go beyond virtuous simplicity into the territory of damaging over-simplification? Let us return to the end-of-season montages to try to offer a provisional answer. We have already noted Bramall and Pitcher’s astute characterisation of The Wire as ‘a machine for the production of epistemological gratifications’. We have also noted the care with which the series teaches its viewer how to understand the complex interlocking systems (and ‘games’) that make up life in contemporary Baltimore. If The Wire is like a long course of instruction, the end-of-season montages feel in part like graduation ceremonies. The learning is over, and what remains is to enjoy possessing the knowledge one has acquired. I am not in the least suggesting that the closing montages are superfluous, or lazy, or that they encourage laziness in the viewer. I think it is fair to say, however, that they grant the viewer the enjoyment, and the cognitive activity, of deploying already-acquired knowledge of complex systems to quickly and confidently grasp the significance of the brief moments they see (new information comes in relation to characters – for example, Bubbles finally being allowed to go up from his dwelling in his sister’s basement to join her and his niece at the dinner table – but not, and this is the point I am making, new ways of understanding information). Sometimes, the effect is that one now possesses a pair of sociological or organisational X-ray spectacles that allows one to pierce the public façade of a ceremonial occasion (for example, a promotion, or an election success

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– many such moments feature in the montages) and see both the private guilt or resentment simmering beneath, and the systemic logic that has created the outcome that is being publicly marked. The effect is exhilarating, perhaps surprisingly so for a television series whose principal subject matter might be described as urban dysfunction and decay. In short, although both effects are in play, the viewing experience is weighted towards confirmation, rather than contemplation. One way of phrasing what is at stake here would be to state it is a good thing to learn about the world, but it is a bad thing to presume that one has learned everything there is to know about the world. There is no inherent virtue in confusion, ignorance or uncertainty, and no inherent vice in conviction. Accordingly, there is no obligation for any form of discourse – for example, writing or screen drama – to insist upon or foreground epistemological caution or doubt at every juncture. We can legitimately defend the clear-sightedness that characterises The Wire’s style and presentation, and see it as a form of simplicity (of presentation) that enables complexity (of context). On the other hand, the confidence that arises from the achievement of knowledge can erode the virtues that produced it in the first place, and promote the pleasurable activity of the swift reaching of further conclusions over the more arduous one of gathering further experience and information. What we are talking about here is both what the viewer does, and what the text can be seen to encourage. In the case of The Wire, I have attempted to highlight the ways in which I think the text might encourage what MacCabe might call ‘dominant specularity’, thus qualifying the text’s complexity, and its value. But an important part of the activity of criticism is to make clear the respective weights of the elements of judgement being presented. To argue that The Wire invites its viewer to enjoy at its end knowledge and ways of seeing acquired across its duration is not a damning condemnation of the series. Many narrative texts do precisely this, and it is a legitimate, and even often meritorious, compositional feature. One could also point out that the stylistic distinctiveness of the end-ofseason montages serves to circumscribe and contain the mode of rhetoric and the way of seeing that I have suggested that they embody.

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Neverthless, I would wish to add that there are more widespread elements of the show – chiefly, the degree of determinism it embraces, and the ‘epistemological gratifications’ and feelings of elation and intoxicating knowledgeability that are my experience of watching the show – that are markers of the show’s achievements and forms of excellence, and at the same time, invitations to a problematic perspective of over-certainty. Whilst feeling it important to note these invitations, I would want to give them a carefully calibrated weight within an overall critical appraisal, and would suggest that they remain as underlying risks rather than thoroughgoing faults, and, moreover, that they arise at all mainly as a negative extension of one of the series’ most important and distinctive virtues: its deep and thoroughgoing clear-sightedness.

References Booth, Wayne C (1983) The rhetoric of fiction. Second edition. London: University of Chicago Press. Bordwell, David (1985) Narration in the fiction film. London: Methuen. Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson (1985) The classical Hollywood cinema: film style and mode of production to 1960. London: Routledge. Bramall, Rebecca and Ben Pitcher (2012) ‘Policing the crisis, or, why we love The Wire’. International Journal of Cultural Studies 16:1, pp. 85–98. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1367877912441441. Britton, Andrew (2009) Britton on film: the complete film criticism of Andrew Britton, ed. B.K. Grant. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Kennedy Martin, Troy (1964) ‘Nats go home’. Encore 48, pp. 21–33. Lavik, Erlend (2010) ‘Forward to the past: the strange case of The Wire’. In Jostein Gripsrud (ed.) Relocating television: television in the digital context. London: Routledge, pp. 76–87. MacCabe, Colin (1974) ‘Realism and the cinema: notes on some Brechtian theses’. Screen 15:2, pp. 7–27. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/15.2.7. Pinker, Steven (2014) The sense of style: the thinking person’s guide to writing in the 21st century. London: Penguin. Pye, Douglas (1989) ‘Bordwell and Hollywood’. MOVIE 33, pp. 46–52. Smith, Murray (1996) ‘The logic and legacy of Brechtianism’. In David Bordwell and Noël Carroll (eds) Post-theory: reconstructing film studies. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 130–48.

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Yorke, John (2013) Into the woods: how stories work and why we tell them. London: Penguin. Zborowski, James (2010) ‘The rhetoric of The Wire’. MOVIE: A Journal of Film Criticism 1. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/film/movie/contents/ rhetoric_of_the_wire.pdf. Accessed 12 July 2021. Zborowski, James (2013) ‘Classic realist text’. In Edward Branigan and Warren Buckland (eds) The Routledge encyclopedia of film theory. London: Routledge, pp. 81–5.

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Such schadenfreude: unpacking the political satire in Veep Michael P. Young

Though the specific circumstances themselves vary, pleasure at the expense of others is something we all indulge in, particularly when watching television programmes designed to elicit laughter. This is even more pronounced when the butt of jokes happens to be a character who is not particularly likeable or whose opinions, beliefs or actions we might usually disagree with. When the figure is a prominent and political one within the story-world, the mirth – even if only temporary – assumes almost mythic proportions of satisfaction as the chastened one is stripped of their self-projected infallibility and reduced to their most pathetic humanity. Whilst such scenes are played out across the television landscape ad infinitum, this chapter will explore moments in which Veep (HBO, 2012–19) embeds such schadenfreude into its political satire. Veep epitomises the notion that ‘satire’, a word derived from the Latin satura lanx for medley or ‘full dish’, is a comedic corrective to the lip service and incompetence that are frequently the hallmarks of political figures who claim to serve the people when they are really just serving themselves. Whilst the creator and director Armando Iannucci posits that political satire acts as a proxy for popular discontent by sublimating our frustration with the political class (O’Sullivan 2018), my aim here is to show how Veep uses simple forms – of contrast, language and characterisation – in its satirical schema to pose complex questions about politics, identity and performance. I will also suggest that Veep’s off-colour jocularity, contrasting audiovisuals and modal shifts, ultimately ends up laughing at the popular American desire for facile solutions to complex problems in the twenty-first century. I will draw out three moments

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from Veep that evince how it shifts between simple comedy and complex political satire. Of the television programmes that we can categorise as political satires, Veep is the only one with a female lead, at least in the US. Other programmes which use some of the same stylistic techniques – the dialogue generally occurring in private, if hysterical and exasperated, tones, and shot in close-ups and oblique medium shots, or using the walk-and-talk exposition technique to emphasise its proximate and frenetic pacing – are generally reserved for political dramatic series such as West Wing (NBC, 1999–2006), detective procedurals like Law and Order (NBC, 1990–2010) and CSI (CBS, 2000–15) or medical dramas like ER (NBC, 1994–2009) and Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 2005–present). In comparison, Veep, rather than simply employing this mode of exposition to quickly convey a lot of information, uses it to condense the traditional joke format (set-up, punchline, wait for laughter), packing as much as possible into thirty minutes. The Scottish satirist Iannucci is regarded in the United Kingdom as the ‘hardman of political satire’ (Gordon 2009) for his exacting portrayal of ‘the bumbling, mendacity and self-hating subservience’ (Bradshaw 2009: 1) of the British political class, in his critically acclaimed television series The Thick of It (BBC, 2005–12) and its film offshoot, In the Loop (2009). Iannucci began working with HBO as a showrunner in 2011, following a failed pilot with Disney’s television broadcast network ABC in 2009 in which his creative influence was severely restricted (Parker 2012). Itself an American adaptation of The Thick of It, Veep stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the titular vice-president (and later president) of the United States, Selina Meyer, and follows her team – Amy Brookheimer (Anna Chlumsky), Selina’s amoral Chief of Staff; Gary Walsh (Tony Hale), Selina’s body man and personal assistant; Dan Egan (Reid Scott), Deputy Director of Communications; campaign manager Ben Cafferty (Kevin Dunn); senior strategist Kent Davison (Gary Cole); and Mike McLintock (Matt Walsh), Director of Communications – alongside White House liaison Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons) and Selina’s daughter Catherine Myer (Sarah Sutherland), as they try to navigate the Beltway without becoming entangled in the brinkmanship of the US government.1

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These foul-mouthed characters insult and offend their way through America’s heart and hinterlands. From its moneyed upper-crust to the dregs of society, Veep takes us on a tour of America itself, its execution of simple stylistic elements belying an emotional and performative complexity that echoes the farcical journey of contemporary American politics. Moreover, Veep demonstrates that the abiding appeal of schadenfreude is actually as complementary as it is universal. All acts, arcs and aesthetics are in service to these two aims, which Veep achieves with aplomb.2 This chapter will discuss how Veep starts out as a simple comedy of errors that employs scatological writing in a kind of carnivalesque tradition. This is a simple form, but it is difficult to maintain such simplicity because the language is meant to be delivered in short bursts, not over seven years. The temporal stretching of the work maximises the tension between little moments of comic simplicity and moments of extreme emotional and performative complexity (Fridja 1988). Veep’s coarse and often obscene language, along with its infantile and pithy structure, may not appear to aim for emotional complexity but attains it due to Louis-Dreyfus’s performance. Veep cleverly demonstrates that, whilst things may start out simple, they inevitably become quite complex over time.

‘Helsinki’ Our first moment occurs in Season 2 and exemplifies how Veep’s use of contrast starts out simple but develops and complexifies as the programme progresses. In Episode 5, ‘Helsinki’, Selina and her team head to the Finnish capital to finalise trade negotiations with the country where they try to ‘keep her away from regular people and their awkward questions’. While previous episodes solidified Veep’s knack for the ‘skewering of American political rituals’ (Rosenberg 2015: 5), this episode demonstrates its ability to take on international relations. It is here that Selina meets her series’ frenemy Minna Häkkinen (Sally Phillips), the Finnish Prime Minister, at a press conference. What starts out as simple mimicry rapidly turns into a bastardised burlesque as Selina clumsily mirrors Minna’s affectations instead of extending the typical American handshake.

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It is a truly awkward introduction as Selina, to relieve her tension, attempts to make jokes which Minna continually interprets literally, so that the jokes either fall flat or go straight over Minna’s head. The situational misreading and consequent failure to converse meaningfully crystallise into a comic study of contrasts during the actual exchange of gifts. Having mistaken Minna’s love of eating fish for a love of fishing, Selina presents Minna with a thin and lightweight Freshwater Game Fish of North America book, confusing Minna who quips ‘because no one will feed me?’ should she come to the US. She in turns hands Selina a massive and hefty glass Angry Birds clock that Selina visibly struggles to hold up. The scene concludes with Minna pointing out that the mistranslated Finnish inscription in the book, which reads ‘Finland, you are hefty’ is ironic since ‘Americans have a much greater body mass index than the Finns’ (Figure 7.1). The abundance of contrasts in this scene suggests the seemingly simple structure of Veep’s satirical template: juxtaposing two directly or indirectly related entities for comedic effect. Here Selina and Minna are set up to be both visual and aural foils for the remainder of the series. This is immediately obvious in the visible contrasts between Selina and Minna. Selina is a natural brunette and Minna appears to be naturally blonde; Selina dons a figure-hugging black

7.1  Veep: Helsinki.

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dress with a cleavage-baring neckline, while Minna wears a white, loose-fitting blazer coupled with a bow-neck blouse conservatively buttoned all the way; Selina’s hair flows freely, Minna’s is bundled and pulled back; Selina is effusively chatty but Minna tends to reply tersely to questions. In terms of vocal gravity, Selina has a light yet high pitch while Minna is several octaves lower, though Selina attempts to be conciliatory by lowering her pitch to match Minna’s. Moreover, Selina takes a defensive and apologetic tone and Minna is always offensive. There is an uncomfortable tension in Selina’s comportment whilst Minna is entirely at ease, which is not surprising given that she is in her home country and Selina is in foreign territory. With Minna and Selina, Veep achieves its satire through the use of broad strokes of colourful caricature and contrast, placing two exaggerated political figures beside each other to emphasise their differences in speech, understanding, fashion and even physicality. Effectively, Veep uses simplified characterisation to create metonymic tropes of national identity. While this is quite standard in stand-up or sketch comedy, what elevates Veep above straightforward sketch comedy is that that, in this moment, the use of language is also complex, because it references the political milieu while using simplified vocabulary. In this scene, Veep satirises the complex web of awkwardness, inherent superficiality and excessive organisation that distorts these public interactions (in this case, between American and Finnish) when it is intended to make them look straightforward and natural. When such exchanges happen in the context of a press conference, the very fact that they are public means every gesture will be scrutinised and later dissected for hidden meanings by a complicit press and a sceptical public. In a sense the meeting is a pseudo-event, in so far as it is a media spectacle designed for public consumption rather than a spontaneous encounter where cameras happen to be (Boorstin 1992). Veep seems to be mocking those people or media consumers who think these are real events and that the politicians are engaging in actual politics. Of course, the real, complex work is done by civil servants behind the scenes, not in front of the camera. At the same time, the programme is educating viewers, exposing the artificiality of these superficial functions. The intent then is to focus our attention on Selina as this ‘typical’ type of American. Whilst Minna casts the Finnish as ‘more graceful,

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but [not] without their moments of oddity and insipidness’ (Folsom 2013), Selina’s bumbling errors and faux pas are ‘dumb American’ personified, barely willing to appreciate other cultures’ contributions and achievements or actually learn from them and change. Indeed, the dumbfounded yet determined look on Selina’s face indicates that performative institutional conventions of public political politeness actually work to complicate genuine interaction and collaboration, by increasing the potential for misunderstandings. This contradictory tension is subtly accomplished as Louis-Dreyfus’s protracted, upturned, quizzical eyebrows and taut smile manage to affect both puzzlement and irritation. Affectively, we are made to savour her silent suffering. As a satire, several things should be going on here. Satire has come to be understood as a didactic rhetorical and moralising genre that uses the devices of contrast, distortion, hyperbole, ridicule, irony and derision to draw attention to and criticise prevailing sociocultural shortcomings or individual follies; each device ‘provid[es] a way to say two or more things at one time, and to compare, equate, or contrast those things’ (Harris 2018: 41). Satirical critique entails not only some element of comedy but also a moral judgement which the satire itself offers as a kind of corrective. So, what is Veep saying should be corrected? Veep is criticising (via contrast) the way in which these public interactions take place, or more specifically, how these patently artificial press conferences (which punctuate virtually every episode) make it appear that complex geopolitical problems can be simply solved by a bow or a handshake. Contrast is Iannucci’s initial concern; he wanted to make a show where ‘there’s power but not power’ (Chaney 2019b). This simple contrast is then complicated over time into juxtaposed instantiations of the concept of simplicity itself. For the sake of argument, let us define a thing as ‘simple’ if, and only if, it refers to itself. Though such an odd entity would be as elusive as a unicorn, this simple thing becomes ‘complex’ and increases in complexity proportionate to the number of other things it refers to. In the special case it refers to its opposite, it becomes a curious duality as it constantly oscillates between being simple and complex. Even this contrasting duality is a form of complexity, and the tensions that inhere within it are present in Veep’s themes, devices and modes of expression, so

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that the programme’s structure is both simple and complex at the same time. The most glaring distortion of duality arises from a recognition that the characters in Veep showcase really quite terrible personality traits and types. Knowing these characters are fictional, and that Veep is a fictive world rather than true reflection of reality, as viewers we are able to savour its schadenfreude while simultaneously, if inclined, questioning the motivations behind our own political actions. As we shall see, the juxtaposition of hyperbolic distortions of nationalist tropes with our own national allegiances bitingly reveals the satirical connection between Veep’s use of schadenfreude (literally German for ‘harm joy’) and its contrasting duality.

‘Special Relationship’ One moment in Veep which most impressively toys with the tensions inherent in schadenfreude occurs in ‘Special Relationship’ (Season 3, Episode 7). The episode begins with Selina and her campaign team in London, where they are gathered ostensibly to commemorate fallen soldiers from the First World War, although, in fact, Selina is secretly there to orchestrate a spying deal with Germany. Having firmly established their propensity for ‘doing everything they can to manage, maintain and modulate Selina’s outsize ego and penchant for self-sabotage’ (Lattazzanio 2014), in this episode Veep slowly captures the nuttiest attributes of American nationalism. It all comes to a boil when the troupe ultimately make their way to the cathedral in which the memorial service is taking place. Selina stands on the elevated pulpit giving her speech before a crowd of foreign dignitaries and government officials. Her slow, reflective tone of voice, reverent speech and subdued attire stand in stark contrast to the ostentatious and plumage-bedecked headdress that absurdly projects high into the air above her and bobs obscenely in its inappropriateness from her head as she speaks (Figure 7.2). This is a very conventional technique of comic contrast and, indeed, it is the staged (set up) simplicity of this moment that makes it work. There are no special effects or lighting, just the slight shifts on Selina’s face as she manages to address the audience through those feathers without breaking into laughter or showing her irritation,

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7.2  Veep: Special relationship – and that hat.

despite sporting a sartorial monstrosity even in ‘the land of hats’. In the audience, Mike congratulates himself for a job well done, remarking that the prose of ‘the speech is so beautiful, so beautiful’, while failing to note that those fine words stand in sharp relief to the jutting feathers atop Selina’s head. The Deputy Prime Minister is blunter, decrying, ‘What a hat! It is like she stuck her head in a swan and it’s exploded.’ Although she plays it straight, Selina’s is no stone-faced, dead-pan delivery. Instead, Lois-Dreyfus deploys her ability to create physical comedy: with a tilt of her neck and a squint of her eyes, she crafts Selina’s interiority. Her subtle and almost imperceptible facial contortions – the complex, minute and second-by-second adjustments that she makes – convey the uncomfortableness of Selina’s feelings and mixed motivations while maintaining a plausible fictional conceit. Louis-Dreyfus’s accomplishment is portraying a Selina who, with an interminable frustration with everyone around her, ‘make[s] us hate everyone else more than we constantly, desperately want to hate ourselves’ (Carlson 2014) for laughing in the first place. Here Veep again uses juxtaposition as its satirical mode, comparing the national cultures of Britain and America, with a fair bit of schadenfreude. A sardonic play on the so-called ‘special relationship’ between the US and the UK, this moment shows it is indeed special,

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but not in the way we think. It is not special in the sense that the two countries are close allies or nations bonded by a shared language and similar systems (or at least values) of democracy; rather it is special in the politically incorrect sense of deeply dysfunctional and retarded. Veep and her team lie unabashedly to the Brits and mock their arcane social structures and professional standards: ‘they’ll sell naked pictures of their grandmother for a pint of hot beer’, even though things are not much better in the political bubble of their US story-world, given the dastardly deeds they devise. On a simple comedic level, then, Veep often uses visual contrast and caricature. On a more complex satirical level, Veep not only narratively juxtaposes the public and private sphere of politics but also inverts nationalist and classist stereotypes. In this moment, it is the British who are direct and the Americans who are circuitous. What’s more, Selina and her ilk engage in private derogatory conversations while the British are their comic foils in alternating cutaways where Selina’s public interactions are more polite and politically correct. Moreover, the all-consuming narcissism and self-involvement of the Americans, more concerned with themselves, means they fail even to recognise their own ridiculousness. In his treatise On the study of words (1852) where it first appears in English, the philologist Richard Chenevix Trench first lamented that schadenfreude reflects ‘a degraded moral interiority’ (2002: 39) and, indeed, the compound term represents a metaphysical ontology that is as negative as it is universal. Veep is funny in part because we enjoy watching Selina and her team do shocking, even reprehensible things, but what is even more pleasurable is watching these same people fall flat on their faces as a result of their horrendous actions. Though typical farce (a small and simple incident has consequences and complications that build to moments of extreme ridiculousness) is designed for laughs and not intended to be taken too seriously, because these characters are so wholly unpleasant the presence of schadenfreude allows us to laugh at the characters without necessarily considering that Veep is often making fun of us by appealing to the baser behaviours that we all have. Moreover, although the schadenfreude in Veep may be rather severe by American standards, it is quite mild by British standards. The programme benefits from being written by outsiders; that is, by British writers who are close to and fascinated by – but not part of – the US

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socio-political system, and who can work from a more comfortable distance and with greater disinterest. The simple elegance of the ‘hat’ moment would be lost were it not for the set-up that has aesthetically and narratively primed the viewer to anticipate comedic contrasts in language, dress, culture and class. In the previous scene, Selina is preparing in her hotel suite for the memorial, flanked by her underlings as they try to make the speech ‘appeal to the more blue-collar demographic’. Selina is dressed in a L’ Wren Scott black fitted tuxedo dress, with a plunging neckline under which lies a broad built-in bib collar respectfully fastened up to her neck: the style invokes the buttoned-up style of the female Puritanical dress code – plain, simple and unadorned. Selina and company begin stripping down her overly poetic speech using Ray’s (Selina’s personal trainer and lover) ‘working class touch’ for some passages but ultimately retain Mike’s closing remarks – ‘beneath the dark soil of Passchendaele, 100,000 bodies lie unaccounted for. Let today be their funeral service and we their mourners’ as more appropriate than the dumbed-down version suggested by Ray – ‘there’s a whole lotta guys who never came home. Good guys. Here’s to those guys.’ While these revisions are happening, we are only shown the tastefully appropriate hat that Gary has selected for her but which she rejects for another one, as yet unseen. The significance of Selina’s contrasting attire is alluded to at the very beginning of the episode when she is giving a press conference at a typical British pub to, as Dan aims, ‘make her look folksy’. While trying to cast herself as a politician of ordinary people as she attempts to ‘down in one’ a pint of bitter, Selina’s $3000 Gucci polka dot blouse and golden south sea pearl (considered to be the most valuable – and expensive – pearls in the world) necklace and bracelet do little to make this believable. Rather, her awkward exchange with the British Deputy Prime Minister, whose snide remarks hint at his animosity towards Selina; her inability to even pretend to care about the equivalence between football and soccer; and her ignorance of even basic British geography belie a lack of preparation by her and her team. The dialogue exaggeratedly satirises Selina as an archetype of the stupid American – blithely indifferent to other cultures, self-centred to the point of pathological narcissism and overtly materialistic.

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Rather than attempting to sow violent revolutionary foment or radical transformation in its viewers, Veep simply holds a distorted mirror up to that section of American society rich enough to afford a subscription to HBO (or technologically savvy enough to stream it from the Web) and shows how they can be just as hypocritical as Selina and her team, should the viewer be inclined to reflect on this. Using caricatures of national stereotypes, Veep subtly suggests a more complex form of schadenfreude to viewers who complain (i.e. laugh) about the stupidity and short-sightedness of those people more concerned with facile solutions to complex social problems. Veep starts out as a predominantly comical judgement on the strange inequality in our socio-political system (between politicians and the people who voted for them – where there is power but not power). Yet, by the time the series ends, it has shifted in tone to concern itself with the creation of carnivalised ‘situations for the provoking and testing of a philosophical idea, a discourse a truth, embodied in the image’ (Bakhtin 1984: 114): the notion of Selina as a tragic figure. Whilst her entourage exhibit virtually no growth throughout the series, by the series finale Selina has transformed from an ambitious but hapless woman who stumbles her way into power backed by her wealth and privilege, into a cold-hearted, cruel and vindictive woman. In tracing Selina’s ascent to power, we see Veep become ‘less a pure comedy of errors and more a slow descent into the heart of darkness’ (Chaney 2019a). In turn, Veep ends up demonstrating to viewers that which motivates such actions and their consequences, while implicitly cautioning against them.

Managing collaboration and political context Veep employs broad strokes of characterisation and simple comedic forms. But it also establishes a distinctive voice and style which arise from sustained engagement with varied dualities. Moreover, even when rendering apparently simple concepts, any television programme requires the co-ordination of very complex processes. If we accept that televisual style consists of the ‘systematic and significant use of techniques of the medium […] mise en scène (staging,

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lighting, performance, and setting); framing, focus, control of color values, and other aspects of cinematography; editing; and sound [then] style is, minimally, the texture of the images and sounds, the result of choices made by the [showrunners] in particular historical circumstances’ (Bordwell 1999: 4). It should come as no surprise that such a collaborative effort necessitates the complexification of even the simplest ideas as they go through the range of interpretations from cast and crew, whose perspective and experiences will inevitably mix in unforeseen, but ideally pleasing, ways. In trying to manage many competing perspectives and maintain a coherent creative vision, the Veep cinematographer David Miller3 notes the importance of Veep’s ‘documentary style. It doesn’t have to look bad. There’s a way to make it work, and it really comes down to all of the staging. Figuring out the staging so that everything falls into place. It’s pretty simple to do, but you just have to be willing to do it’ (Maher 2019). This mixture of script, improvisation, collaborative style, planned happenstance and the passage of time challenges any conceptual distinctions between simple and complex. Veep demonstrates that both are flip-sides of the same coin, such that processes that appear to be difficult and complex are based on relatively simple notions whereas ideas we might regard as simple take an entire production team to bring to life. By Veep’s final season, Iannucci had already handed over the showrunner reins to David Mandel. Whilst Iannucci was happy to be at the helm for the first four seasons, before Season 5 went into production Donald Trump declared he would be running for the US presidency. Although Iannucci’s official reason for stepping down was the strain commuting back and forth between Baltimore, where Veep was filmed, and London, where he lived, was having on his health and family life, he has said, ‘I’m so glad I don’t do Veep anymore because I don’t know how I’d respond to the situation in America’ (Schwartz 2019: 1). He later remarked that he was relieved because ‘What can you do and say that hasn’t already been said and done by him? Personally, I just find it difficult to be funny about him. I can only be frustrated and flabbergasted by him. Outraged’ (Schwartz 2019: 1). Iannucci left Earth’s political landscape behind altogether with his slated new series being billed as ‘a space tourism comedy set 40 years in the future’ (Avenue 5, HBO, 2019). And given the increasingly fraught political milieu in the US, Mandel

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obviously felt it was necessary to go darker in terms of tone, narrative and characterisation. Whilst the first six seasons of Veep played out in a story-world of implausible political neutrality, the final season dropped all such pretences in its obvious commentary on Donald Trump and his unscrupulous administration. When Veep first aired on 22 April 2012, Barack Obama was still in office and Donald Trump was just the host of The Apprentice (NBC, 2004–17), a moderately successful reality competition series. There were other serial programmes based on politic contexts airing at the beginning of Trump’s administration – Homeland (Showtime, 2011–present), House of Cards (Netflix, 2013–18) and Scandal (ABC, 2012–18) – but these were all political thrillers. Chaney observes, ‘American politics was dysfunctional, and certainly begging for satire, but most of the comedy in Veep’s early seasons was rooted in workplace pettiness that rang true inside the Beltway but wasn’t necessarily a comment on any real-life Executive-branch drama’ (Chaney 2019b). That had all changed by 2019 when Veep’s narrative arc began explicitly reflecting the current immoral political climate in the US.

‘Veep’ Season 7 follows Selina and her campaign team as they manoeuvre to win her second attempt at the presidential nomination; their failure to do so at the end of Season 4 subsequently landed Selina in the insane asylum. Oddly enough, this final episode is entitled ‘Veep’. While first watching the episode, I assumed this was due to Selina again being offered the vice-presidency by now partynomination opponent Jonah in order that she drop out of the race. We now know it was meant to bring the series full circle, to reward those viewers who had maintained their viewership to the very end (Saraiya 2019). This is Selina incarnate: pure unbridled ambition, completely unhinged and willing to do whatever it takes to get her eight-year stay in the White House. The finale demonstrates what makes Veep so pleasurable, and painful, to watch: the inescapable realisation that it has the entire time relied on a premise of power. Momentum starts building right from the start. The episode begins at the conclusion of the party convention, where no candidate has

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secured enough votes to obtain the party nomination. As a clearly irritated Selina bides her time in a hotel suite, watching the results come in, her lesbian daughter tells her they should never have held the conference in North Carolina due to its proposed ‘bathroom bill’, which seeks to ban transgender people from using public toilets that do not correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth. Instead of being sympathetic to Catherine’s sincere political indignation, Selina retorts ‘Who gives a shit where people shit?’ before emphatically telling Catherine to ‘shut up’. Several minutes later, Selina’s utter disregard for all socio-economic classes besides the über-wealthy is displayed when Ben informs her that ‘The NYPD found a bag full of explosives at Kennedy Airport’. Utterly without a hint of sarcasm or irony, Selina obliquely tilts her head, purses her lip and deadpans ‘This is why everyone should fly private’. Mere moments later, Selina’s attention turns to a live broadcast news interview with another party nominee, Kemi Talbot (Toks Olagundoye). Having already rejected the idea of her as running mate because ‘She’s the worst’, she continues, ‘An all-female ticket? The American people work hard for a living, okay. They don’t need that kind of bullshit.’ Whilst this highlights Selina’s lack of female solidarity, she is mostly trying to outflank an honest candidate running to enact policies that would genuinely make the country a better place (who also happens to want a reopening of the FBI investigation into the financial dealings of her ex-husband). This is the presumed dead ex-husband whose murder she inadvertently sanctioned in Episode 4, courtesy of the Chinese election interference she had secretly brokered in exchange for not freeing Tibet. Arguably the most memorable verbal exchange in the episode occurs a few minutes later outside the hospital room of Ben, who has just suffered his thirteenth heart attack. Taking a brief contemplative moment when he tells her, ‘You know exactly what to do’, Selina seems finally to accept (or is that reject?) the moral meaningfulness of her pursuit – power at any cost. The news that her political rival, love of her life and intellectual equal, the supposedly happily married senator Tom James (Hugh Laurie) is throwing his name into the hat to most assuredly win the contested ballot the following day, makes the prospect of losing the party nomination so unpalatable for Selina, one can almost taste the bitterness between her locked jaw and taunt, grimacing lips. Selina narrows her eyes and scoffs



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when she locks on to the figure of Michelle (Rhea Seehorn), Tom’s young Chief of Staff (whom he has also been sleeping with). Like a lioness who has cornered her prey and is about to pounce, Selina literally bites the air in front of her face in a gnarled scowl. The sheer force of her determination and the unfettered nastiness she is willing to marshal to secure the nomination warrants quoting in full: SELINA: Can’t say that I blame you. I mean that nutmeg-state indefinable really turns my hydrant on. The only difference is that I was the most exciting conquest of his life and you just had the motel room closest to the ice machine. MICHELLE: I don’t know what you’re talking about, because I’m the senator’s Chief of Staff … SELINA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for now. Trust me, he will never see you as anything other than the T.G.I. Friday’s hostess on Proactiv who lets him bend you over his desk while you close your eyes to avoid coming face-to-face with that framed photo of his family’s trip to Aspen while he drowns your Little Mermaid back tat in a pool of jizz and admires his own reflection. GARY: Jesus. Wow. SELINA: I just hate to see smart women throw away their political careers on powerful men who only see them as the gash of least resistance. [Of course, the manipulative pièce de résistance is when Selina slyly adds with a backward glance as she slowly walks away] I mean, you strike me as a smart woman. Are you?

Having now established that there is no limit to the depths to which Selina will sink, the episode culminates into a poignant and unsettling moment in which Selina realises she has sacrificed everything and everyone. This is especially evident with her loyal bagman Gary, whom she once acknowledged as ‘the one person in this core group who actually gives a shit about me’; now, she lets him take the fall for her financial misfeasance in order to secure the presidency. It is only once there that the stark irony of her exasperation with ‘the level of incompetence in this office’ is momentarily felt, by herself and viewers. Selina’s quest for power is the momentum which drives the narrative and is, to some degree, the simplest aspect of the series. However, the Oval Office in which we find Selina in this silent sequence symbolises the changes in stylistic framing from where the series started, and ends her character’s progression. Gone is the banter

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(or slurs, depending on one’s view) that marked earlier episodes. The insults slung by her omnipresent staff in the cramped quarters of the vice-president’s busy offices are replaced by the capacious hollowness of the Oval. The hysterical and exasperated quips that Selina and her unflappable staff once dished out to each other have become one-sided orders to a frightened Michelle, now her Chief of Staff, whom Selina reprimands and dismisses from the Oval because she failed to anticipate what Selina wants to eat. There is no longer anyone to check Selina’s demanding ego or selfish expectations, just a servile minion whom she has already dominated and who does what she says without question. Correspondingly, the close-ups and medium shots that gave the series its feeling of claustrophobic intimacy are finally subsumed by a wide shot that distances us from Selina and makes her diminutive figure appear even smaller. Even the frenetic tone and pacing formerly effected by the walk-and-talk technique is arrested, as Selina is no longer moving about the corridors of power but is sitting immobile behind the heavy wooden presidential desk that dwarfs her figure and entraps her (Figure 7.3). As a long-term political figure who was a two-term senator before stalking into the vice-presidency, Selina had become reasonably adept at ‘thinking on her feet’ and making quick incisive retorts, as evinced

7.3  Veep: Selina makes it to the Oval Office.

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when she travels. She rarely hesitated or slowed down except to consider the public ramifications of her political choices (how they would look to the wider populace or negatively impede her goals), and she never took the time to reflect on the wider moral implications of her beliefs and actions or how they might damage those around her. But here, the pristine silence dooms her as Selina achieves an eerie, if fleeting, moment of self-awareness, foreshadowed in her bedside exchange with Ben in the hospital earlier in the episode. She stares into the empty room, taking in its stately appointments, without the usual ambient noise of a crowd or staff hustling about. The aching gravity of her own culpability weighs heavily on Selina’s face and fills the capacious space. The sequence is strangely visceral: we are shaken from our usual comic mode of viewing and reminded suddenly of the cruel and tragic level of incompetence in the Trump administration as the political context in which Veep takes place. Selina gulps, swallowing her pain with a knowing stare into the vacancy, then forlornly sighs, audibly, while her face starts to contort into a cry, her body trembling. With no one to hear or see this act of vulnerability, there is no one left but the viewer to witness, much less absolve her, as the silence is broken by a phone call from the Israeli Prime Minister. The significance of this moment of silence is clear: the presidency (and the power it represents) has crippled Selina and we never see her ‘standing and walking for [her] country’ again (in the next scene, she is dead). This moment complexifies our response ever so briefly before the tone shifts back to comedy in the final narrative scene of her funeral service which closes the series. Her single-minded resolve and indiscriminate vitriol ultimately obviate anything or anyone else until Selina is, fittingly enough, alone. And sadly, what could be simpler than that?

A complex performance of a simple character? The sustained portrayal of such a caustic character using such language and embodying such contrasts is necessarily accomplished by the virtuoso performance of Louis-Dreyfus. Given Selina’s propensity for saying things ordinary people might think but can never say, her undulating vocal inflections range between histrionic and

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measured, counterbalanced with subtly shifting facial expressions and an expressive physicality. Louis-Dreyfus’s flawless timing gives her what Iannucci calls an almost perfect ‘comic instinct [… whereby] we’d have a little idea, and she would always have half a dozen suggestions of which way that could go’ (Edgars 2018). Though screen performance is profoundly complex, Louis-Dreyfus makes it look effortless. Moreover, her flamboyantly flailing limbs, burlesque gesticulations and precision blocking elide the ‘protocols of realist character construction’ (Drake 2003: 189), to limit Selina’s characterisation to a tragic-comedic caricature of selfishness informed by well-known American stereotypes with fantasy inversions. Louis-Dreyfus’s performance hinges on Selina exhibiting traits and attitudes which are generally conceived as selfish, spurious, bad or antithetical to normative cultural mores. Her wealth, position and privilege afford her a freedom of speech and freedom from real accountability that mere mortals can only ever fantasise about. Louis-Dreyfus’s background as the daughter of a real billionaire communications magnate provides a rare alignment of characterisation with actor insight into a moneyed world where such self-indulgent views can easily flourish. Selina’s behaviour is almost always disturbingly reductive, when it is not merely a transaction of political capital or condescendingly dismissive. That Selina is a deeply flawed and irredeemable character who nevertheless succeeds in her pursuit of power taps into the myth of hard work, sacrifice and perseverance in the ‘American Dream’. Though this is a potentially damaging mindset which, when integrated with a nationalist ideology, rationalises empathy as merely a useful utilitarian tool, Louis-Dreyfus channels the same tenets in her rapid ability to merge character immersion with her own composite interiority into an affective plausibility that makes Selina seem so vivid and lifelike. That her portrayal is so effective is potentially a cause for much of the criticism aimed at Veep. Because of Louis-Dreyfus’s convincing embodiment, Selina is perhaps too uncomfortably reminiscent of the troubled American political system and the troubling policies that President Trump enacted with his selfishly myopic worldview. This is not a performance normally found in carnival or broad satire: the level at which Louis-Dreyfus affectively communicates Selina’s moods, thoughts and motives, via her ever-changing facial expressions and body movements, leads to

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our perceiving a depth in her character that is most unusual in such a comic mode, and is much more complex. Iannucci himself recalls the acting skills Louis-Dreyfus brings to Veep as being usually found only in serious dramas, noting how once, in the stage direction, it says, ‘Selina gives a noise that simultaneously is a groan and a smile, concerned and happy at the same time. And she did it. Take one. It’s the emotional version of a chord, there are five or six notes going on simultaneously. That’s when you realize she’s utterly in a league of her own’ (Edgars 2018). Though she exhibits rather simplistic motivations and values, the character of Selina in Veep is a complex one that turns feminist assumptions about women in power on its head. Certainly Selina is ‘feminine’ in the sense that she is very conscious of her appearance and the effect her body has on the (mostly) men around her but she is also ‘aggressive. She’s blatantly ambitious. She curses like an inebriated sailor who learned how to speak English by listening to old Andrew Dice Clay albums. She lies and acts with no regard for ethics; the only principle she follows is, “Me first”’ (Chaney 2019b). In having these traits, which are regarded as conventionally ‘masculine’, Selina subverts normative gender roles and asymmetrical interpersonal power dynamics to cut down anyone who gets in her way: man, woman or daughter. She does not care about feminist solidarity and even spites long-suffering Amy in the finale when she makes her the Chief of Staff for the new vice-president (the deplorable Johan) because ‘I don’t like the way you spoke to me earlier’. Her vindictive apathy would be too noxious to stomach if it were not so delicious to watch, but Veep also leaves us with two other facets to reflect on besides characterisation. One is that the programme’s tonal shift coincides with the real wackiness of a Trump administration that seemed to bear only a passing relationship with the truth or common decency. This shift changed Veep’s mode from a simple Horatian satire, with its coterie of farce, contrast and caricature, into a hybrid kind of Menippean satire that acts as a warning.4 Even a cursory character analysis of Selina reveals that Veep clearly condemns this simple portrayal – a self-centred, self-motivated, entirely selfish person lacking in empathy, much less sympathy, and without any mutually meaningful connections to anyone. In her internal conflict, Selina is both protagonist and her own antagonist; she often has no one but herself to blame

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for her simultaneous rise to power and fall from grace. It is also a biting critique of the state of American politics (though since the election of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, the UK is certainly giving the US a run for its money). Yet still there is a further complicating element of fantasy to Veep, because such shenanigans are not remotely real. Politicians do not really speak to each other like they do on Veep, if not simply for the mountain of lawsuits that would follow. As for a woman being president in the US – Veep has done it four times, the US has not even managed to do it once. Evidently, a significant proportion of the American electorate would rather have a male buffoon with an overinflated ego, delusions of grandeur and no political experience as president than a highly qualified, if still imperfect, female. The second consideration is that the schadenfreude that coordinates the medley of ingredients in Veep invites us as viewers to invert our narrow perspective, to see how the complex of reductive subjective values, class allegiances, socio-cultural affiliations, genre preferences and political placidity makes its schadenfreude such a guilty pleasure. Veep’s humour is potentially offensive, with many of its jibes being homophobic, misogynist, classist, misanthropic or otherwise culturally insensitive, yet it is also enjoyable, especially if one considers that we all do and say terrible things, if not quite to the extent that Selina does. We are pleased to see her get her solitary comeuppance. But the satirical experience is not meant to be a passive spectator sport: instead it may quietly prompt us to pause and reflect on why we are laughing. As a good political satire, Veep shows us that political figures may be as bad as they seem, but they are made much worse because of our own short-sighted indifference, selfish biases and irresponsible inability to actually do anything about it. Farce lies at the root of Veep, and constitutes a major part of the programme’s simplicity.5 The form is very simple and clear-cut: it is straightforwardly a comedy that elicits ‘laughs out loud’ (different from The Thick of It). Its complexity arises from its blend of aggressive performance and carnivalesque, overtly scatological writing which is much more rarely employed on television, and which heightens the programme’s ability to challenge hierarchies and undermine and deride authority. The carnivalesque and the scatological bestow a distinctive flavour on the show’s satire. Veep reminds

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us that good jokes have simple punchlines, but the best jokes work by also having us as the punchline, in so far as we recognise the baser parallels in our world and still laugh. This ‘ambivalent laughter […] expresses the point of view of the whole world; he who is laughing also belongs to it’ (Bakhtin 1984: 12). Simple contrast, generous farce, and a dependence on form and structure rather than plot, ultimately cast Veep as a Menippean satire that mixes distinct comedic traditions, embodies America’s venal political cluelessness and compels us to seriously question our complicity in the political milieu. In showing that simplicity andcomplexity are not mutually exclusive binary conditions, in that they constant invoke each other in a recursive conceptual loop, Veep’s political satire is a very ‘full dish’ indeed.

Notes 1 The Beltway refers to the perimeter of urban Washington, DC, but has also come to suggest more specifically the ostensibly rather insular Washington political milieu. 2 Veep has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy in every comedy category, with Louis-Dreyfus having won every season except 2019 for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (2012–18), and Tony Hale taking home the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2013 and 2015. The series has won a total of 63 awards out of 201 nominations throughout its original run. 3 Miller won the Primetime Emmy in 2017 for Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series. 4 Satire was so pivotal to Roman culture that ‘satire is classified based on the two most famous Roman satirists: Horace and Juvenal. Horatian satire aims to heal through humor […] is gentler and with lighthearted humor and playful critique […] Juvenalian satire often portrays the world as worse than it is, relying on metaphor, irony, sarcasm, moral outrage […] and using an almost macabre sense of humor’ (Fotis 2020: 3). As a hybrid ‘anti-genre’ (Wild 2008: 165) that ‘uses at least two different languages, genres, tones, or cultural or historical periods to combat a false and threatening orthodoxy’ (Weinbrot 2005: xi), Menippean satire ‘is driven by theme rather than plot, and it substitutes situation for action. Its content is more a symposium than a story, and it is not bound to settle the issues it raises’ (Yamaguchi 2004: 44).

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5 Veep has a distinctly British sensibility, which is understandable given the entirely British composition of its early writing team. The performance styles are distinctly American, but the comedy plots are typical farce, along the lines of Fawlty Towers (BBC, 1975, 1979), for example, mixed with the sharp, sometimes cruel comedy of embarrassment found in programmes like The Office (BBC, 2001–3). And of course, Veep feels very like a more upbeat, funnier version of The Thick of It.

References Bakhtin, Mikhail (1984) Rabelais and his world. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Boorstin, Daniel (1992) The image: a guide to pseudo-events in America. New York: Vintage Books. Bordwell, David (1999) On the history of film style. Cambridge, MA: Harvard College. Bradshaw, Peter (2009) ‘In the loop’. The Guardian, 17 February. Carlson, Adam (2014) ‘Veep stumbles back and forth across the pond. Morning after’. Gawker, 19 May. http://morningafter.gawker.com/Veepstumbles-back-and-forth-across-the-pond-1578317959. Accessed 1 January 2020. Chaney, Jen (2019a) ‘Veep is over. Is America next? A behind-the-scenes look at the series finale’. Vulture, 10 May. www.vulture.com/2019/05/Veepseries-finale.html. Accessed 1 January 2020. Chaney, Jen (2019b) ‘Selina Meyer was awful. That’s what made her great’. Vulture, 12 May. www.vulture.com/2019/05/Veep-selina-meyer-awfuland-great.html. Accessed 1 January 2020. Cikara, Mina (2015) ‘Intergroup schadenfreude: motivating participation in collective violence’. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 3, pp. 12–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2014.12.007. Comedy Central (2019) ‘Staging the democratic primary debate’. www.cc.com/ video-clips/deahzr/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-staging-the-democraticprimary-debate–the-thrilling-backstory. Accessed 1 January 2020. Drake, P. (2003) ‘Low blows? Theorizing performance in post-classical comedian comedy’. In Frank Krutnik (ed.) Hollywood comedians: the film reader. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 187–98. Edgars, Geoff (2018) ‘How Julia Louis Dreyfus became the most successful sitcom star ever’. Washington Post, 17 October. www.washingtonpost. com/entertainment/tv/how-julia-louis-dreyfus-quietly-became-themost-successful-sitcom-star-ever/2018/10/16/b434a03a-ce2e-11e 8-a3e6–44daa3d35ede_story.html. Accessed 1 January 2020.

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Folsom, Jake (2013) ‘Veep, Season 2, Episode 5: “Helsinki”’. https:// wsnhighlighter.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/Veep-season-2-episode5-helsinki/. Accessed 1 January 2020. Fotis, Matt (2020) Satire & the state: sketch comedy and the presidency. New York and Abingdon: Taylor and Francis. Fridja, Nico (1988) ‘The laws of emotion’. American Psychologist 43:5, pp. 349–58. Gordon, Bryony (2009) ‘Armando Iannucci Interview’. Telegraph, 23 October. Harris, Robert (2018) ‘The purpose and method of satire’. Virtual Salt, 22 November. www.virtualsalt.com/satire.htm. Accessed 1 January 2020. HBO (2019) ‘Armando Iannucci to bring humor to space with Avenue 5’. www.hbo.com/hbo-news/avenue-5-cmedy-series. Accessed 1 January 2020. Jackson, Guy and Michael Ferris, ‘Spec writing roadmap for VEEP’. Screenplay.com. www.screenplay.com/mferris_TV_Veep. Accessed 29 August 2019. Lattazzanio, Ryan (2014) ‘Veep Season 3 review: Selena Meyer is back and more politically incorrect than ever’. IndieWire, 3 April. www.indiewire.com/ 2014/04/Veep-season-3-review-selena-meyer-is-back-and-more-politicallyincorrect-than-ever-192870/. Accessed 1 January 2020. Maher, Mike (2019) ‘The cameras and lenses behind the scenes of HBO’s original series’. Premium Beat, 22 March. www.premiumbeat.com/blog/ cameras-lenses-hbo-original-series/. Accessed 1 January 2020. O’Sullivan, Michael (2018) ‘From Selina to Stalin: the man behind Veep talks satire and cynicism’. Washington Post, 16 March. www.washingtonpost. com/lifestyle/style/from-selina-to-stalin-the-man-behind-Veep-talks-satireand-cynicism/2018/03/16/1f5a3c22–26f4–11e8-bc72–077aa4dab9ef_ story.html. Accessed 1 January 2020. Parker, Ian (2012) ‘Expletives not deleted: the profane satire of Armando Iannucci’s Veep’. New Yorker, 26 March. www.newyorker.com/ magazine/2012/03/26/expletives-not-deleted. Accessed 1 January 2020. Rosenberg, Alyssa (2015) ‘Why is British political satire so much sharper than American political comedy?’ Washington Post, 4 November. www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/11/04/why-is-britishpolitical-satire-so-much-sharper-than-American-politicalcomedy/. Accessed 1 January 2020. Saraiya, Sonia (2019) ‘How Veep did what Game of Thrones couldn’t’. Vanity Fair, 13 May. www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/05/game-ofthrones-Veep-selina-meyer-daenerys-targaryen. Accessed 1 January 2020. Schwartz, Erin (2019) ‘The last gaffe: Veep’s vicious political satire’. The Nation, 16 July. www.thenation.com/article/Veep-television-series-review/. Accessed 1 January 2020.

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Trench, Richard Chenevix (2002 [1852]) On the study of words. Blackmask Online. www.public-library.uk/ebooks/06/8.pdf. Weinbrot, Howard (2005) Menippean satire reconsidered: from antiquity to the eighteenth century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wild, Min (2008) Christopher Smart and satire: ‘Mary Midnight’ and the midwife. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing. Yamaguchi, Ryuichi (2004) Faulkner’s artistic vision: the bizarre and the terrible. Cranbury: Rosemont Publishing and Printing.

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Queer adventures in time and space: complicating simplicity in Doctor Who Benedict Morrison

The complexity of serial simplicities The varied history of Doctor Who (1963–89, 1996, 2005–present) makes reaching critical conclusions a complicated business. Radical changes in on-screen style and off-screen modes of production over the programme’s fifty-seven years have resulted in a television series that is unusually incoherent; the gravitational field that holds this mass of material together may seem to be no more than a shared title and a series of recurrent icons, most notably the TARDIS and the Daleks. Nevertheless, while treading carefully so as to avoid generalisations that might downplay the programme’s dynamic flexibility, this chapter suggests that much of Doctor Who is united by a shared querying of knowledge. This querying – or queering – makes visible and interrogates many normalising cultural assumptions. More particularly, the programme questions how such knowledge is produced and circulated televisually, responding to the conditions and constraints of its own medium specificity. This chapter focuses on what is typically referred to as the ‘classic’ series, which ran, more or less uninterrupted, from 1963 to 1989. The word ‘classic’ connotes both quality and a certain obsolescence. Allowing for this semantic slipperiness, the term is used here simply to signify – without evaluative judgement – the Doctor Who serials produced in those particular years. This is intended not to dismiss the new programme (2005–present) but rather to suggest that the classic and twenty-first-century regenerations of the series have subtly different relationships with notions of simplicity and complexity. Iain MacRury and Michael Rustin argue that the new series has a

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greater ‘ambition and depth in regard to human relationships and emotions’ and that ‘[i]t is notably different in this respect […] from the earlier series’ (2014: 1–2). They also identify the classic series’ somewhat rudimentary modes of production. These serials were predominantly shot on videotape in a multi-camera BBC studio. In the 1960s, episodes were largely shot as though live; unwieldy cameras made zooms impossible and smooth travelling shots difficult, and editing was achieved by cutting between camera feeds in real time, encouraging a simplicity of visual style. Even through the 1970s, the cost of video made significant post-production largely unavailable. This simplicity of visual style is complemented by a narrative and thematic simplicity; stories are typically linear, resolved and carry discernible messages. T.C. Worsley commended this straightforwardness in The Financial Times in 1965, celebrating the Daleks’ ‘beautiful simplicity’ (1965: 18) of design and narrative function. Allowing for the idea that simplicity can be beautiful, it is not my intention to argue that calling classic Doctor Who ‘simple’ is to underestimate it. This would depend on a mode of hierarchical thinking in which complexity is privileged over simplicity, and the two are seen as mutually exclusive. Instead, this chapter suggests that classic Doctor Who troubles this kind of dichotomous thinking. This is not a question of celebrating rich complexity over impoverished and impoverishing simplicity, but rather recognising the programme’s assault on the very binary logic that insists that a text must be either simple or complex. Doctor Who, as I shall go on to explain, is simple, but not simply simple. Instead of this kind of either/or binary, classic Doctor Who performs a more challenging both/and dynamic. This process can be seen at work even in the title of the programme. When Kim Newman writes that ‘[t]hough it lacks a question mark […] the title is not a name but a question’ (2005: 10), his argument does not address the title’s full complexities. The grammatical outrage of ‘Doctor Who’ is a provocation; it is not either a question (Doctor who?) or a partial statement (a doctor who does something), but somehow both/and, an utterance just outside meaning that upsets epistemological security (especially when it occurs in the opening title sequence accompanied by Bernard Lodge’s unsettling howlaround visuals and Delia Derbyshire’s eerie electronic arrangement of Ron Grainer’s score). Even as the title is almost caught in the act of



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meaning something, it always remains stubbornly not-quite or not-just; unable to signify the simple question, statement or name that it never only is, the title becomes a complex polysemy signifying a number of meanings simultaneously. Each of these meanings – question, statement, name – may be individually simple, but together they form a complexity.

Queering the box A more detailed articulation of the programme’s both/andness is offered in the series’ first episode, ‘An Unearthly Child’ (1963). Teachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) decide to visit the home of an unconventional student (Carole Ann Ford), and find that her address is that of a deserted junkyard. Inside, they come across a police box which vibrates unnervingly. An offhand old man (William Hartnell) enters the yard and denies knowledge of the girl. Ian and Barbara plan to fetch a police officer, but are stopped by the sound of their student’s voice coming from inside the police box. They burst through the doors – to discover an impossibly large interior. This rite of passage for the many companions who have joined the Doctor through the decades is now very familiar. It is still possible, though, to imagine the sense of strangeness that must have accompanied the sequence in 1963. The Doctor tries to explain the impossible physics of the box: DOCTOR: You don’t understand, so you find excuses. Illusions, indeed? You say you can’t fit an enormous building into one of your smaller sitting rooms? IAN: No. DOCTOR: But you’ve discovered television, haven’t you? IAN: Yes. DOCTOR: Then by showing an enormous building on your television screen, you can do what seemed impossible, couldn’t you? IAN: Well, yes, but I still don’t know.

Kim Newman describes this as ‘clunky dialogue’ and says that the Doctor delivers it ‘unhelpfully’ (2005: 17). This unhelpfulness is a result of the dizzying – though elegant – nonsense of the idea that

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the TARDIS’s dimensional transcendentalism is equivalent to the scaling down of a television image. On television, figures, objects and events exist as both recorded reality and constructed television image, but this dual identity is typically effaced, with the latter element suppressed in order to allow investment in the pleasures of the former. Doctor Who, from its first episode, explicitly makes both elements visible, allowing them to complicate each other. The TARDIS is both a time machine and the set for a television drama, not-just reality and not-just illusion. Each of these significances is simple in itself; brought into view together they become complexly self-reflexive. This is what Tat Wood refers to when he writes that ‘[t]he process of watching television has always been part of the programme’s rhetoric’ (2007: 101 n1). The programme makes its conceits visible and audible in such a way as to articulate both a sincere commitment to its narrative universe and an awareness of that universe’s construction. There are many conceptual or theoretical frameworks through which this both/and logic may be read. Noreen Giffney offers one route into the discussion when she writes that: The queer statement creates a space for reflection. It demands selfreflectivity and personal engagement. It refers beyond and outside itself. It is a question without a question mark. (2009: 2, my emphasis)

Doctor Who – whose title is a not-just question without a question mark and whose protagonist discusses his experiences through self-reflexive televisual parallels – is significantly queer. This is not the same discussion as those (many) critical responses to the programme which have concentrated on its (lack of) representation of LGBT+ characters or on the Doctor’s homoerotic relationships.1 This chapter sees queerness as the epistemological disturbance of binary either/or systems of knowledge. Queerness queers (or queries) the ways in which things are known and classic Doctor Who represents a sustained assault on the possibility of cut-and-dried categories such as reality and illusion – and simplicity and complexity. It delights mischievously in complicating the seeming-simplicity of everyday objects into icons of uncanny unfamiliarity, most particularly its police box, which today signifies only ‘TARDIS’ but in the 1960s and 1970s was both ‘TARDIS’ and the ‘police call box’ familiar from city streets. This uncanny doubleness is at the root of what

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Jim Leach calls ‘[t]he complexity – and the risks – of the way the television series addresses its audience’ (2009: 12). The categories of either/or knowledge undone by the operation of a queering both/and logic are customarily gathered under the umbrella term ‘normativity’, and most particularly ‘heteronormativity’. In his commentary on Doctor Who, Piers D. Britton defines heteronormativity as ‘that cluster of institutional practices which enjoy authority as unquestioned norms in contemporary societies [… producing] stable, absolute categories which do not need to be explained or qualified because they are “natural”’ (2011: 113). Normalisation is a process which effaces complex variation and difference in favour of a simplistic account of a homogenous world. The simplistic – which gives an excessive impression of straightforwardness structured on an exclusion or denial of difference – is privileged over the simple; the simple can retain a quality of contradiction or out-of-placeness, and simple objects may cohere in constellations of complexity that challenge the normative. Britton identifies Doctor Who’s anti-normative queerness principally with the simplebut-inconsistent characters of the Doctor and his companions, as does Alan McKee, who suggests that the role of the Doctor ‘offers a unique possibility to be an alien: to refuse conventions’ (2007: 240). This, however, is a simplification of the network of complications at work in the programme. Queerness is not only, or even principally, a function of character. To queer is to make visible and audible irregular structures, those unconventional orientations and inclinations which signify the inadequacy of simplistic binary thinking. To queer is to complicate the normalising logic of prevailing ideologies, including those transmitted through the softly ideological lens of the television set. This ideological lens, as described by Glyn Davis and Gary Needham, has been explored in the ‘considerable literature’ which sees television as ‘a domestic medium and, as such, closely associated with the home, the family, the quotidian; in other words, the heteronormative’ (2007: 6). This literature argues that interpellating normative statements on either/or gender, desire and exceptional individuality – authenticated by the medium’s sense of liveness – are circulated through television.2 Alec Charles associates this liveness with the ideological danger of a reactionary postmodern ahistoricality that collapses complex historical structures and offers, instead, a

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space in which disparate moments are fused simplistically into one dense simultaneous moment without any sense of sequence or progress. Charles’s vision is of a television that is ‘the cultural equivalent of the atom bomb’ (2007: 114), a mechanism which produces a dystopian historical denial ‘in which a late imperialist nation might hearken back to its days of glory’ (2007: 114) by being liberated from any complex account of its past. Citing the Doctor’s moral superiority, self-declared cultural maturity and interventionist approach, Charles claims that the programme’s ‘covert project (buried beneath a host of liberal platitudes) is to restore and sustain the greatness, or the dregs, of the British Empire’ (2007: 120). Classic Doctor Who’s both/and liberation from binary thinking, however, is not a simplistic denial of the past; it is a liberation into queer play that insists on a radical re-evaluation of the ideas that underpin prevailing cultural attitudes. This unsettling re-evaluation could lead to what Leach describes as parents’ fear of ‘television as an invasion of domestic space’ (2009: 14). Doctor Who – with its complex assertions that time is bent, space is remappable and reality is also (televisual) narration – interrogates the grand narratives which Jean-François Lyotard argues provide totalising, simplistic worldviews. When the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) gleefully delights in hearing ‘the sound of empires toppling’ in ‘The Happiness Patrol’ (1988), it is fantasies of regimenting normativity that are collapsing. Doctor Who does not deny the existence of the past, but understands that history is always-already also complex narrative.

This corral is not-quite OK Classic Doctor Who’s queering both/and self-reflexiveness is not only – indeed, is not principally – a function of its explicit narrative content. Brian J. Robb argues that the programme’s ‘critique of television’ (2009: 107) happens in only a number of exceptional adventures, including ‘The Three Doctors’ (1972) and ‘Carnival of Monsters’ (1973). However, although a serial such as ‘Vengeance on Varos’ (1985) may be more overtly about television (with its depiction of a dystopian culture in thrall to violent reality TV), it is not more importantly about television than countless other Doctor Who stories. Registering the subtler operation of both/andness requires

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the kind of close reading of the programme that critics have often avoided, seemingly squeamish about lavishing such attention on a series as famous for its bad production values as its good ideas. This chapter argues in favour of close reading, not least because the binary thinking good/bad is one of the redundant dichotomies critiqued by the programme. I will analyse a sequence from early in ‘A Holiday for the Doctor’, the first episode of the 1966 serial ‘The Gunfighters’, written by Donald Cotton and starring William Hartnell in his last full season as the Doctor. Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles describe it as a western, ‘one of the first to be made in an electronic studio, and certainly the first to be made by BBC Television’ (2006: 261). The Doctor, Steven (Peter Purves) and Dodo (Jackie Lane) arrive in Tombstone, ostensibly in 1881, just in time to witness the events leading up to the gunfight at the OK Corral. Suffering from toothache, the Doctor visits the dental saloon of Doc Holliday (Anthony Jacobs), as a result of which he is mistaken for Holliday and attacked by the Clantons (William Hurndell, Maurice Good and David Cole) in revenge for the death of their brother. Assuming largely passive roles, the Doctor and his companions watch as events run their course and Holliday and the Earp brothers (John Alderson and Victor Carin) kill the Clantons and Johnny Ringo (Laurence Payne) in a climactic shootout. Perhaps extraordinarily, given the rather grim narrative, the serial is played as comedy. I have not chosen this serial because of what Wood and Miles describe as its ‘gay subtexts’ (2006: 268) but because of its playful queering of systems of knowledge. I would also, following the lead of the Doctor who champions the misunderstood and oppressed, like to defend a serial which has often been dismissed critically. Peter Haining writes that ‘the cumulative effect of so many bad points [script, acting and direction] which on their own would be forgiven’ made the serial ‘so poor’ (1983: 180); in a joke considerably less sophisticated than those in the serial’s script, he goes on to say that ‘[i]t was not good. It was bad and it was ugly’ (1983: 180). Although he is mistaken that the serial had the worst viewing figures ever, his argument has been echoed by commentators since.3 John Kenneth Muir writes that the serial ‘is famous in Doctor Who annals as the worst episode of the entire series’ (1999: 125). There have, since then, been attempts to reclaim the serial: Wood and Miles

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begin their commentary with the faint praise that ‘it isn’t the worst Doctor Who story ever made’ (2006: 261). They go on to suggest that earlier critics ‘missed the point’ of the serial, failing to get the joke or to spot redeeming features, notably in the script and performances. They agree, however, that enjoyment has to contend with the serial’s shaky handling of mode and genre as a result of the crudeness of BBC television production in the 1960s. The sequence in ‘A Holiday for the Doctor’ begins with the first encounter between Sheriff Bat Masterson (Richard Beale) and outlaw Doc Holliday; Masterson warns Holliday to cause no trouble. As Holliday returns to his new dental saloon, Marshal Wyatt Earp arrives with the Doctor, Steven, and Dodo. The Doctor explains their presence and is directed to the dentist by Masterson. This undramatic sequence introduces a reading frame for the serial which complicates the view of those critics who have dismissed the story as simplistic. It begins with a low shot of Masterson’s boots and the town beyond, emphatic reiterations of key generic signifiers (see Figure 8.1). The boots which cowboys wear (and may well die in)

8.1  Doctor Who: Genre signifiers in ‘The Gunfighters’.

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are a synecdoche familiar from countless shootouts, signifying status and the inexorable progress of destiny. The set stretches away into the not-quite convincing distance of a painted backdrop, with what designer Barry Newbery describes as all the ‘basic conventions of the Western’ (quoted in Howe, Stammers and Walker 1994: 129). Before this moment, the episode has already presented cowboys on horses (in an insert pre-filmed in a larger studio), a saloon and a fast-drawing lawman. The sequence seems to be comfortably anchored, its characters and the genre-specific revenge narrative in which they feature legible according to the conventions of the western. Genre seems to form meaning and audience expectations by aligning signifiers in either/or positions that produce a predictable set of values. The western – with its concomitant myths of masculinity, femininity, heterosexual desire and otherness – is culturally familiar and invoked through a series of borrowed icons, neither originating within nor regularly featured in Doctor Who. Alongside this parade of genre signifiers, the sequence foregrounds Rex Tucker’s direction. As Masterson moves forward to speak to Holliday and his girlfriend Kate (Sheena Marshe), the camera, remaining low, tracks to the right, motivated by but not imitative of the character’s movement. It is an eye-catching gesture, its fluidity made all the more remarkable by the fact that it is realised on cameras that were notoriously difficult to operate.4 There is a cut to a high shot, looking down on Masterson (left) as he greets Holliday and Kate (right). Caught in long shot, they become distant, figures on a set rather than individualised characters. The two shots together – one ground-sweepingly low, the other distance-creatingly high – draw attention to the fact of looking; the jarring shift in perspective declares both virtuosic camera technique and the significance of perspective. This narratively gratuitous and self-consciously composed style runs throughout ‘The Gunfighters’; the first episode’s opening shot, in which the Clanton Brothers ride into Tombstone, is filmed from beneath a cart, drawing attention to the space from which the action is being viewed (see Figure 8.2). The left side of the frame is segmented by the spokes of a cartwheel and the top third is obscured by the underside of the cart, creating the effect of a widescreen ratio, more commonly associated with the cinematic western by 1966 than the squarer ratio of the television frame, announcing its status as spectacle.5

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8.2  Doctor Who: Widescreen television spectacle in ‘The Gunfighters’.

The following rhythmic exchange between Masterson (in medium close-up) and Holliday and Kate (in medium shot) contrasts dynamically with the complex previous shots. Ian Potter, in his detailed discussion of Doctor Who’s studio aesthetics, argues that with multiple cameras ‘the reverse reaction shot we’re used to in film drama can’t be easily achieved without the presence of other cameras or the absence of a far wall to the set being revealed’ (2007: 163). Nevertheless, this exchange does achieve an approximation of the simplistic seamlessness of the shot/reverse-shot. The edit pulses in time with the passing of authority between Masterson, asserting his status as lawman, and Holliday, undercutting with claims that he is now going straight as a dentist. Order is cemented by formal continuity and the generically familiar back and forth of the dialogue. But this order is punctured, after Holliday and Kate exit, by the arrival of Earp, Dodo, the Doctor and Steven. Compositional neatness dissipates as the four characters hurry along a walkway. Earp and Dodo are out in front, and the Doctor and Steven lag behind. The camera pans left to accommodate their movement, but Steven remains largely

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8.3  Doctor Who: A tight frame in ‘The Gunfighters’.

excluded. The 4:3 television ratio does not permit the moving group to share the frame, giving the impression of fragmented space. As Masterson explains to Earp what has been happening, there is a return to his carefully composed medium close-up; for a moment, he dominates both the frame and the conversation. As he asks who the Doctor and his companions are, a cut introduces a huddled five shot, in which Masterson, the Doctor, Earp, Dodo and Steven uncomfortably share the frame (see Figure 8.3). Masterson is half forced out of shot, the Doctor is somewhat dwarfed by Earp, Steven is largely blocked by Dodo, and Dodo is fully in profile leaving her expression largely illegible. Unlike the effectively infinite scale of the TARDIS interior or the enormity of time and space, the inside of the television frame is a rather snug fit for so many companions. This is television space, and its limits are felt as the order, stability and room of the earlier alternating shots are lost. As the Doctor introduces his companions, he moves forward slightly towards Dodo, and the camera pans right and tracks in slightly to follow him. Masterson – dominant earlier in the sequence – is lost from the

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frame. The Doctor represents a presence in Tombstone that upsets Masterson’s simplistic order, and part of this complex disorder is formal.

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The cabinet of Doctor Who In the sequence, the dialogue reinforces the effect of this disorder. In a grand run of invention, the Doctor introduces Dodo as ‘Miss Dodo Dupont, wizard of the ivory keys’ and Steven as ‘Steven Regret, tenor’. This invention is an unnecessary complication, and later results in confused identities and both companions being separately abducted. The Doctor moves left towards Masterson; again the camera pans with him, and this time Masterson is reinstated in the frame and Steven and Dodo are lost. The Doctor, asserting authority with the lightest of touches, lays his hand on Masterson’s shoulder, a gestural intimacy captured in a reasonably tight shot. When the camera settles, Masterson (left), the Doctor (right) and Earp (back centre) are framed in what Potter describes as ‘the classic Coronation Street three shot with two characters framed tightly in discussion (typically in three-quarter profile) with a third overhearing, seen full-face directly between them’ (2007: 164). It is in this composition – so familiar in multi-camera television productions – that the Doctor performs his most outrageous feat of imaginative re-creation by introducing himself as ‘Doctor Caligari’, the eponymous character in Robert Wiene’s 1920 film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Hartnell pauses before delivering the name, accenting the word and allowing it both its strangeness and its funniness. The name summons up a complex of connotations: the madman with a cabinet, the head of an insane asylum, the protagonist of a horror film and an Expressionist cinema in which objective reality is subordinated to the histrionic designs of a world that makes manifest the emotional confusions of an individual mind. Caligari is a both/and character: both head of the asylum and its most dangerous inhabitant, both scientist and necromancer, both villain and hero, a series of individually simple identities made complex by their plurality and combination. This reference to Caligari lurches the sequence sideways into an alternative world. Early Doctor Who stories are often divided according to a simplistic critical schema into either science fiction

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adventures or historicals. According to this taxonomy, ‘The Gunfighters’ is a historical; it has no science fiction element beyond the TARDIS, which plays no narrative role beyond allowing the time travellers to reach the historical moment. However, it follows on immediately from ‘The Celestial Toymaker’ (1966), a serial that James Chapman argues is a rare example of a ‘displacement narrative’ and ‘an excursion into pure fantasy rather than science fiction proper’ (2006: 42). Such sideways stories, as Doctor Who’s original production team referred to them, are complex when it comes to their decoding; they do not follow the formula of the science fiction adventures or the preordained narrative structures of the historicals. In ‘The Celestial Toymaker’, the eponymous character (Michael Gough), like Caligari, is a both/and character: witty and sinister, playful and deadly, childish and ancient. A linking narrative concerning the Doctor’s toothache connects ‘The Celestial Toymaker’ with ‘A Holiday for the Doctor’. The complex-because-unformulaic logic of the Toyroom – a fantastic, contradictory, queer world in which the Doctor and his companions play games for their lives – seeps into the next adventure, the Doctor’s tooth a synecdochic memento of its uncomfortable disorder. A residual sideways potential is activated when the Doctor self-identifies as Doctor Caligari, transforming himself into a temporally complex fiction, a piece of silent film history (from the perspective of a 1966 viewer) and a not-yet imagined piece of technological future (from the perspective of the inhabitants of Tombstone in the 1880s). He is an imaginary character who imagines himself as another imaginary character who, within the film narrative in which he appears, is the imagined construct of a madman’s imagination. The Doctor’s awkward positioning in the cramped cabinet of the television frame supports an alternative reading, one which dispenses with the crude binary of historical/science fiction. When Robb, like Chapman, argues that the ‘sideways adventures’ remained ‘largely unexplored’ (2009: 47), he needlessly limits what constitutes a sideways story. An alternative view of sidewaysness might consider not only sideways diegetic movements in space/time but also the disorientating sideways perspectives from which the mechanisms of Doctor Who’s televisuality come into view. In a 1966 review of ‘The Gunfighters’, Bill Norris argues that the ‘setting is supposed to be that toughest of Western towns, but it is all too evident that it is situated in the

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BBC studios and that Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday and the Clanton boys are no further west than W.12’ (1966: 14). Nearly forty years later, David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker comment on how the serial’s ‘illusion’ is spoilt by ‘the obvious difficulty of trying to realise a Western on Doctor Who’s relatively small budget and without the benefit of any location work’ (2003: 127). But it is in the visibility of the BBC studio – with its accompanying air of constructedness – that ‘The Gunfighters’ queers and complicates its simple elements. The transparency of the artifice is precisely in sympathy with the Doctor’s statement two and a half years earlier that time and space and impossible science are televisual. ‘The Gunfighters’ fails as a historical because, even as they are history, its events are also a television reconstruction taking liberties with historical record for dramatic effect. The Doctor is in Tombstone, but he is also in a BBC studio; Steven and Dodo are in character, but they are also in unconvincing costumes; Doc Holliday is in danger, but in the final gunfight he is also able to walk through a hail of bullets with a staggering disregard for verisimilitude, not because ‘the Clantons all turn out to be dreadful shots’ as Howe and Walker disparagingly suggest (2003: 128) but because this is a glimpse of history from a sideways perspective that shows how it is put together, with both its pastness (Doc Holliday’s victory at the OK Corral) and its televisuality (the mythical invulnerability of exceptional individuals) made visible. The ‘alternate realities’ (2007: 12) which David Butler argues are fundamental to the sideways stories should include the alternative reality of television production. And as the techniques of television illusionism are laid bare they are made dysfunctional; the simplistic narrative formulas, generic conventions and technical trends, which may typically provide reading frames to support meaning, are complicated through exposure and the series’ meanings become contingent. It does not mean anything that Steven’s costume is unconvincing, any more than it means something that the giant rats of ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’ (1977), the Myrka of ‘Warriors of the Deep’ (1984) or the sentient trees of ‘The Mark of the Rani’ (1985) are unconvincing. Their quasi-meaning becomes only that they reveal how all television meaning is artificial. Queer sidewaysness offers a disorientating vision of television’s processes that reveals normalising meanings to be cultural products.

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In its early years, classic Doctor Who was particularly interested in television’s contribution to the making of history. The historicals are often read as flagship exercises in the BBC’s duty of public education and information, according to the public service broadcasting ideals laid down in its charter.6 But history in Doctor Who, even before ‘The Gunfighters’, dispels the idea of objective history: ‘Marco Polo’ (1964) is lavish costume drama with subjective voice-over narration, ‘The Aztecs’ (1964) is tragedy, ‘The Reign of Terror’ (1964) is darkly comic adventure serial, ‘The Romans’ (1965) is farce and ‘The Myth Makers’ (1965) is mythological high comedy. In each case, history is a discursive product and not a naturally fixed phenomenon. The Doctor’s early claims that history cannot be changed (see ‘The Aztecs’) are quickly complicated. Doctor Who – with its stagey sets, theatrical costumes and studio aesthetic – makes visible the discursive processes through which it makes history by telling it. As Dodo and Steven meet Masterson, wearing the fabricated identities of Dodo Dupont and Steven Regret, they are also standing in a set that looks set up and wearing costumes that Norris calls ‘laughable’ (1966: 14) and Wood and Miles consider to be ‘stage costumes rather than historical pieces’ (2006: 262). The episode’s initial glimpse of authenticity (the pre-filmed prologue with horses and a greater sense of space) is ruptured by the arrival of the TARDIS and the new performative regime that the Doctor and his companions usher in. After their arrival, horses are reduced to an unconvincing din of clip-clops on a relentless soundtrack, despite the fact that no horses (or even hoof marks) can be seen. The histrionic costumes connote genre performance rather than history; earlier in the episode, the Doctor asks Steven and Dodo why they ‘have to dress [themselves] up like Tom Mix’, who was a cowboy both in life and in fiction film. Mix – his surname appropriately connoting combination and confusion – becomes a momentary signifier for a tension between simple realness and simple fakery which complicates reading. What have been seen as design flaws ensure that the serial’s presentation of history, politics and ethics self-reflexively and complexly comments on its status as presentation. Kim Newman points out how Steven ‘treats the Tombstone of Wyatt Earp as a theme park and enjoys dressing and talking as if he were a character in a Western movie’ (2005: 22). Whilst Doctor Who may not escape the normalising

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ideological function of television, it keeps that function in view. The Doctor may be travelling in a time machine, but he posts regular reminders that he is also always travelling inside a television set. Such a reminder comes immediately after the Doctor’s outrageous self-identification as Doctor Caligari. Masterson, understandably ignorant of the anachronistic reference to German Expressionism, says: ‘Doctor who?’ This not-quite reiteration of the programme’s title – reproduced explicitly as a question – interrupts the immediate narrative, uncomfortably making the extra-diegetic title part of the diegetic world for a moment. But the Doctor’s response – ‘Yes, quite right’ – meaninglessly, mischievously mistakes the pronoun ‘who’ for a name which he is, momentarily, willing to embrace. He complicates this further: ‘I’ve just been satisfying the Sheriff here that we are a humble troupe of travelling players’. The Doctor’s identity has veered from Doctor Caligari to Doctor Who and now to that of an actor, a figure of many and changing roles, always both character and performer. (Shortly after this, it will lurch again when the Doctor is mistaken for Doc Holliday; it is significant that the extra-diegetic episode title ‘A Holiday for the Doctor’ contains a pun in which the identity of the word ‘Holiday’ is also confused.) The Doctor informs Masterson that he and his ‘troupe’ are currently ‘between engagements’. Invited by the metatheatrical conceit, this betweenness suggests that the characters are between adventures (having defeated the Toymaker and not yet encountered the threat posed by the Clanton family). In the early years of classic Doctor Who, with longer running-times for stories than in the contemporary series and consequently more time for gradual exposition and atmosphere-building, first episodes often had a sense of betweenness, in which a serial’s main narrative is not-quite fully under way (such as in the narratives of exploration in the opening episodes to ‘The Daleks’ (1963–64), ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ (1974), and ‘The Ark in Space’ (1975)). These lines from the Doctor introduce an explicit awareness of performativity, intimating the disorientating idea that the time travellers have travelled not straightforwardly to the American nineteenth century but also sideways into a western. It is a world in which smarttalking fast-shooters can walk through a hail of bullets, everyone can play the piano and accents are performed (unconvincingly). Far from being a unique achievement in the history of Doctor Who, this

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is the same approach to history as in such serials as ‘Pyramids of Mars’ (1975) and ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’, neither of which is meaningfully set in nineteenth-century England; in the former, the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Sarah-Jane (Elisabeth Sladen) travel into the horror genre of mummies and Egyptian tombs, and, in the latter, the Doctor and Leela (Louise Jameson) find themselves in late Victorian sensationalism complete with sub-Sherlock Holmes detectives, music hall acts and inscrutable Tongs. This pseudo-nineteenth-century is also a generic – and not simply a historic – space, what Daniel O’Mahony calls ‘genre-as-history […] in a late nineteenth century that never was’ (2007: 63). Although Robb takes the common critical line of identifying these as ‘English literary archetypes’ (2009: 140–1), they are also televisual genres; ‘The Gunfighters’ was shown in a decade in which ‘thirty-five separate western series were premiered on American television’ in 1960 alone (Wood and Miles 2006: 264), and the later exercises in gothic Victoriana were part of the same schedule as popular anthology series such as A Ghost Story for Christmas (BBC, 1971–78), Supernatural (BBC, 1977) and The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (ITV, 1971; 1973).7 At this point, Masterson seeks to reclaim authority. A cut reinstates him as the sole occupant of the frame; a static close-up reconfirms that the shots which privilege the sheriff are less fluid than those that favour the Doctor. This formal reintroduction of predictable order coincides with Masterson’s attempt to regain control narratively as he tells the Doctor to ‘keep a-travellin’’ as ‘there ain’t no theatre in Tombstone’. He does not realise that Tombstone is a theatre, gripped by an ontological menace that is ready to expose it as a generic fantasy. (In the final gunfight, Ringo’s last line, after he has been fatally shot by Holliday, is that he will do better ‘next time’; when this figure – a historical reality but one who was not, in fact, at the gunfight at the OK Corral – gets to play the role again, he will play it more effectively.) Masterson’s attempt at restoring order – complemented formally by the close-up – is lost as the three-shot of Masterson, Earp, and the Doctor returns, and the Doctor refuses to leave town because he must find a dentist. Sheriff Masterson looks awkwardly at his watch and loses his close-up as Doctor Who, as it so often does, questions traditional forms of authority. From this point, the huddled group shot – a simple arrangement which Potter identifies with a specifically television aesthetic

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– dominates. As the Doctor issues the performative imperative to ‘Come, fellow thespians!’, the camera pulls back and pans right, all but expunging Masterson from the frame; in a sequence which has been so conscious of names (Dodo Dupont, Steven Regret, Doctor Caligari, Doctor Who), it is ironic that Masterson’s mastery is by now all but spent. He languishes at the extreme left of the frame, while Wyatt Earp dips his head forward, his hat brim shading most of his face. As the time-travelling, self-aware thespians move off to the right, the camera pans left a little to accommodate Masterson more comfortably, although even in this adjusted frame he and Earp are still placed rather awkwardly at right angles to each other. Earp’s final words of the sequence are dramatically prescient: ‘You ‘n’ me’s headed for a load of trouble, boy’. This moment of sincere engagement with the high dramatic stakes of the narrative situation is almost immediately complicated. As Earp and Masterson begin to move away down the street, a cut ushers in a return to the sequence’s opening set-up: a low shot, tracking right and panning left, emphasising the camera’s operation and the men’s diminished stature within the (clearly artificial) set; the coming trouble is contextualised as television trouble. The men’s departure is accompanied by a reprise of the most startling aspect of the serial’s soundtrack: ‘The ballad of the Last Chance Saloon’, sung by Lynda Baron, which runs throughout the four episodes. The ballad represents one of classic Doctor Who’s rare uses of explicit narration. It enjoys a vertiginously fluctuating relationship with the diegesis: as retrospective non-diegetic commentary, non-diegetic dramatic irony, non-diegetic scene-setting, and diegetic performance (as Steven and Dodo are forced to perform it at gunpoint by the Clantons). Here, as the camera sweeps the studio floor before fading to black, Baron sings: On your way then, you lawmen, The time will be soon, When there’s blood upon the sawdust In the Last Chance Saloon.

The ballad here, despite its simple form and lexis, is complicated by its speaking to the action and not just about it; the imperative ‘On your way then, you lawmen’ suggests that the song somehow motivates action. By predicting the violence to come, the ballad

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occupies a disorientating temporality and represents the most sustained self-reflexive conceit within the serial. When Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping point out that the ballad contains the anachronistic line ‘earning your gunfighter’s wings’ (a phrase ‘coined in WWI’ (1995: 56)), they miss the point that the ballad’s temporal confusion is always-already anachronistic, a reminder that this history is being televisually narrated. The ballad has been consistently disparaged since 1966. Sydney Newman (Head of Drama at the BBC and one of the original creators of Doctor Who) wrote a memo two days after the first transmission of the serial’s last episode in which he argued that ‘every time the story began to gallop, it was slowed down to a desperate crawl by the use of the song’ (quoted in Howe and Walker 2003: 126). Howe and Walker describe it as a ‘particular irritation’ and quote Ian K. McLachlan writing in 1981 that ‘“a ballad singer wailing in the background spoils the illusion!”’ (2003: 127). These commentaries miss the crucial point that this irritating interruption of illusion, this interference with the galloping story, this puncturing of a credible historical account, is one of the serial’s conceits for drawing attention to its own constructedness: set and costume design, grandstanding camera virtuosity, small-screen blocking, histrionic performance style and metatelevisual references in the dialogue. Even though their specific realisation may be distinctive to ‘The Gunfighters’, such conceits are common in classic Doctor Who. The classic series is insistently both immersive story (Sydney Newman admits that it gallops at points) and television product, adding up to a complex double meaning. I cannot agree with McKee when he writes that: Doctor Who should not be judged by the fact that its sets are obviously sets, that its models are obviously models, that its forms of representation are so resolutely non-naturalistic. The programme doesn’t claim to be visually stunning. (2007: 234)

McKee’s argument that there should be an exclusive focus, instead, on storytelling diminishes the important queering effect of Doctor Who’s eye-catching visuals. What McKee describes as ‘the amateurism of the production’ (2007: 239) I see as the programme’s wearing of its televisuality with a kind of irreverent and self-aware wit that chooses to share the secrets of its tricks. Even Hartnell’s regular

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fluffing of his lines (entirely understandable, even without the explanation of his ill-health, given the staggering pressure of recording episodes as-live for over forty weeks a year) becomes a disturbance of seamlessness. The rudimentary elements of the classic series which are most routinely apologised for or, indeed, condemned as simplistic can be reclaimed as achievements which queer simple narratives and make them always-also complex statements on the function of television. What Britton refers to as the ‘“television-shaped” limitations upon Doctor Who’s epic tendencies’ which must be ‘offset’ (2011: 163) can be reclaimed as television-shaped enquiries into the production of knowledge and meaning.

The myth makers Doctor Who, like all television drama, is a myth-making apparatus (re)producing significant knowledges about history, politics and ethics. But Doctor Who does not simply circulate and naturalise these knowledges. Whether its conceits are intentional or unintentional, the programme makes the process of myth-making visible and resists becoming complicit in the process of televisual normalisation. (It is interesting that the writer Donald Cotton’s earlier contribution to Doctor Who is called ‘The Myth Makers’.) This self-reflexive self-interrogation continues throughout the classic series. Britton, discussing the transitions between the in-studio world of Gallifrey and the on-film world of the Matrix in ‘The Deadly Assassin’ (1976), comments that: If much of the force of the contrast between the two environments […] was clearly intended, one divergence was beyond the programme makers’ control. The grain difference between location footage shot on film and studio material recorded on video was always palpable and sometimes glaring in television made during the 1970s and 1980s. (2011: 168)

The familiarly uncomfortable transitions between the very different grains of filmed location sequences and videotaped interior sequences can be reclaimed not as an embarrassing flaw but another jolting reminder of the televisuality of even compelling life-and-death action. Through the 1980s, the visible marks of studio recording continued

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to contribute a sideways glimpse of the structures behind the diegetic world in such stories as ‘The Mark of the Rani’ (1985), ‘The Happiness Patrol’ and ‘Ghost Light’ (1989), reminders respectively that constructed histories of capitalist industrialisation, fascism and empire are simplistic narratives to be queered. The achievements in performance, design, cinematography and sound in Doctor Who are simple individually; this simplicity may be elegant or awkward, ranging from the impressive design of the Daleks to the embarrassing wobble of insubstantial sets, and are worthy of attention and appraisal in their own right. My argument is that through their discontinuous combination and attention-drawing self-reflexivity they are also complex. The discontinuities of the Doctor Who universe, seen from a sideways perspective, can be appreciated as queer(ing) achievements. Classic Doctor Who regenerates aesthetically and generically between Doctor-defined eras, between seasons, between serials, even between episodes as during ‘The Daleks’, which begins as a political allegory and becomes a B-Movie adventure serial, and ‘The Stones of Blood’ (1978), which begins as a Hammer-style gothic horror and becomes a science fiction courtroom comedy drama. The classic series veers wildly – especially in its early days – from genre to genre with a discontinuity as unpredictable as the Doctor’s bodily transformation during regeneration. It becomes what Kim Newman calls ‘BBC-TV’s most eccentric saga, at once cosily familiar and cosmically terrifying’ (2005: 3). Even attempts to define the continuity of an era (the monster era of the Second Doctor, the gothic era of the Fourth Doctor and so on) are disturbed by too many exceptions (such as the political drama of ‘The Enemy of the World’ (1967) and the light thriller of ‘The Android Invasion’ (1975)). Successive serials introduce disorientating new lexicons of genre signifiers. The usually sotto voce mechanisms of television production, genre and history are revealed as reading frames that constrain understanding. Doctor Who represents a long moment – or disjointed series of moments – in which glimpses are given of the momentous ideological function of television. Robb suggests that Doctor Who in the 1960s comprises ‘Flash Gordon serial-style scripting’ (2009: 112). He misses the ways in which ‘The Gunfighters’, along with much of classic Doctor Who, is also a queering assault on epistemological systems. Such heteronormative myths as masculine power, familial honour and cultural

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exceptionalism are shown up by bad accents, good jokes, corny costumes and a Doctor who knows that the world he wanders is a television set. This failure to produce compelling illusion – allowing the scrutiny of assumptions so often covered over by television’s uninterrupted flow – can be productively considered in the light of Roland Barthes’s definition of myth: In passing from history to nature, myth acts economically: it abolishes the complexity of human acts, it gives them the simplicity of essences, it does away with all dialectics, with any going back beyond what is immediately visible, it organises a world which is without contradictions because it is without depth, a world wide open and wallowing in the evident, it establishes a blissful clarity: things appear to mean something by themselves. (1972: 143)

Barthes seems to disparage simplicity here, but his analysis is more subtle than that. The simplicity disparaged is a simplistic univocality – normative and normalising – which does not allow for contradiction. Queerness’s both/and complex of simplicities is anti-mythological. Doctor Who, despite the seeming Manichaeism of its heroes-versusmonsters storylines, does not produce a universe of blissful clarity. The mythologised world described by Barthes is entirely legible: things mean something by themselves. Doctor Who, to a remarkable degree, remains stubbornly illegible. In ‘The Gunfighters’, the very elements that have so often been critically condemned, ignored or apologised for – strangely inappropriate humour, historical inaccuracy, unnaturalistic performance styles, artificial mise-en-scène, a television studio aesthetic – are precisely the elements which make reading the serial complicated. The comfort of a blissfully, clearly readable text is denied, and what is offered in its place is a text that is a constant reminder of how history is always the product of a writing process and open to rereading, along with its exclusionary assumptions about gender and sexuality.

Notes 1 See Ellis and Thomas (2013), Hills (2010: 34–8) and Jowett (2017: 87–94). 2 New Doctor Who explores the dangers of television absorbing the viewer’s identity in ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’ (2006).

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3 Audience appreciation figures were, however, unusually low (see Wood and Miles 2006: 268). 4 Much 1960s Doctor Who was shot in the Lime Grove Studios (particularly Studio D), a small and poorly resourced space, and the slightly superior Studio 1 at Riverside Studios. ‘A Holiday for the Doctor’ was shot in ‘the slightly larger Studio Four at BBC Television Centre’ (Wood and Miles 2006: 270), but this did not offer more sophisticated camera equipment. 5 Sergio Leone had explored this widescreen aesthetic – as well as other elements of the genre’s iconography, visual rhetoric and structural conventions – in his Dollars trilogy, released in the years leading up to ‘The Gunfighters’: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). 6 Bignell (2007) complicates Doctor Who’s relationship with traditions of public service broadcasting. 7 It is significant that the television westerns imported from America were filmed series made on location; the sense of self-reflexive strangeness in ‘The Gunfighters’ was enhanced by the comparison.

References Barthes, Roland (1972) Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. London: Cape. Bignell, Jonathan (2007) ‘The child as addressee, viewer and consumer in mid-1960s Doctor Who’. In David Butler (ed.) Time and relative dissertations in space: critical perspectives on Doctor Who. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 43–55. Britton, Piers D. (2011) TARDISbound: navigating the universes of Doctor Who. London: I.B. Tauris. Butler, David (ed.) (2007) Time and relative dissertations in space: critical perspectives on Doctor Who. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Chapman, James (2006) Inside the TARDIS: the worlds of Doctor Who. London: I.B. Tauris. Charles, Alec (2007) ‘The Ideology of anachronism: television, history and the nature of time.’ In David Butler (ed.) Time and relative dissertations in space: critical perspectives on Doctor Who. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 108–22. Cornell, Paul, Martin Day and Keith Topping (1995) The DisContinuity guide. London: Virgin. Davis, Glyn and Gary Needham (eds) (2007) Queer TV: theories, histories, politics. London: Routledge.

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Ellis, Sigrid and Michael Damian Thomas (eds) (2013) Queers dig Time Lords. Des Moines: Mad Norwegian. Giffney, Noreen (2009) ‘Introduction: The “q” word’. In Noreen Giffney and Michael O’Rourke (eds) The Ashgate companion to queer theory. London: Routledge, pp. 1–16. Haining, Peter (1983) Doctor Who, a celebration: two decades through time and space. London: Virgin. Hills, Matt (2010) Triumph of a Time Lord: regenerating Doctor Who in the twenty-first century. London: I.B. Tauris. Howe, David J., Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1994) The handbook: the first Doctor. London: Virgin. Howe, David J. and Stephen James Walker (2003) The television companion: the unofficial and unauthorised guide to Doctor Who. Tolworth: Telos. Jowett, Lorna (2017) Dancing with the Doctor: dimensions of gender in the Doctor Who universe. London: I.B. Tauris. Leach, Jim (2009) Doctor Who. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. MacRury, Iain and Michael Rustin (2014) The inner world of Doctor Who: psychoanalytic reflections in time and space. London: Karnac. McKee, Alan (2007) ‘Why is “City of Death” the best Doctor Who story?’ In David Butler (ed.) Time and relative dissertations in space: critical perspectives on Doctor Who. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 233–45. Muir, John Kenneth (1999) A critical history of Doctor Who on television. Jefferson: McFarland. Newman, Kim (2005) Doctor Who. London: BFI. Norris, Bill (1966) ‘Mistake to go West with Dr. Who’. Stage and Television Today, 19 May, p. 14. O’Mahony, Daniel (2007) ‘“Now how is that wolf able to impersonate a grandmother?”: history, pseudo-history and genre in Doctor Who’. In David Butler (ed.) Time and relative dissertations in space: critical perspectives on Doctor Who. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 56–67. Potter, Ian (2007) ‘The Filipino army’s advance on Reykjavík: world-building in Studio D and its legacy.’ In David Butler (ed.) Time and relative dissertations in space: critical perspectives on Doctor Who. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 161–76. Robb, Brian J. (2009) Timeless adventures: how Doctor Who conquered TV. Harpenden: Kamera. Wood, Tat (2007) ‘The empire of the senses: narrative form and point-of-view in Doctor Who.’ In David Butler (ed.) Time and relative dissertations



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in space: critical perspectives on Doctor Who. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 56–67. Wood, Tat and Lawrence Miles (2006) About time: the unauthorized guide to Doctor Who – 1963–1966 – Seasons 1–3. Des Moines: Mad Norwegian. Worsley, T.C. (1965) ‘I overcame my allergy to science fiction to watch the new Dr. Who series’. Financial Times, 6 January, p. 18.

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Vanity Fair and the contradictions of colour Jonathan Bignell

In December 1967, in five Saturday evening episodes on the BBC2 channel, the first colour drama serial in the UK was broadcast. It was an adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1848 novel Vanity Fair, and this chapter evaluates the colour in Vanity Fair using analysis of the programme, archival documentation and public discourses at the time. The significance of colour in this serial relates to the aesthetic frameworks through which literary adaptations, and especially classic novel adaptations, were conceptualised, and to what colour meant in the television culture of 1967. The chapter argues that an appreciation of the achievement of Vanity Fair depends not only on how it looks today but also how it could have been viewed at the time it was made. The BBC had been preparing for colour for years, and as Britain’s first and oldest television institution it might seem simple and obvious that the BBC would take the next technical step in broadcasting (McLean 1967: 3). It might also seem simple and obvious that colour would offer greater realism and visual pleasure to viewers. These ways of understanding simplicity depend on an assumption of incremental development, adaptation and extension, where colour is the next step in a linear progression. The BBC also had a long history of broadcasting the classics of English literature, on radio and then on television, so choosing a nineteenth-century novel to showcase the colour service might also look like a simple step onward in an established direction. It married tradition with technical innovation. Earlier in the same year, BBC had garnered critical praise and huge audiences for its black-and-white adaptation of another literary source, The Forsyte Saga, and Vanity Fair used the same director, designer and female star. As the chapter

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will explore, simplicity for Vanity Fair means being an extension, development or progression, leading on purposefully from what went before. But conversely, the engineering challenges of making colour pictures and the production challenges of staging a multi-episode serial in colour were immense. It was costly and complex, as the BBC itself explained in detail to potential viewers. For cultural commentators and BBC executives, there were also concerns about the tastefulness of colour, which was tainted both by an association with Hollywood and the uneven technical quality of US colour television. The new BBC colour offering risked appearing overly spectacular, even tawdry (Panos 2015). Moreover, only a small minority of the UK audience had colour television sets, so the BBC, as a national public service broadcaster, had to avoid alienating a large section of its audience by making and promoting a serial that those viewers could not properly enjoy. Colour’s compatibility with existing black and white television sets had been decided as BBC policy as early as 1953 (Bishop 1961) so Vanity Fair’s broadcasts had to work well in black-and-white (BBC 1962), while also trumpeting colour as the next big thing. The BBC was encouraging households to acquire an expensive colour receiver (most likely by renting one) for which they would have to pay double their former £5 annual television licence fee (Wheatley 2014: 148–9), but by March 1968 there were only about twenty thousand households with colour licences (Winton 1970: 65). Introducing colour was fraught with difficulty and risk, and meant finding a way through complexities of technology, institutional policy and cultural politics. It also demanded creative responses to new artistic challenges, making the most of colour while maintaining conformity with established aesthetic norms. This chapter will look closely at the colour in Vanity Fair, to see how aesthetic choices might express or supress tensions between the conflicting meanings of colour. The colour is not a simple property of the text but existed in complex relationships with colour elsewhere on television, in continuity with and distinction from black-and-white images, and was informed by colour in other media and by paratextual materials that spoke about what colour meant. The Radio Times, the BBC’s listings magazine, was the best-selling periodical in the UK, so many people would have seen its series of feature articles (printed in colour, unlike the listings pages themselves) about Vanity

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Fair. The articles focus far more on the complex demands and achievements of its colour than any other aspect of the serial. The chapter will show how, in Vanity Fair, colour was both a straightforward improvement in verisimilitude yet also self-consciously foregrounded and defended. Colour was a potentially tawdry transatlantic import but was presented through specifically British programme forms and production methods that assimilated colour into existing ways of making and enjoying television. Simplicity, then, can mean what might seem obvious, taken for granted, easy to achieve and straightforward to understand and enjoy. But, paradoxically, simplicity often has to be worked for through complex interacting processes, and complexity is felt to succeed when it ends up appearing simple. The expectation of a need to implement complex knowledge and technique in order to achieve a result that looks simple underlies the realist aesthetic of television as a medium, whose drama output inherited its aesthetic principles from the arts of its formative period in the early twentieth century. From the start, television combined naturalist mimesis with modernist harnessing of new technologies and new forms. The chapter argues that the colour of Vanity Fair was presented mainly through a strategy of aesthetic restraint, incrementalism and continuity with what had gone before, making colour appear a simple progression. However, the chapter shows how simplicity and complexity depend on each other, by referring to some of the complex, innovative technical processes and ways of producing drama behind and in front of the camera that shaped how colour in the serial came about. The role of colour within the image had to be carefully considered, taking account of its degree of saturation, for example, and the complementary or clashing relationship of one colour with another in the frame. Colour brought new opportunities and constraints in image composition and the arrangement of the people, objects and spaces in front of the camera. In production, colour in interior, studio environments, shot with electronic cameras and recorded on videotape, had to be co-ordinated with colour filmed on celluloid in outdoor locations. These different production spaces required different cameras, lighting and editing techniques. The chapter includes work on the spatiality of colour, in the three-dimensional spaces where the serial was staged and recorded as well as in the twodimensional television images that were achieved.



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Continuity and innovation In some respects Vanity Fair was a simple extension of what the BBC was already doing. It was an adaptation of a novel and also an adaptation of existing BBC production practices for making black-and-white drama based on classic literature. Whilst colour was new, other aspects of the programme were highly conventional. At the time, it was an accepted fact that television should screen adaptations of literary works. The concept of public service broadcasting included the assumption that some cultural goods should be disseminated to the broadcast audience (Scannell 1990), with producers exercising judgements of taste and quality about what and how to do so. There were also economic factors, especially copyright, that affected which works could be licensed for television adaptation, and nineteenth-century works like Vanity Fair were available free of charge. On the other hand, there were considerations of cost because of the numbers of performers, sets or locations that a specific script would require, and costume drama was more expensive to mount than a contemporary story. For Vanity Fair between eleven and thirteen sets had to be built for each of the five episodes, making the serial more costly than shooting five one-off plays (BBC 1967d). Nevertheless, the practice of adaptation was assumed to be fundamentally within the remit of television and something that the audience needed or deserved (Giddings and Selby 2001). Adapted classic novels satisfied audience expectations for costume dramas with what would later be termed a ‘heritage’ aesthetic (Higson 1993). Billy Smart encapsulates these values as ‘elegance of language and décor, the opportunity to experience a particularly rich form of character acting; an immersive experience of life in a different era; a sense of charm’ (2014: 459). Viewers’ feedback showed that adapted classics were enjoyed partly because they were not like other television. They were unlike original, contemporary drama of the time, contrasting strongly with filmed television plays such as Up the Junction (1965) about a group of young working-class women living in inner London, and Cathy Come Home (1966) about a young mother’s descent into homelessness, made by the director/ producer team of Ken Loach and Tony Garnett, for example. These had formal and thematic similarities with British realist New Wave cinema and the neo-realist movement in continental Europe, they

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addressed real and urgent social problems, were often cast with non-professional actors and were shot in real locations. Vanity Fair, and the studio videotape production technologies used to make it and other classic serials, partially determined such adaptations’ cultural significance by separating them from this recently emergent realist nexus (Cardwell 2002: 98–9). In some ways, costume adaptations were cosy, and simple to enjoy in comparison to drama that was self-consciously challenging and presented the complexities of contemporary life. Adaptations drawing on the canon of English literature were part of a history of ‘literary’ or ‘theatrical’ television (and, previously, radio) drama. The BBC had previously mounted a television adaptation of Vanity Fair, dramatised by Constance Cox from her theatrical version and broadcast at Christmas in 1956, for example. Classic novel adaptations were almost always in serial formats, to build viewer loyalty, promote channel identity, amortise set-up costs across a relatively large number of broadcast hours and, as a spin-off benefit, generate opportunities for programme sales abroad. Scheduling classic serials on Sunday evenings on the new BBC2 had the effect of ‘branding’ a regular slot for adaptations aimed at family audiences. The huge popularity of BBC1’s adaptation of Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga was the summit of black-and-white serial drama of this kind. However, The Forsyte Saga was not only comfortingly Edwardian but also controversial because of its narrative of family strife and sexual violence. It featured an extended sequence showing the marital rape of Irene (Nyree Dawn Porter) by her husband Soames Forsyte (Eric Porter), carried out as his punishment for her suspected infidelity. It is misleading to compartmentalise period adaptation as simplistic; the rape story aligned with emergent discourses of gender equality and female empowerment. As much as any other genre, adaptation was a site for negotiating what television could or should be (Bignell 2019), and another kind of complexity is the question of what was proper or appropriate in this high-profile serial. Whilst the choice of a classic novel adaptation was a conservative response to the challenge of colour, introducing this new technology via an established and serious genre, the situation was also more complex than that. Thackeray’s novel adopts some of the conventions of the Bildungsroman, tracing the life of an individual and his or her progress

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against a background of social and political change. The form was championed in Marxist literary criticism (Lukács 1978), because it could dramatise a life at the confluence of ideological forces, and Vanity Fair has a corresponding sense of breadth and scale. It encompasses the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century and characters from a range of social strata, from struggling governesses clinging on to the middle class to the excesses of the upper reaches of the aristocracy. The novel satirises social conventions through stylised exaggeration of behaviour and incident which also alludes to theatrical melodramas of the mid-nineteenth century that addressed problems of social class, gender and morality (Brookes 1985). The social climbing of the protagonist Becky Sharp rests on her ability to manipulate emotional and moral conventions and acquire class privilege by using her sexual attractiveness alongside a performance of meek, acquiescent femininity. Rex Tucker’s script finds ways of transposing these complex literary and cultural codes for the television medium, but without being simplistic. Visually, colour could have been used systematically to express morality or immorality, but the serial does not attach colour values to moral values. Instead, it plays with artifice, appearance and pretence. Colour can veil or conceal as much as express, and thus it can be complexly related to characterisation and moral tenor. The novel’s period setting meant that directorial choices could foreground colour in locations, set design, costume, hair and makeup. But what is striking about this colour version is how relatively restrained the visual style is, as can be seen in the opening minutes of the first episode. The first episode begins with a relatively lengthy sequence listing the names of the leading actors and the episode title, ‘The Famous Little Becky Puppet’ (Figure 9.1). The captions appear over a single long take in which a static camera shows a close shot of the deep purple velvet curtains of a small puppet theatre. Throughout the sequence a series of costumed stick-puppets, with large papier-maché heads and expressive faces, enter, pirouette and clash with each other, something like a Punch and Judy show. The puppets represent Becky Sharp, her wealthy friend Amelia Sedley, and the uniformed figures of Becky’s potential suitors, the British Army soldiers Captains Dobbin and Rawdon Crawley. Although the puppets rush into shot, spin around and crash into each other, the restraint of the sequence’s accompanying classical music, the lush texture of the velvet and the

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9.1  Vanity Fair: ‘The Famous Little Becky Puppet’.

elaborate costumes of the puppets produce a conflicted tone overall, combining violence and disorder with a sense of playfulness and constrained politeness. The proscenium of the puppet theatre exactly matches the frame of the television screen, which would have been in a box-shaped cabinet in the 1960s, reinforcing the suggestion that this television serial, and perhaps all of television, is an artificial contraption in which representations of human figures cavort for its viewers’ entertainment. The toy theatre also gestures back to the history of devices for visualisation and storytelling, from the illusions of the diorama, panorama and magic lantern in the nineteenth century to the staging of novels and plays by a single static camera in the first films. From the start, Vanity Fair is presented as artifice, adaptation and self-conscious spectacle, and the simple knockabout entertainment of puppetry is a complex homage to preceding dramatic traditions and representational conventions. The sequence is based on the novel’s preface, titled ‘Before the curtain’. The authorial voice, attributed to Thackeray himself and referring to himself as the ‘Manager’ (the producer-director) of the

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show, invites the reader to imagine being at a fair, in which a puppetry performance is to take place amid the noisy and pleasurable disorder of the various attractions. The preface is equivalent to an introductory speech in front of a stage curtain before a show begins. We are told that it will contain ‘combats’, ‘scenes of high life’, ‘lovemaking’ and ‘light comic business’, performed by the ‘little Becky Puppet’, the ‘Amelia Doll’, the ‘Dobbin Figure’ and ‘the richly dressed figure of the Wicked Nobleman’ (Thackeray 1954: 20). Thackeray primes his reader to expect types and roles as much as psychologically realised characters, and for the story to enact a simple moral fable, like the sensational melodramas of the period. Television borrows some of the many connotations of the preface. It expresses a sense of self-conscious theatricality, as the serial’s key relationships between Becky and Amelia, and between each of them and the men they might pair off with, are encapsulated in the dumb-show cavorting of the stick-puppets. Colour itself is a key part of the show, in the lustrous shine of the richly textured purple curtains and the contrasting white graphics behind which the puppets dart about the frame, with long coloured dresses for the women and bright red tunics for the men. The Titian red hair of the Becky puppet is especially striking, its prominence exaggerated by the puppet’s movements and its contrast with her pale paper skin. Her activity suggests her character’s agency, but she is nevertheless a frenetic puppet manipulated by an unseen hand. The simplicity of basing the opening titles on the novel’s preface and finding visual correlatives for some of Thackeray’s language and tone, expresses the complexity of those resources and the sophisticated ways they are deployed. The two short scenes that follow demonstrate this interwoven pattern of exhibitionism with restraint, in the way they utilise the two predominant forms of shooting television drama at the time, namely shooting on film on location or shooting on video in a television studio. In the first scene the setting is the exterior of Miss Pinkerton’s academy for young ladies, where the audience first sees the teenage Becky (Susan Hampshire) and Amelia (Marilyn Taylerson) as they leave the academy at the completion of their schooling. The camera is on the grassy verge of a road in the semi-rural location of Chiswick, looking towards a large, well-proportioned house with flowering creeper growing on its stone walls. It is sunny, and the dozen or so pupils at the academy are gathered with their teachers

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to wave goodbye to the departing Becky and Amelia. They are lined up in front of the camera, which pays no attention to the surrounding landscape and there is no attempt to indicate place or the detail of the buildings. Although the scene has been staged on location, and shot on film rather than videotape, there is no sense of spectacle, vista or embedding in a real environment as might be expected of this costly and elaborate means of shooting. What is important in the opening scene is the contrast in character between Becky and Amelia, prompted by the haughty primness of Miss Pinkerton (Ailsa Grahame). She is an elderly, soberly dressed woman who gives a bound copy of Dr Johnson’s Dictionary to Amelia, praising her as a favoured pupil while other students surround them in a twittering group. Amelia is about to get into her waiting carriage and is dressed in elaborately layered outdoor clothes with bonnet and gloves. Becky, more simply dressed and flouncing away from Miss Pinkerton and the group of young ladies, rejects the polite goodbye ceremony and Dr Johnson’s Dictionary, throwing the book out of the carriage window. Her independence is attractive, but she is an outsider, non-conforming and disrespectful. Being outside on location in this first scene seems initially like a strong contrast with the constrained space, theatricality and codedness of the foregoing puppet performance. Exterior filming suggests realism, spaciousness and a certain openness to events because of the unseen and potentially infinite space beyond the borders of the frame, matching the setting-up of Becky as an independent opportunist who will now make her own way in the world. Colour supports the sense of the drama’s presence in a real space, contrasting with the rich but artificial colour of the puppet show. The colour gestures towards realism, building on the simple, conventional association of filmed exteriors with reality versus the interior staginess of studio shooting. But something more complex is going on, in that it is not the reality of the setting that matters, but instead the complexities of social class and the power relationships between teacher and pupil and between Becky and Amelia. Becky climbs into Amelia’s carriage, taking advantage not only of free transport but also an invitation to stay at Amelia’s house in Russell Square, London, because Becky is a homeless orphan. The serial’s second sequence is within the moving carriage, a single long take of a medium close-up of the two women sitting talking inside

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9.2  Vanity Fair: Tight two-shot in a set representing Amelia’s carriage.

the wobbling vehicle (Figure 9.2). Amelia expresses her shock at Becky’s devil-may-care attitude and Becky flatters and dominates her benevolent friend. The simple technique for rendering the carriage journey contrasts strongly with the realism of the filmed exterior sequence at Miss Pinkerton’s academy, but its spatial constraint and exaggerated characterisation also initiate the drama’s consistent focus on Becky’s manipulative use of codes of politeness and sexual attractiveness to secure social advancement. The notions of restraint and politeness are not simple as regards characterisation, in that they can conceal or enable the exercise of their opposites, namely improper excess and selfish ambition. The lengthy two-shot observing Becky and Amelia’s interaction, in an unconvincing representation of a moving carriage that is clearly a mock-up being wobbled about by unseen studio technicians, is more complex than it might seem. The coming of colour led to new ways of thinking about representing backgrounds, rooms and landscapes, but drama was crucially oriented around the actors’ expressiveness because that was what television was mainly expected to show. In that regard, Vanity Fair

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continued practices of framing, shot composition and duration of shot that had been honed over decades and were intended to give space to expressive performance. The materiality of the screen image conditioned viewers’ expectations of the visual aesthetics of television (Cardwell 2015) and gave rise to what now seem overly simple, lengthy dialogue scenes like this one, focused on the actors’ faces. At that time, the domestic television receiver was not suited, as it is now, to the 16:9 aspect ratio of cinema films, and, in 1967, the television image privileged the central framing of the human face because of the 4:3 ratio of its geometry. This supported a mediumessentialist view of television drama as character-based and psychologically focused, and the mise-en-scène of Vanity Fair is a refinement of an existing televisual aesthetic in which colour participates, rather than requiring a new visual style. The performers in Vanity Fair were almost entirely trained for the professional theatre, and the actors in Vanity Fair work to create television performances that feel similar to the declarative, stylised mode of Victorian theatre and a degree of social satire and melodrama appropriate to Thackeray’s social critique. At the same time, however, they adapt to the televisual conventions of psychologisation and realism available through facial close-ups, detail of physical gesture and a sense of spatial freedom. Complex detail of performance in Vanity Fair depends on the integration of ‘theatrical’ acting style with televisual scenic design and camerawork. Becky and Amelia arrive at the house in Russell Square, which is represented by a large drawing room. The wide space is bounded by a window on the left and a doorway on the right, with a fireplace in the centre. Elegant Regency furniture leaves room for characters to move around and group together in specific areas. The space is relatively shallow, and movements of the cameras and performers are generally on a left–right axis across the set between window and door, rather than towards or away from the back wall. Cameras are positioned so that they always look into one side of the set, never reversing to show the opposite (fourth) wall. The space is like a theatre stage, and Vanity Fair is almost entirely shot in the studio in sets representing different kinds of domestic room. From the 1960s onwards, the television studio was increasingly and pejoratively associated with the verbal emphasis of scripted drama, rather than with physical dynamism, action and movement (Macmurraugh-Kavanagh and Lacey

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1999). Studio aesthetics came to be seen as artificial, unrealistic and over-complex compared to the apparently simple showing of the world outside the studio. In Vanity Fair, large sets are used for interiors at Russell Square, the run-down estate of Queen’s Crawley where Becky gets her first job as a governess, and, strikingly, for a colourful outdoor flower market in Brussels, for example. There the studio represents a street scene of market stalls and bustling crowds, into which the sumptuously dressed Becky, now married to the army officer Rawdon Crawley, rides in a real horse and carriage and charms the British high command. Against the tide of history, Vanity Fair takes advantage of artifice, using the studio to exploit the primacy of acted performance and showcase the sophistication of scenic design into which performance is embedded.

Propriety and taste The artifice of studio shooting acquired another kind of simplicity, in that it was argued to flow from the specificities of the television medium. The champion of the script-focused, studio shooting technique in Britain was the director Don Taylor, who characterised it as the essence of drama for television, whereas shooting on film on location seemed to him like making low-budget cinema, an inevitably inferior achievement. Television drama offered the chance to showcase language spoken by highly trained performers, acting in specially designed settings built in the studio, thus creating an imaginative fictional world in which all elements of the drama could be aesthetically harmonious and controlled. The result would be ‘long, developing scenes, where the actors can work without interference from the director’s camera’, and television drama would be ‘a writers’ and actors’ medium’ (Taylor 1998: 38). Speech, not action, is a key component of this and he argued for the affective charge of skilled performance, emerging as ‘passion that comes from deep wells of feeling plumbed by good words’. In this view, television drama should privilege relationships, emotion and intimacy. It is broadcast into the viewer’s private space, and makes much use of close-up and interpersonal interactions between characters. The expression of emotion and revelation of motivation are facilitated by the alternation of conversation and derive from reaction to events

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as much as characters’ initiation of action. Such drama revels in the complexities of affect to which the viewer is given privileged access by the control of the technical and aesthetic means that the studio makes possible. In the first year of colour, BBC Television Centre in London had only two large studios that were equipped with the stronger lights and heavy cameras, mounted on hydraulic pedestals, that were needed for colour shooting (Panos 2015: 103–4). Each studio camera had to be set up to match the colour balance of the others, which was a time-consuming process (BBC 1969). These new cameras did not register highly saturated colours well, which meant avoiding large areas of strong colour in backgrounds or costumes. Bright whites caused flaring that not only disrupted the picture but also caused nearby darker areas to lose their contrast (BBC 1972), so the set decorators had to paint white surfaces a pale grey to compensate. Preserving definition and contrast for viewers watching in blackand-white, while also pursuing fidelity of colour, meant Chapman’s design had to serve two imagined audience constituencies, as Radio Times explained to potential viewers: ‘Colour works in shades, monochrome in tones, and the chances are that shades that go together very successfully in colour, are tonally the same, and so in monochrome will come out the same shade of grey’ (Anon. 1967c). Paradoxically, fidelity meant toning down natural colour for some studio props: ‘The green of some leaves on colour TV looks too green to be true!’ (Anon. 1967c). Each costume in Vanity Fair was specially made, either by BBC Wardrobe technicians or commissioned from theatrical costumiers, because their colours were a confluence of several interacting pressures: fidelity to period, tonal match with the sets, the mood of the scenes, the portrayal of character, and the skin and hair colouring of the actor (Anon. 1967d). Colour had to be worked on in complex ways in order to take its place in apparently simple, organic relationships with other expressive means. Vanity Fair’s director, David Giles, benefited from having the large floor area of studios 6 and 8 in BBC Television Centre in which to mount the drama. On the other hand, the large sets, hot overhead lights and a cast of sixty speaking parts would have made complex camera movement or unusual staging difficult. Indeed, the majority of studio scenes in Vanity Fair have restrained camera work and cover the action in long takes rather than by expressive

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use of editing. When Amelia, George Osborne (Roy Marsden), Jos Sedley (John Moffat) and Becky visit a pavilion at Vauxhall Gardens, examples of what Wheatley (2014: 157–8) has called a ‘decorative aesthetic’ are set within a larger context of restraint. The party watch fireworks overhead, shown by repeated long shots of the fireworks’ coloured flare trails, but they are brief stock shots from the BBC effects library cut into studio recreations of exteriors (BBC 1967e). Red soldiers’ uniforms and Jos Sedley’s bright jackets (reflecting his time in colonial India) come out strongly in the sequence, but against backgrounds that often look dull and greenish, with everything above head level in shadow. When viewed on a domestic television set the more colour saturation the set produced, the less detail of shape and outline was available (BBC 1990). In Vanity Fair this is evident when bright candle flames overwhelm the camera tube and decompose into red, green and blue flares. There are many lengthy close shots and tight framing of the action, with no vistas of Vauxhall Gardens’ wonderland of visual and sensual pleasures. So, although colour scenes were designed with the strong colours of the fireworks or the red uniforms in mind, Giles was clearly aware that the stronger their saturation the less detail the picture could convey, and this can even be seen in the relatively blurry stills captured from the video sequences and used as Figures 9.1 and 9.2 in this chapter. The colour choices made for Vanity Fair and other colour dramas of the period (Panos 2015: 105–6) were as much to do with mood, creating a feeling of immersion in a fictional world, as with either historical accuracy or spectacle for its own sake. In the planning stage for Vanity Fair, after Tucker had been commissioned to script the adaptation, Giles had a nine-week run-up period to plan how to realise it (BBC 1967a). Tucker and the producer David Conroy held script conferences to map out the structure of the serial, identifying problems that colour might pose, in the studio and on location and in the matching of the two. An agreement between the BBC and the actors’ union Equity limited the use of filmed inserts in programmes because Equity wanted to protect actors’ professional and economic interests in continuous performance (McNaughton 2014), so most of the drama had to be shot in the studio. There were just three days of filming (11–13 October 1967) in which all exteriors were shot, and such scenes were very difficult

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to match with the colours in scenes shot, weeks later, in a studio with electronic cameras (BBC 1966). The film crew had to set up each shot separately, planning the movement, lighting, sound, costume, props and other elements in advance, and after completing that shot moving on to another, perhaps from a different part of the story. Costumes filmed outdoors would look different when shot indoors, so Tucker needed to avoid adjoining film and studio sequences involving the same costume (Anon. 1967a). Giles and the designer Spencer Chapman identified exteriors in Bath’s Regency crescents for street scenes, but had to avoid not only modern street furniture but also any houses painted in colours other than white (Anon. 1967b). Whilst black–and-white film cameras could make pastelcoloured stucco barely distinguishable from the white plaster of the early nineteenth century period, for colour filming all coloured walls had to be out of shot. Working practices had to be developed to adapt technologies to the creative practice of colour and, conversely, people had to accommodate themselves to these new problems and opportunities (Hall and Ellis 2019).

9.3  Vanity Fair: The filmed set-piece of the Duchess of Richmond’s ball.

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The Duchess of Richmond’s ball before the battle of Waterloo was a major set piece, and demonstrates the compromises made between the contradictions of colour. Historians were unsure whether the actual ball had been held in a sumptuous ballroom or in a large, converted coach-house, and Chapman combines the two. Like an underlit, hastily redressed coach-house, the room has wooden pillars at intervals and partitions dividing parts of the space. There are visible candles and oil lamps that suggest they are the light sources, producing strongly differentiated light and dark areas (Figure 9.3). In contrast with a large well-lit formal ballroom, this produces pools of strong light into which the eight principal characters can move singly or in groups, and surrounding shadow in which background action with the seventy dancers and extras can be staged. Becky’s ball gown and the soldiers’ uniforms are especially striking when the action brings them into the light and close to the cameras, which are positioned along a lateral plane. The cameras never move far into the space or reverse their angle of view. The effect is of a wide panorama that can be segmented, with parts selectively highlighted somewhat like a chorus scene in an opera. The scene was shot on 35mm film cameras at BBC’s Ealing studios, in a single day. The complexity of the sequence, which comprised fifty-five different shots (BBC 1967e) and the large cast and elaborate use of strong colour and deep shadow, meant using film for an interior rather than the more conventional use of celluloid for realistic exteriors. Television directors being trained on the BBC’s Colour Familiarisation Course were encouraged to experiment with colour in complex ways, using surreal, psychedelic or painterly effects to convey affective states or dramatic tones, for example (Panos, 2015: 107–8). But the requirement to produce Vanity Fair with the more restrained aesthetic of BBC’s attitude to colour adaptations meant assimilating it in the complex ways discussed in this chapter, as an apparently simple extension of visual fidelity.

British colour Vanity Fair had an important role in asserting the BBC’s distinctive approach to colour, in contrast to US broadcasters’ and the British ITV commercial channel. The National Television Systems Committee

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(NTSC) technical specification for colour television, developed in the US (Murray 2015), would have been the simplest one to adopt in Britain because it had been in operation for thirteen years before BBC2 launched colour. The three major US networks moved to colour for most new programmes in the mid-1960s whilst British television lagged somewhat behind. American NTSC also had the advantage that monochrome pictures could be carried by the same broadcast signals as the colour transmission, so audiences could watch on either existing black-and-white or new colour sets. However, NTSC operated to close technical tolerances and was prone to colour distortions (it was carpingly called ‘Never Twice the Same Color’) and engineers in Britain, France, Germany and the USSR worked on competing alternatives (Fickers 2010). The BBC was keen to maintain its reputation for engineering innovation and had been developing colour for decades, making test transmissions in 1955 (Anon. 1961: 214) and keeping watch on the progress of colour in the US (BBC 1963: 17–19). ITV wanted colour to enhance the appeal of the advertisements that funded its programmes and had also invested in colour production facilities (ABC 1966). But the association of colour with commerce, Americanisation and entertainment made the decision to allow colour in Britain complex politically and culturally. The moment of Vanity Fair was one when British television and its potential comparators jostled and shifted in relation to each other. It is significant that Vanity Fair was part of the canon of English literature and could represent national cultural heritage at the same time as British television’s technical achievement. Ideas about Britain’s role in the forefront of a technological revolution, and the BBC’s leadership in that revolution, were part of a complex kind of techno-nationalism that looked forwards, but also looked back. Colour had moral and nationalistic aspects, as well as sensory, haptic ones. For BBC2’s Controller, David Attenborough (1967), it was a ‘valuable discipline’ to avoid being ‘drunk with the thrills’ of colour, distancing the BBC from the US producers who ‘swamped their dramas with gaudy period costumes’ when they began colour transmission. The aesthetic of Vanity Fair was a complex negotiation between fidelity to the novel, BBC’s public service responsibilities, a desire to compete with its commercial rival and with overseas

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competitors, and scientific, technical and cultural notions of colour accuracy, reliability and good taste. It seemed simple to assume, as had happened when colour broadcasting was permitted in the USA in 1953, that ‘color viewing as an experience is more immersive, expansive, and both more realistic and more sensational than viewing monochrome’ (Murray 2018: 9). But these very assumptions underlay British resistance to colour television, which was thought to be potentially gaudy and seductive. Government legislation permitted BBC to transmit colour on BBC2 on the UHF (ultra-high frequency) waveband while the older BBC1 and ITV continued to broadcast in monochrome on VHF (very high frequency), and BBC2 programmes could also be seen on VHF in black-and-white. Viewers who wanted to receive the colour UHF signals had to buy a new TV set, so into the early 1970s the majority of viewers watched in black-and-white. BBC2 was, in any case, as ITV’s commercial companies pointed out with some annoyance, hardly a popular channel. In the London region where it was viewed the most, BBC2’s audience peaked at about 150,000 versus ITV’s London ratings of up to 1.5 million (ABC 1966: 18). For Vanity Fair’s makers, colour had to be both showcased and also represented as supplemental rather than essential. The opening ceremony of the Wimbledon tennis tournament formally began BBC2’s colour schedule in July 1967, and tennis supplied many hours of live colour coverage in the six-month colour launching period culminating with Vanity Fair. There were few BBC programmes yet available in colour so, regrettably, American imports had to make up some of the schedule. American filmed series (e.g., the western adventure The Virginian (NBC, 1962–71)) were set alongside the BBC’s prestige colour documentaries and travelogues such as the post-imperial splendour of The Glory that Remains (1967). Some imported entertainment programmes, like The Andy Williams Show (NBC, 1962–71), benefited from NTSC’s technical characteristics to offer a warm bath of strong primary colours, especially reds, and BBC imitated this lush tonal balance in Once More with Felix (1967–70), for example, featuring performances in the studio by the emigrée US folk singer Julie Felix and her guests. BBC factual series such as the motoring show Wheelbase (1964–75), on the other hand, shot on colour film to show road tests of new

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models in exterior locations, had a cooler palette. The images of Vanity Fair were implicitly set against how colour worked in imported American as well as British drama, and in factual and entertainment genres as well as fiction. Colour was not one thing and certainly not simple, since it was an intersection of many related aesthetic, political and cultural meanings. The BBC’s restrained approach to the colour in Vanity Fair repeated Hollywood’s careful extension of colour from animation and fantasy into scripted historical drama. When Technicolor introduced its first colour cameras (Higgins 2007) the company assigned expert advisers during shooting, who were insistent that colour should be used appropriately and with restraint. In lavish costume dramas and period adaptations, colour might indeed be appropriate, and it is no coincidence that the first entirely Technicolor film for cinema distribution was Becky Sharp (1935), a version of Vanity Fair. The period setting and costumes legitimated colour, and, when Graham Greene (1935) reviewed the film, he remarked that ‘colour is everything here’, and that it was a ‘delight to the eye’. Technicolor staff, like the designer of Vanity Fair some thirty years later, balanced colour’s attractiveness with its potential distraction and were careful to use it in organic rather than spectacular ways (Afra 2015). Comparisons between media are more complex than simple, and the television Vanity Fair reveals and conceals complex processes of experimentation, assimilation and negotiation with cinema. BBC costume television adaptations borrow from other arts at the same time as they establish what is proper to them, and an intersectional, intermedial approach is needed for work on their aesthetics (Cardwell 2014). Whilst generating colour pictures was complex, so were the factors affecting the reception of colour in those few homes equipped to see it. British viewers mainly watched television pictures made using the PAL (phased alternate line) format to produce an image comprising 405 lines, but 625-line sets were needed for the new BBC2 channel. Television sets’ cathode ray tubes created images by drawing a beam of electrons across the screen from the top left to the bottom right at a rate of 50 scans per second. The screen displayed an image woven imperceptibly together from these repeated scans. A monochrome brightness (luminance) signal was emitted, creating the outlines of the picture’s shapes, and tiny triads of red, blue and

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green phosphor dots across the screen’s surface were selectively stimulated by another scanning beam, the chrominance signal, which added the colour. Whilst the luminance signal had comparatively good image definition, the colour was relatively ill-defined, like a wash of watercolour paint over a sharp pencil outline. Television sets had user-adjustable controls for brightness and contrast, and one was added for colour saturation, to account for different types and intensities of home lighting, because these could drastically affect the way the picture looked (BBC 1953). Viewers might adjust the colours and swamp visual detail or miss colour effects by turning colour down, and broadcasters had little control over how their painstakingly created images would be seen. Among the complexities of Vanity Fair are the ways that simplistic cultural hierarchies affected the programme in different television ecosystems. Although prestige adaptations are now often made with export in mind, or with co-production funding, this was not so in 1967. Vanity Fair, being a mainly videotape production, had an aesthetic that was familiar to British viewers but not to viewers in the mainly film-based production culture of the US. American television production used film cameras and discontinuous post-production editing of performance, because of the ties between the Hollywood film studios and the television networks. Moreover, US television transmission was in the NTSC format with images of 525 lines and a different colour technology. Productions recorded on videotape like Vanity Fair had to be either rerecorded on to film or processed through a standards converter to make them compatible for broadcast in the US, contributing to the techno-nationalism (Hickethier 2007) that had led to different countries adopting rival technical standards for television within their own and affiliated territories. Conroy requested offering the serial for possible export early in his planning (BBC 1967c) but this was rejected because of the cost of converting the video format and because at that time US commercial channels did not normally buy costume drama serials (BBC 1967b). The effect of these national differences was that Vanity Fair looked materially different to American viewers from their domestic fare, and, characteristically, the serial was eventually shown in the US as part of the public service channel PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre strand in October 1972 rather than being broadcast on one of the three national commercial television networks. Its British origin and

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format were attractions for Anglophile, mainly upmarket audiences at whom PBS aimed its imported BBC classic serials (Knox 2012), but also kept the programme out of the schedules of the dominant entertainment-focused broadcasters. Whilst in Britain the challenge of colour’s Americanness meant channelling it through classic novel adaptation, in the US this restraint limited the audiences for Vanity Fair to an upmarket niche. Vanity Fair was an extension of what British television had been doing for decades, adapting classics of national literary heritage and using expert performers and technical staff to make long-form serial dramas that audiences generally enjoyed and that they expected their broadcasters (especially the BBC) to undertake. The success of Vanity Fair led to a string of adaptations that used colour to advantage, especially in settings and costume. The serial was repeated on BBC1 in January 1970, a few months after colour broadcasting began on BBC2’s sister channel (and also on the rival ITV network), and subsequent adaptations abandoned restraint to showcase what colour could do. The most ambitious was the twenty-episode War and Peace (BBC, 1972–73) which, with the benefit of US investment from PBS, was shot partly on location in Yugoslavia with hundreds of uniformed extras from the Yugoslav army. Long shots panned over green fields on which huge formations of soldiers in French blue or British red uniforms re-enacted the battle scenes amid drifting smoke from real cannons. Such scenes are completely lacking in Vanity Fair, where the characters’ reactions to the prospect of action and to its aftermath are what matters. In the dramas that followed, battle scenes became part of the language of colour in television historical drama as much as in cinema of the period (like the excellent Waterloo (1970)). Complex, big-budget productions with significant amounts of location filming became the norm for subsequent period drama, but Vanity Fair exhibits a different kind of complexity that requires historical contextualisation to understand. The aesthetic principle of assimilation rather than exceptionalism led the BBC to work hard at both showcasing colour and constraining it at the same time through discourses of fidelity, restraint and taste. This chapter has associated these ideas with simplicity in that the serial was not particularly innovative generically or politically and was in a long and distinguished performance tradition. But the chapter has also shown how technically complex it was for BBC2 to launch



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colour, and how intellectually complex it became as programme makers questioned their assumptions about what British television should be like.

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10 The value of simplicity: The Long Wait Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Sarah Cardwell

On 12 November 2011, a narrative film of just one and a half minutes’ duration was broadcast on British commercial television.1 The film gained huge coverage in the national press and on social media, was viewed millions of times during November and December, on television and online, and won numerous trade awards. The Long Wait constituted a mere moment in the television landscape, yet its impact resounds therein even today. It established a national, seasonal television tradition: the John Lewis Christmas advertisement. It was not the first John Lewis Christmas advert; it was the fifth. But it was the first one in narrative form, and it is commonly cited as setting the standard – and raising expectations – for future years. An admiring review from the trade journal Campaign, awarding the advert its ‘Campaign of the Year’, observed that The Long Wait ‘combined a simple, wonderful thought with incredible attention to detail, all supported by a beautiful soundtrack’ (Anon. 2011). The film, set to a cover song by Slow Moving Millie of The Smiths’ ‘Please, please, please let me get what I want’, conveys a young boy’s experience as he endures ‘the long wait’ between the first day of December, when he opens his first advent calendar door, all the way through to Christmas morning. Impatiently, he watches the clock, willing it to speed up; he fidgets, frets and sighs, distracted from the festivities and people around him; he attempts fruitless ‘scientific’ experiments and magic tricks to accelerate the passing of time. Eventually, Christmas morning arrives, and he tumbles from his bed, ignoring the generous pile of presents at its foot, and retrieves a large, wrapped parcel from his wardrobe, carrying it with care

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along the landing and into his parents’ bedroom. Smiling, the boy extends the gift to his bleary-eyed parents. As Campaign’s laudatory appraisal underlines, simplicity (‘a simple, wonderful thought’) has long been commended in advertising, in view of its perceived advantage in selling products and creating strong brand recognition. The Long Wait was created as part of John Lewis’s wider marketing strategy. John Lewis & Partners, as it was renamed in 2018, defines itself through its progressive and unusual partnership model, which increases employees’ investment in the company and commends a fairer, more co-operative way of doing business. Appealing primarily to middle-class customers, the store promises ‘quality’ goods at reasonable prices, knowledgeable customer service and supportive aftersales care. Its product range adapts stylishly to changing fashions, but steers away from the faddish or edgy. It is regarded with much fondness by its loyal customer base. The Long Wait’s role in consolidating and showcasing John Lewis’s brand values cannot be overlooked. The primary objective of this chapter, however, is to explore the simplicity at the core of The Long Wait’s artistic and aesthetic achievements, and thereby to make a case for the value of simplicity as a potentially precious quality in television works. This chapter appraises The Long Wait in terms of its balance of simplicity and complexity, noting that it favours the former over the latter, and averring that here this is a virtue and not a failing. It recognises the skills, perspectives and determination needed to create something simple. It attends to and explores a number of the advert’s artistic and stylistic choices, including its imagery and framing; shapes, patterns and movements; and integration of audio and visual qualities. It moves to consider how the film addresses subtly but suggestively its theme – temporality – in a way that generates complexity available to the attentive and engaged viewer. Ultimately, though, this is a televisual work which embraces simplicity, and whose achievements lie in this embrace.

Television studies: complexity versus simplicity Television works have always sought their own distinct balances between simplicity and complexity. Some forms and genres have

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conventionally favoured the former; others the latter. A simple plot might be conveyed through stylistic choices that complicate or complexify; complex narratives might be presented via rudimentary or pared-down means. Each work is unique in this regard. However, there are trends of creation, criticism and scholarship that cause certain qualities to be valued at particular times, at the expense of other qualities. ‘Complexity’ has enjoyed a sustained run of attention within television criticism and scholarship over recent years. The Long Wait was created within a televisual landscape and critical context in which long-running, serial dramas are generally lauded above other narrative forms such as episodic and short-form fictions. Jason Mittell’s noted work on complexity in recent American television explicitly cites (narrative) complexity as a ‘criterion of value’ (2015: 216). Complexity is rightly recognised as a potential virtue in television art, and as a powerful source of engagement for television viewers. A number of scholars have sounded notes of caution. Milly Buonanno (2019), for example, astutely scrutinises the potential pitfalls (including ahistoricism) in evaluating which programmes are complex and which are not. This chapter neither contests the validity of complexity as an evaluative category nor contends that The Long Wait exhibits sustained narrative complexity within its ninety-second timeframe. It appreciatively acknowledges that the advert exhibits creative and thematic complexity, but its foremost concern is to advocate and explore the value of simplicity. Simplicity may not be fashionable with television critics and scholars, but, in other spheres, it retains critical purchase. It is employed within analytic philosophy, mathematics and environmentalism, and is prized by practitioners in many creative fields, including architecture, fine art, design and technology. Outside formal academic and artistic contexts, moreover, in the wider cultural milieu, simplicity is experiencing something of a resurgence. A concern for the natural environment; a desire to reduce excessive consumption and consumerism; increased interest in well-being; and a plethora of social-mediainspired lifestyle trends – each of these makes use of the idea of simplicity. Interestingly, across such varied and eclectic examples we can observe surprising continuities with much older conceptions of what simplicity is and means. It is worth spending a little time at the outset to establish the milieu which nurtured The Long Wait.



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Simplicity in context: first thoughts Simplicity, like complexity, has always enabled evaluative judgements, as inflected terms in common usage make clear. ‘Simple’, ‘simplicity’, ‘simplify’: these terms typically bear neutral or positive implications. But we also hear and speak of ‘over-simplifying’. The existence of this compound term underlines that simplifying, in itself, is not a bad thing – except when it is taken too far. When this happens, we might lay the charge that the object, practice or idea is not ‘simple’ but ‘simplistic’. It has been unnecessarily, inappropriately or excessively diminished, so that it now misrepresents, misleads or disappoints. There are many occasions when something is charged with being simplistic because it would be of more value to us, given its function and context, if it exhibited greater complexity. This chapter explores the ways in which The Long Wait might be appreciated for its simplicity; it does not suggest that the film is, by any means, simplistic.2 Notions of simplicity vary across the world and change over time, but The Long Wait is necessarily situated in a particular artistic, cultural and socio-historical context. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the notions of simplicity which inform its design and sensibility are those most familiar to its Western (specifically British) audience. These include fashionable ideas and influences drawn from all over the world, alongside nationally specific, residual conceptions with historical origins that have long been forgotten in common knowledge and parlance. Many enduring ideas about the formal qualities indicative of simplicity, and its underlying values, were explicitly debated in the eighteenth century which, as Raymond D. Havens observes, saw renewed interest in the concept. Simplicity was espoused as the route to excellence in conduct, morals, thought, taste, art, education, literature, science and even government (1953: 3–5). For many contemporary thinkers, ‘the simpler the thing [was] the better’ (1953: 5). Simplicity was associated closely and positively with nature, the two exhibiting the same qualities: ‘the spontaneous and unaffected, the uncomplicated, the free from sophistication and artifice, from ornateness and luxury’ (1953: 8). Good, simple artworks would appear ‘uncomplicated’, ‘naïve’ and ‘direct’ (1953: 6–7).

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These formal indicators of simplicity sound familiar to modern ears, though it should be noted that their specific manifestations are subject to changing fashions. In the 1700s, whilst rural idealism pertained, the rustic and the crude, which equally exhibit the qualities above, were not favoured. The eighteenth-century aesthete would not have been likely to appreciate today’s predilections for bare, weathered floorboards or ‘wonky’ ceramic bowls, preferring instead the simple elegance of classic Greek architectural features. Yet, underneath these differences of manifestation, we can see continuities between older conceptions of simplicity and those currently commonplace. Moreover, the contradictions inherent within the eighteenth-century reverence for simplicity, in an era that valued also refinement, fashion, decorativeness and the growth of commerce, are just as salient today. Simplicity was also associated with clarity, unity and universality (Havens 1953: 14–16). The English word ‘simple’, deriving from two Latin words, singular plica, means singleness of material, function or purpose, from which comes the idea that to simplify is to remove superfluous or needlessly decorative material. Eve Tavor Bannet (2017) observes that in literature, for example, proponents of the plain style advocated simplicity of composition and the use of clear, direct language. Such qualities respected the time and effort brought to the work by the reader, and opened up its content to a wider range of people. Thus simplicity gained a sheen of egalitarianism, accessibility and inclusivity, enabling individuals to connect with one another. In promoting shared humanity, simplicity retained moral valence. Numerous religious and spiritual traditions, from monastic Christians to Zen Buddhists, Shakers and Quakers, have extolled simplicity as a virtue. Some of these (early North American Puritans, for example) have propounded a version that is pious, austere and joyless; most often, however, philosophies of simplicity promise greater appreciativeness, joy and connectedness. Despite the touted appeal of the simple, Havens lamented that science, art, politics and economics were all inclining to greater complexity, and indeed complication (1953: 32). He feared that, increasingly, too many were losing faith in simplicity. Yet almost seventy years later, the picture is rather more nuanced than he envisioned. There are plenty of areas in which interest in simplicity endures and even grows. Indeed, ‘simplicity’ has often formed a



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bridge between different spheres of interest – a testament to its abiding appeal. The notion of simplicity is endlessly accommodating, adapting readily to the needs of a changing world and its people.

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Simplicity today: aesthetics, appreciation and humanness Simplicity carries weight today in fields that would be alien to eighteenth-century people. Computing engineers and ‘humanist technologists’ explicitly promote simplicity as a measure that might save us from unnecessary and burgeoning technological complexity (Obendorf 2009, Maeda 2006) whilst increasing our trust in new technology (Karvonen 2000) – connecting simplicity with clarity, accessibility and humanness, as their predecessors did. Speculative work in neuroaesthetics explores how formal simplicity can trigger the interaction of cognitive faculties and emotion, giving rise to aesthetic value and pleasurable aesthetic experiences (Rolls 2017). This scholarship echoes much older preoccupations with the psychological aesthetics of simplicity, such as the question of the golden ratio and whether its simple form is intuitively and instinctively pleasing to the human eye.3 Theoretical simplicity is inherent within the very methods of analytic, Anglo-American philosophy, where some scholars have undertaken careful metacritical investigations into its merits and flaws in hypotheses (Foley 1993, Sober 1975). Generally speaking, Occam’s Razor holds sway: ‘most philosophers believe that, other things being equal, simpler theories are better’ (Baker 2016). ‘Better’ here is as much an aesthetic judgement as anything else, and this correspondence between simplicity and beauty is found similarly in the philosophy of mathematics: it is a truism that elegance and beauty may be found in the simplest proofs. Indeed, some of the liveliest work on simplicity takes place at the intersection between mathematics and aesthetics, where scholars engage closely with the various forms, meanings and values of simplicity in the two fields (Kossak and Ording 2017). In these examples, simplicity is understood in terms of clarity, directness and parsimony. Crucially, these qualities are considered not only appealing to our sense of reason but also rewarding in sensorial and emotional, i.e. aesthetic, terms. Finally, in the face

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of ever-expanding and deepening complexity and complication, simplicity is regarded as accessible and inclusive, emphasising our shared humanity. The most visible growth of interest in simplicity is outside the academy, in the spaces of everyday life. Havens praised architecture for its sustained focus on simplicity. The title of John Pawson’s study of modern architecture, Minimum, refers to the pursuit of simplicity, ‘minimum’ being ‘the perfection that an artefact achieves when it is no longer possible to improve it by subtraction. This is the quality that an object has when every component, every detail, and every junction has been reduced or condensed to the essentials. It is the result of the omission of inessentials’ (1996: 7). Pawson argues that the less is there, the more we attend to and appreciate every element (1996: 13); simplicity allows us to focus more wholly on the details that are present, thereby deepening our appreciation of what we are experiencing. In this, Pawson echoes older conceptions of simplicity which endow it with not only aesthetic but also moral and spiritual dimensions. Whilst Pawson addresses formal architectural practice, there are countless examples in popular and mass culture of a newfound interest in the ways in which simple design might improve our experiences of daily life. Consider, particularly, the widespread interest in Japanese culture, renowned for its exceptional integration of the aesthetics of simplicity into the everyday. Books, magazines and blogs seize eagerly on concepts such as ‘wabi’ (connoting rustic simplicity or understated elegance), ‘shibui’ (simplicity, subtlety and unobtrusiveness) and ‘kanso’ (simplicity through the elimination of clutter, most famously espoused by Marie Kondo). There is also the enduring interest in spare Scandinavian design and the recent reinvention of ‘minimalism’. These magpie appropriations inevitably dehistoricise and dilute the original sources, but they – along with books, blogs, quotation calendars and fridge magnets urging us to ‘Simplify, simplify’ (Thoreau 1878: 99) – are evidence of an enduring belief in the potentially life-changing value of simplicity. What is it we hope to find via a turn to simplicity today? The 1900s and 2000s have seen revived interest in simplicity as a progressive, sometimes radical, alternative to consumer culture. Charles Wagner’s famous treatise The simple life (1895) advocated that readers turn from consumer culture and seek simplicity in all things,

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not only for their own well-being and spiritual peace, but also for the benefit of society. Recently, this focus on humanity has combined with ecological concerns. Duane Elgin’s book Voluntary simplicity (1981) proffers a route by which we might challenge endless material growth, consumption and waste, and ameliorate the damage we have done to the planet (reconnecting simplicity with nature). Elgin appreciates the aesthetic implications of simplicity, even deploying the golden ratio as a metaphor for how we might attain a creative and aesthetic balance between poverty and excess (2013: 77). Rejecting reactionary nostalgia and ruralism, he insists that simpler living is compatible with a thriving, sustainable economy (Elgin 2013: 79). Elgin’s work, reprinted in 2010, remains influential amongst those who see simplicity as a potential solution to our environmental crisis – though some authors have challenged the logical soundness of the popular view that modern life is increasingly complex and that a good life is a simple one. As Hana Librova notes, ‘the life of a typical consumerist is simple, the life of environmental virtue is complex’ (2008: 1111). Similarly, for those creating art – whether it be an oil painting, a piece of music or a television work – the creation of simplicity is surprisingly difficult, as we shall see.

Creating simplicity: The Long Wait Simplicity underpins The Long Wait, shaping its creative and aesthetic particularities. It must be remembered that it does so, ultimately, to support, sustain and develop the John Lewis brand. But it would be reductive and inaccurate to underestimate the artistic intentions and aesthetic motivations of the creative team who conceived and made this film.4 The Long Wait avoids not complexity but complication. In its wealth of details, and their intricate layering, the film is formally sophisticated. Moreover, it gestures extensively to existing conceptions of simplicity drawn from diverse fields. However, the film’s clarity of purpose and relentless focus on its chosen perspective and theme (these two also intimately and inextricably connected) confer simple, singular coherence. At first glance The Long Wait appears almost obfuscatory in purpose. Its job is to encourage us to do our Christmas shopping in a well-known department store. And yet no products are displayed,

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and the only explicit connection with John Lewis is the appearance of its name in the final credit. There is nothing ‘simple’ (direct, clear and purposeful), then, about the function or status of this television work. Is it a short film posing as an advert, or vice versa? Let us set the ontological quandary aside. For, as an artwork, The Long Wait does indeed exhibit singleness and clarity of purpose – in the tale it tells, the perspective through which the tale is told and the manner in which every element is rallied to the cause of its telling. The story of The Long Wait is straightforward: a boy fretfully waits for Christmas Day to come, at which point, in a neat and amusing twist, we see that his eagerness and impatience was actually because he anticipated the pleasure of giving his parents the gift he had bought for them. It is a simple, heart-warming festive tale. Stylistically, the film appears uncomplicated; tonally, it is cosy and gently amusing. Minor variations of pace and scale create visual interest, but the overriding sensation is of lilting smoothness, chiming with the sung soundtrack. The Long Wait is pleasant, easy viewing. However, this deceptively artless surface belies multiple intricate and meticulous design and artistic choices that become apparent when one examines the film in close detail. Thus the work maintains its formal simplicity via two complexities: the extraordinarily deft artistry behind its creation, and the way in which it conceals this creative process to make a virtue of simplicity. Furthermore, The Long Wait also conceals complexity within simplicity in its treatment of the story’s theme. The boy’s individual perspective and experience shape the film, and this strong focus attains the simplicity of composition early advocates commended. But closer attention reveals the theme of temporality embedded within the film, intimately and intrinsically connected with the young child’s perspective. So whilst the boy’s vantage point consolidates the tale’s simplicity, it simultaneously grants us access to uncoverable complexities which are so intrinsically involved with the film’s simple qualities that they help to sustain its singleness, and become part of its simplicity. With care, let us unwrap.

A singular perspective: one boy’s world The film opens with an establishing shot of an ordinary end-of-terrace house on a grey, chilly morning. As the postman walks past, a light

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goes on in an upstairs window. Crows screech somewhere in the distance, and a simple piano introduction softly begins. There is a cut to inside the lit room, where a young boy (Lewis McGowan), in old-fashioned red and blue striped pyjamas, is turning from his bedside lamp, wriggling free of his duvet, and clambering to stand on his bed. At this point, he is a blur of movement in the dimly lit room, and we have no clear view of his face. He trips to the end of his bed and reaches up to the mantelpiece, over a boarded-up fireplace. A large close-up shows his hand pulling open door number 1 on a wooden advent calendar, reaching in and taking out a foilwrapped sweet. On the soundtrack, the piano continues, but we also hear the quiet rustle of bedsheets and the sound of the little advent door being opened. The bedroom is homely, cosy, lived-in. It is somewhat cluttered, the belongings rather scruffy, and the bedside lamp is slightly crooked, as is the peg rail above. None of the colours particularly co-ordinate. The image lacks clarity and symmetry, and feels overcrowded. Visually, there is no clear focus – no simpleness of material or purpose. However, in the next shot, there is a cut to a close-up of the boy’s face, broadly centred in the frame. The piano music has paused momentarily, but, just as the boy pops the unwrapped chocolate into his mouth, the vocals begin: ‘Good times, for a change’. The preceding moment of silence punctuates the scene, highlighting the introduction of the boy, whose perspective shapes the rest of the film. During this first line of the song, the camera takes his point of view, cutting to a close-up of the advent calendar’s door 1, and then panning and dropping to door 24. The boy’s face falls and he exaggeratedly sighs, pouting his lips, puffing the air out audibly, in a gesture of exasperation that he will repeat throughout the film. This brief opening scene establishes the boy at the centre of the tale; we will remain closer to him throughout, not only visually but also audibly. The song ‘Please, please, please’ dominates the soundtrack, but we also hear the noises that the boy makes as he moves through the world. His distinctive sighing and puffing – extravagant expressions of his exasperation – are prioritised on the soundtrack; here, his first sigh falls neatly in a space at the end of the sung vocal line. Romanticisations of childhood that burgeoned in literature and art from the mid-1700s5 persist today, whenever childlike qualities of innocence and freshness of perception are proffered as examples of, or routes to, a simpler life. The advert exploits these, choosing the

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perspective of a child as its vantage point. However, it simultaneously challenges the presumption that a child’s perception of the world is simplistic, instead evoking the boy’s wonder at time and space, and their connectedness, and his eagerness to explore these things for himself. On its surface, the film renders a child’s world through the use of apparently simple formal elements and patterns which are carried through both images and sounds.

Visual echoes and repetition The Long Wait heavily deploys repetition, neatly evoking the protagonist’s frustrating experience of the endless, repetitive days until Christmas. As a formal quality, repetition is considered ‘likely to be conducive to simplicity. Compositions that are based on a large degree of repetition tend to exhibit the quality of simplicity’ (Pawson 1996: 8). Here, simple geometric shapes, of the kind that a young child might be familiar with and learning about, are repeatedly and strikingly deployed. Circles abound in The Long Wait, salient as they are to the film’s theme (as we shall explore later). But other shapes are also used. In one instance, a triangle is deftly employed to create a segue between two scenes. The first scene ends with a large close-up of the lower part of a modern pendulum clock, holding for a moment on the long, straight pendulum as it sways to and fro. The next image is a swing frame, filmed side on: a well-defined triangle. The boy, in woolly hat, thick cold-weather clothing and bright yellow wellies, swings back and forth, marking his own time. The two shots are meticulously edited: as the pendulum reaches the end of its movement to the right of the frame, a cut to the swing places it in exactly the same position (Figure 10.1). The Long Wait’s overt and pleasing repetition of basic, geometric shapes corresponds to classic conceptions of simplicity found in architecture and fine art. Moreover, repetition is developed to complement and supplement the film’s use of rhythm and reverberation. The presence of such careful patterning encourages us to pay closer attention to the surface of the film, and to appreciate its rich array of sensory and aesthetic qualities. Formally and stylistically, the advert employs simple elements within an exquisite choreography.

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10.1  The Long Wait: Triangles and swings.

Rhythm, reverberation, resonance After the film’s opening scenes, and once the boy has been centred in the story, the song on the soundtrack settles, from its somewhat meandering introduction and opening line, into a regular and pacy tempo, until the closing shot. The music is written in 3/4 time, its rhythm marked in a manner traditional to waltz: underlying chords emphasise the first of each three beats that continue even when the singer pauses. The easy, old-fashioned regularity of this waltz rhythm, rarely used in pop music today, and the tune’s major key (D major) impart an upbeat, familiar and reassuring air to the soundtrack.6 This rendition of the song is much less melancholic than the original Morrissey version, transforming jaded disappointment into hope. Here, the vocals, which are breathy, gentle and occasionally phrased behind the beat, lend a wistful, anticipatory quality, whilst the lyrics appear to articulate the protagonist’s plea: ‘Please let me get what I want’ (although, if one attends closely, they humorously and wittily converse with the images).7 The song’s rhythmic qualities are complemented by reverberations both audible and visual. In the next shot after the opening scene, the boy is framed in profile, in long shot, sitting on the floor at the end of a corridor, his back against the left-hand wall, and his feet stretched out towards the right-hand one. With impatient energy, he throws a ball at the right-hand wall and catches it, repeatedly, and we hear the ball strike the wall and bounce back.8 The lighting in this shot and throughout draws focus to him: the frame is mostly

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dark, but he is seated in front of an oversized, pale cream cupboard, and light pours in from an unseen window on the right, highlighting the contours of his facial profile. The camera tracks slowly, almost imperceptibly, towards him. After two throws and catches, there is a cut to a different scene, in which the boy’s smaller sibling sits at the kitchen table, slumped on to her left arm, her right arm holding a pencil, though she seems distracted from her drawing, perturbed: something is not right. If we listen carefully, we hear a tapping sound that is out of time with the music. A close-up of a large plastic blue cup shows its contents, perhaps blackcurrant drink, are gently rippling. All is explained as the camera cuts back to the original framing of the boy’s sister, and then moves leftwards in a fast pan to find the boy sitting at the end of the table, his face highlighted in a shaft of light, resting his head on his right hand, and, with his left, drumming his fingertips on the table, ignorant of the paper and pencil in front of him. In a later reiteration, he sits on the sofa next to his exasperated father, fretfully jiggling his leg so that his heel reverberates on the floor. The intimate correspondence between images and sounds here is developed further: the rocking character of the film’s music and soundtrack are echoed in the film’s editing. Very close study, watching in half time, reveals the advert’s meticulous design. Visual cuts hardly ever coincide with marked moments (e.g. pauses, ends of phrases) in the music, which would be emphatic; instead, cuts are positioned so that they fall either side of aural punctuation points. The music slips and slides around the images. When watching the film at normal speed, under everyday circumstances, the detail of these techniques may not be apparent, but their impact is profound. The first effect is to smooth and ease the edits, to create a soothing coherence and simple flow. The second is to create a lilting sensation, in the manner of a boat or cradle gently rocking, echoing the sensibility of the waltz. Finally, these tiny hesitations embedded across the images and soundtrack encapsulate the boy’s experience: his long wait, the tiny ‘tick tock’ of time.

Clocks, temporality and time The advert contains two scenes, separated by a rapid montage sequence, in which the boy takes matters into his own hands and,

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rather than idly waiting for time to progress, attempts to force its acceleration. They develop his earlier shifting gaze from door 1 to door 24 on his advent calendar – a vain attempt to hasten the arrival of the anticipated day. Again, simple forms – here, circles – play a crucial part in the visual design of these scenes, but they also provide a possible avenue to greater thematic complexity, as indicators of the boy’s nascent perception of time and, relatedly, space. The first scene opens with a shot of a wall clock hanging on a dull pink wall and showing five minutes to one; partial views of other items – an Anglepoise desk lamp and a small framed painting of indeterminate subject, hung somewhat skewwhiff – confirm the domestic setting. The boy sits on an office swivel chair, staring upwards at the clock. Pushing off from the edge of the desk in front of him, he initiates an energetic series of spins to his right (clockwise), as his bemused younger sibling watches from outside the room. Stopping the chair suddenly, and with jaw jutting in determination, the boy returns his gaze defiantly to the clock. It is still five minutes to one. With furrowed brow, the boy gives his habitual, frustrated sigh. There follows a shot of him in bed, and the camera makes its familiar slow track towards him. At first it is hard to make the boy out in the darkened room, but we can see him clearly when he flips the covers down with his arms and sighs again. Next to him lie two books: if one looks closely, they are entitled ‘Picture book’ and ‘SPACE’. Later, the boy endeavours to use magic to speed up time. He stands before a mantelpiece on which sit a few mismatched Christmas ornaments and, centred, a contemporary pendulum clock in glass and chrome. It is ten minutes to three. The boy, dressed in wizard’s gown and hat, draws rapid clockwise circles with his wand. Barely perceptible camera movement draws us slowly towards him, as a series of shot/reverse-shots create momentum and an air of gentle suspense. After a final accelerated zoom into the clock face, the camera returns to the boy in time to capture his final circles and his pronouncement of a magic word (which sounds like ‘gazam’), as he forcefully points at the clock in a hopefully authoritative and effectual flourish (Figure 10.2). It remains ten minutes to three. The clock ticks as the pendulum continues its unhurried swing. Consider these repeated images of clocks, shot from the boy’s perspective. The clocks are analogue, with circular faces and hands that sweep around them. These scenes’ symmetry – their motifs of

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10.2  The Long Wait: Making magic.

circles and circular motions – contribute to the film’s sense of order, geometry, rhythm and pattern. They encapsulate the preoccupations of The Long Wait in simple, pleasurable form. But they also draw attention to the film’s theme, and it is one with potentially complex implications: time. Specifically, the film explores temporality: the boy’s subjective impression of time. His naive experiments are charming in their childlike simplicity, but their foundations are not so foolish, being based on keen observations of how adult humans apprehend time. The boy’s perception of time is inextricably connected with the clock and its motion. The adult world appears to him to regard calendars and clocks not merely as tools for measuring time but as manifestations of time itself. If he can emulate the clock hands’ trajectory, spinning and circling clockwise, then perhaps he can speed up the circular movement of the hands around the clock face; this, he reasons, would in turn accelerate the passing of time. If that seems unsophisticated, one might reflect that it is perhaps the adults’ conception which is a misleading over-simplification. Besides, the formally simple motif of circularity is potentially provocative. It posits the movement of time as circular, rather than linear (a straight timeline travelling from past, through present, to future). Once we entertain the shape of time as a circle, we move with ease from the ticking of a clock to the rotation of the planet, to potentially eternal motion and the concept of infinity. Shape leads to motion, leads to time. What is more, in actively engaging with and questioning the nature of time, the boy’s childlike curiosity

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unfolds more flexible and creative modes of understanding than those of the adults around him. His experiments, though naive, are based on observations, intuitions and creative thought. His ideas find physical expression in movement, and in this way he begins to grasp that time is inherently related to motion in space. The spinning and wizard scenes bookmark a rapidly paced montage, in which faster editing creates a sense of increased momentum. The boy sits at a window, gazing outwards. He sighs. In a new shot, he remains in place, and draws a line with his finger through a patch of condensation on the window; this patch, it is suggested, comes from his sighing on the glass, but, although he remains dressed in the same outfit, he has slightly moved in the frame, so that the cut is a jump cut, which implies a lapse of time. In the next image, he wears a different outfit, a Christmas tree is now visible in the room behind him and fairy lights adorn the window ledge outside. With his hand under his chin, the boy gazes searchingly to the sky, as leaves gust against the window pane. Next, he continues to stare upwards, but wearing cardboard 3D glasses, as rain teems down. Finally, he is dressed as a nativity-play shepherd, with drawn-on moustache, tea-towel ghutra and wooden crook. His repeated appeal to the heavens, given his demonstrated interest in space (his reading book), conveys his growing hunch that there is some kind of crucial connection between space and time. The film visually renders this connection via the chosen editing technique that shapes this montage. Each of the transitions acts as a jump cut – that is, the camera remains static, but there is a change in the boy’s positioning, and alterations in his garb and surroundings, which make clear we are leaping from moment to non-contiguous moment. We understand that in such jump cuts, even subtle changes in space indicate lapses in time. We necessarily perceive space and time to be intimately connected.

The moment arrives: ‘The first time …’ It is Christmas Eve. The family sits at the kitchen table, which is decorated with a colourful oilcloth. The boy wears a cosy, dark red dressing gown (perhaps a hint that he will turn out to be Father Christmas, after all), and shovels peas from his plate into his mouth

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rapidly and not entirely successfully, as the peas all over the table testify. His parents look on with a mixture of bemusement and disapproval. The soundtrack music is purely instrumental, giving greater prominence to the diegetic sounds that emanate from the boy, as if he were slowly coming to consciousness from a long sleep. We hear the clatter of his fork, the chink of his plate and the scrape of his chair as he pushes away from the table. He runs down the hall corridor and upstairs, tearing into his room and slamming the door, leaving its little red wooden ‘Merry Christmas’ sign reverberating from the force. Sinking his head into his pillow, he pulls the covers up to his nose and screws his eyes up tight. A fade to black and a noticeable pause indicate not relative duration (this is only one night out of twenty-four) but significance: they mark the moment of transition. As the image fades back up, and the boy awakens, wide-eyed, to embrace Christmas morning, a slight increase in volume on the first note of the musical phrase emphasises the arrival of the longed-for occasion. The time has come. The lyrics resume as he gets out of bed: ‘So please, please, please …’. The camera follows the boy as he climbs from bed and hurries past its foot, but it lingers behind him, moving downwards to focus deliberately on a heap of wrapped presents, which the boy has resolutely ignored. He has a more pressing mission. The boy opens his wardrobe, reaching down to retrieve a large gift, inexpertly wrapped. The Christmas tree pattern that adorns the paper is upside down, and the overall appearance is somewhat crumpled, although the ribbon hints at what is to come, for it finishes the parcel unexpectedly, with a cheerful and surprisingly neatly tied bow on the top. The vocals ring out, ‘Lord knows, it would be the first time’, as the boy walks carefully down the corridor, nudges a door wide open with his foot, and we see from his point of view his waking parents, pushing themselves on to their elbows and looking in bleary-eyed confusion at their son. There is a cut to the boy and the camera tracks slowly towards him, as he smiles and extends the gift to them. At last, we become aware of how the song on the soundtrack misled us: what the boy wanted – what he eagerly awaited – was not a specific gift but a chance to experience, for the first time, the joy of giving a carefully chosen present to someone else. The content of the boy’s parcel is not revealed; it is not important. His simple, singular gift is measured against the

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10.3  The Long Wait: The time has come.

generous stack of presents he passed at the end of his bed, and is found to be of greater value. The superimposed closing captions affirm this reading with a witty, understated nod to the commercial purpose of this film: ‘For gifts you can’t wait to give’ (Figure 10.3), followed by a separate title ‘John Lewis’.

Valuing complexity and simplicity The Long Wait tells a simple tale, although to reduce the film to a précis of its minimal narrative would be a distortion and underestimation of its artistic project and aspirations. It is above all expressive and evocative in nature, in the manner of a rumination. It consequently opens itself up to different kinds of appreciation. Juhani Pallasmaa, in his exploration of the complexity of simplicity, writes, ‘A work of art has a double existence: it takes place in its own reality of matter and execution, on the one hand, and in an imaginative world of perception, association, thought, and emotion, on the other’. For this reason, ‘what you experience is never what you actually see. A profound work opens up a wide field of images, meanings, associations, recollections and intuitions. Every great work of art is an open excavation’ (2017: 21, 19). Let us consider what we found in our excavations of The Long Wait. As its title implies, the film is concerned with the passing of time, but is wholly shaped by and around the lived experience of one boy. It thereby foregrounds the relative nature of temporality

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and its rootedness in subjective experience. Viewers readily infer, from conventional techniques including scene changes and jump cuts, that days are passing and the season is progressing. However, point-of-view shots from the boy’s perspective focus on much smaller demarcations of time: mere minutes and seconds. Rituals of childhood Christmases (a nativity play, decorating the tree, playing in the snow) about which adults so often nostalgically reminisce go almost unnoticed by the boy: for him, there is only the clock, with its minuscule movements, which stubbornly and doggedly refuse to elapse faster, no matter what he does. In the meantime, in his attempts to re-engineer time and propel it forward, in his stumbling but ingenious attempts to exploit the connections between clocks, shapes, movements, space and time, the boy approaches a potentially sophisticated contemplation of time. There is no shortage of complexity to be appreciated in The Long Wait, including the thematic and conceptual complexities available to us if we engage with the notion of temporality as subjective experience, the provocation of circularity as a temporal motif and its allusions to the connectedness between time, motion and space. The film also exhibits striking artistic and design complexities in its meticulous choreography of formal and stylistic elements, only a portion of which I have been able to explore above. And yet, the film’s rich surface draws us back repeatedly, even as we might venture outwards to explore potentially complex concerns, exhibiting a ‘shibui’ quality of balancing simplicity with complexity, and thus enabling us to discover new aspects and meanings with each fresh encounter. We may excavate as much or as little, as deeply or as shallowly, as we wish; the film sustains a range of possible modes of appreciation. Whilst recent television scholarship tends to value the complex over the simple, my aim herein was to redress the balance by switching emphasis. Simplicity is not merely a functional tool, serving to make content clear, accessible or coherent. It has aesthetic value in its own right, which we might appreciate more keenly. I would argue that, ultimately, The Long Wait demonstrates, commends and celebrates simplicity. It does so in a myriad of ways, drawing extensively and creatively, explicitly and implicitly, upon conceptions of simplicity old and new that were explored in the opening pages above. This is no mean achievement. Henri Matisse claimed, ‘from time

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immemorial, it has taken courage to seek simplicity. I believe that it is the most difficult thing in the world’ (Flam 1995: 102); John Ruskin famously averred ‘it is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately’ (1873: 16). The conscious creation of a simple work demands, particularly from the experienced practitioner with a wealth of artistic options at his or her fingertips, special skills: clear-headed and singular focus, constant awareness of the enticements of expansiveness; a ruthless eye for any superfluity or unnecessary ornamentation. Mark Hollis, of the experimental band Talk Talk, cautioned ‘Before you play two notes … learn how to play one note, and don’t play one note unless you’ve got a reason to play it’ (my emphasis) (Wallace 2019). Whilst Hollis’s advice might imply formal minimalism, it expresses above all singularity and clarity of purpose, and the courage that Matisse averred was needed to pursue simplicity in art. The Long Wait maintains as its focus the expressive evocation of one singular experience: that of a child whose attention and curiosity are entirely absorbed by a particular concern. In this way it celebrates a perspective that is naive, direct and uncomplicated, whilst the boy’s playfulness and creativity exude spontaneity and prioritise sensuous, lived experience. The film makes available artistic, thematic and conceptual complexities, and it is by no means minimalistic – but as Matisse observes, ‘greater simplicity by no means excludes greater abundance’ (Flam 1995: 102). The choreographed surface of the work remains accessible and inclusive. In its singular focus, and in the manner in which all elements serve that focus, the film exhibits clarity and singleness of material and purpose. It makes extensive use of established markers of simplicity such as basic shapes, geometry, repetition and rhythm, and the extraordinary skill of its creators mean that images, sound and music cohere smoothly, with the overarching sensibility of a cradle song. Through its rendition of festive traditions familiar to its intended audience, The Long Wait hopes to draw upon common experiences and foreground shared human experience. As a Christmas story, its tale possesses subtle moral valence. It advertises a department store, yet avoids glossy sophistication, eschewing the opportunity to advertise glittering decorations or stylish home décor to viewers. Instead, it offers a humble parable in which the giving of a simple

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gift – whether purchased from John Lewis or not – means more than an extravagant pile of presents. Rejecting the blatant indulgences and fripperies of rampant consumerism, The Long Wait instead chimes with contemporary uneasiness about over-consumption and renewed interest in attaining a more appreciative awareness of the pleasures of everyday life. The values of simplicity that the film harnesses are recognisably familiar to its audience. The Long Wait played a key role in John Lewis’s marketing strategy, which aims to establish simplicity as one of the store’s brand values. Advertisements are said to create a need and then promise to fill it if we buy the product in question. Simplicity, too, has long made curative pledges, from one of the earliest uses of the word ‘simple’, in the context of a ‘herbal simple’, which was a trusted home remedy consisting of only one ingredient. John Lewis’s bold decision to create one of the first Christmas adverts that avoided any explicit salesmanship, instead building upon the established and enduring appeal of simplicity, forged a connection between the therapeutic, restorative properties of advertising and those of simplicity. It simultaneously shaped a defining moment in television. We may or may not decide to seek out John Lewis for our Christmas shopping, but we can take from The Long Wait an appreciation for simplicity which could prove transformative for our practice as television scholars. Already, television aestheticians employ terms of vocabulary which enable the positive appraisal of simple qualities – words such as elegance, economy, symmetry, nuance and understatement. Too often, though, the allure of complexity is greater, and simplicity is undervalued. There are other spheres, in academia, art and everyday life, that engage routinely and thoughtfully with simplicity, from where we might usefully draw freshly inspiring vocabulary. And in a critical context which increasingly prioritises complexity, The Long Wait’s commitment to simplicity offers us a salutary reminder of its value.

Notes 1 The Long Wait was launched the previous day, 11 November 2011, on John Lewis’s Facebook and YouTube channels, and immediately trended on Twitter. It was first broadcast on television in an ad break during The

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X Factor (ITV, 2004–present). It can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/ X5RhP3H3G7w. 2 The equivalent is ‘complex’ (broadly neutral or positive) as opposed to ‘complicated’ (unnecessarily, inappropriately or excessively over-developed). It is interesting how rarely TV scholars make use of this distinction in their evaluations of particular works, though Mittell recognises it (2015: 216). 3 The golden ratio, phi, can be expressed as 1:1.618. The term appeared in the 1800s, but the ratio was first described by Euclid, c. 300 BCE. It is found in nature, and has fascinated scientists and artists throughout history. It is contended that in the arts, placement of the most salient features according to the golden ratio will draw the eye of the viewer instinctively towards them. 4 The Long Wait was developed by ad agency Adam and Eve, in London, in collaboration with John Lewis’s marketing managers. It was directed by Dougal Wilson, the DOP was Lasse Frank, the production designer was Andy Kelly and the editor was Joe Guest. 5 A key influence for this shift in the perception of childhood was Rousseau (1762). 6 The waltz became popular in the UK in the early 1800s when, as a departure from more formal, group dancing, it was regarded as indicative of a yearning for ‘the simple, the natural, and the emotionally unrestrained’ (Simpson-Candelaria 1982: 34). 7 Over scenes of the boy fidgeting, fretting and thereby disturbing those around him, the vocalist sings ‘See, the luck I’ve had can make a good man turn bad’. There is a pause before the final word, which rings out over a close up of the boy, amusingly juxtaposing the lyrics’ vision of a corrupted, world-weary man over the image of a small boy very mildly (and charmingly) misbehaving. 8 The ball-bouncing sequence alludes to the cooler scene in The Great Escape (1963), where it similarly represents entrapment and frustration. I’m indebted to Jonathan Bignell for this observation.

References Anon. (2011) ‘Campaign of the year: John Lewis’. Campaign, 15 December. www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/campaign-year-john-lewis/1109364. Accessed 1 September 2019. Baker, Alan (2016) ‘Simplicity’. Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, 20 December. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simplicity/. Accessed 1 September 2019.

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Bannet, Eve Tavor (2017) Eighteenth-century manners of reading: print culture and popular instruction in the Anglophone Atlantic world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buonanno, Milly (2019) ‘Seriality: development and disruption in the contemporary medial and cultural environment’. Critical Studies in Television 14:2, pp. 187–203. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1749602019834667. Elgin, Duane (2013) ‘Voluntary simplicity: a path to sustainable prosperity’. Social Change Review 11:1, pp. 69–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/ scr-2013–0006. Flam, Jack (1995) ‘Interview with Gotthard Jedlicka’. In Matisse on art. Revised edition. Berkeley and London: University of California Press, pp. 97–103. Foley, Richard (1993) ‘What’s to be said for simplicity?’ Philosophical Issues 3 (Science and Knowledge), pp. 209–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/1522946. Havens, Raymond D. (1953) ‘Simplicity, a changing concept’. Journal of the History of Ideas 14:1, pp. 3–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/2707493. Karvonen, Kristiina (2000) ‘The beauty of simplicity’. In Jean Scholtz and John Thomas (eds) Proceedings of the 2000 Conference on universal usability. New York: ACM Press, pp. 85–90. Kossak, Roman and Philip Ording (eds) (2017) Simplicity: ideals of practice in mathematics and the arts. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Librova, Hana (2008) ‘The environmentally friendly lifestyle: simple or complex?’ Czech Sociological Review 44:6, pp. 1111–29. www.jstor.org/ stable/41132665. Accessed 12 July 2021. Maeda, John (2006) The laws of simplicity: design, technology, business, life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Mittell, Jason (2015) Complex TV: the poetics of contemporary television storytelling. New York and London: New York University Press. Obendorf, Hartmut (2009) Minimalism: designing simplicity. London: Springer. Pallasmaa, Juhani (2017) ‘The complexity of simplicity: the inner structure of the artistic image’. In Roman Kossak and Philip Ording (eds) Simplicity: ideals of practice in mathematics and the arts. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 17–28. Pawson, John (1996) Minimum. London and New York: Phaidon. Rolls, Edmund T. (2017) ‘Neurobiological foundations of aesthetics and art’. New Ideas in Psychology 47 (December), pp. 121–35. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2017.03.005. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1762) Émile, or On Education. Paris: Duchesne. Available at www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5427. Accessed 12 July 2021. Ruskin, John (1873 [1843]) Modern Painters, Volume 1. Second edition. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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Simpson-Candelaria, Joyce (1982) The waltz: its pervasiveness in the first half of the nineteenth century. MA thesis, The University of British Columbia. Sober, Elliott (1975) Simplicity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Thoreau, Henry D. (1878) Walden. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company. Wagner, Charles (1901) The Simple Life. Trans. Mary Louise Hendee. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. Originally published in French in 1895. Wallace, Wyndham (2019) ‘Living in another world: remembering Mark Hollis’. The Quietus, 26 February. https://thequietus.com/articles/26107mark-hollis-talk-talk-obituary. Accessed 1 September 2019.

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Index

Endnotes are indicated by n plus the note number following the page number. Illustrations are indicated by page numbers in italics. acting 71–3, 97–100, 159–61, 173, 181, 182, 187, 188, 201–2, 203, 225 delivering lines 52, 94, 131, 169–70, 182 advertising/commercial breaks 6, 9–10, 50, 208 see also The Long Wait aesthetics of television 3–7, 10, 18, 32, 54, 75, 105, 107, 131, 145 artwork 4, 7, 128, 131, 133–4, 136–7, 219, 224 in Doctor Who 176, 181, 183–4, 187, 188 in The Long Wait 217, 221–4, 226, 234, 236 ‘operational aesthetic’ 42–3, 49, 51, 52, 57 in Rick and Morty 88, 92–3, 100 in Vanity Fair 192, 193–4, 195, 202–5, 207, 208, 210, 211, 212 All 4 (Channel 4 streaming) 63 Anderson, Chris: quoted 42 animation 6, 87–8, 98–9, 210 see also Family Guy; Gravity Falls; Lasseter, John;

Rick and Morty; South Park; The Simpsons anthology dramas 183 see also The Twilight Zone ‘appointment to view TV’ 42 aspect ratio 202 Attenborough, David: quoted 208 audiences building of 16, 18, 56, 93, 175, 195, 196 courting of 43, 53, 93, 132, 136, 138, 153, 155 demands upon 3, 4, 10, 17, 25, 42, 56–7, 111, 112, 129 demographics 57 engagement 8, 21, 91, 137, 140, 189n.3, 204 with House of Cards 41, 43, 45, 46, 53, 55 manipulation of 44, 52, 54, 55, 58n.7 teasing 55 understanding by 23, 32, 63, 112, 137, 138–9, 149, 202 see also viewers Baker, Alan: quoted 221 Bakhtin, Mikhail: quoted 153, 163

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Index 241 Ballykissangel 66, 80 Barthes, Roland: quoted 188 BBC 181, 192–3, 195, 205, 207, 212 BBC1 196, 209, 212 BBC2 192, 196, 208, 209, 210, 212–13 as broadcaster and producer 41, 61, 85, 144, 168, 173, 174, 179–80, 187, 212 as broadcaster but not producer 104 effects library 205 Northern Ireland as producer 66 public service broadcasting 181, 189n.6, 193, 195, 208 Television Centre 204 see also under television studios Beardsley, Monroe 4, 5–6, 7, 105–6, 123n.3 Bechdel, Alison: Dykes to Watch Out For 79–80, 83n.7 Berman, Judy: quoted 19 Bignell, Jonathan xv, quoted 63, 189 black and white/monochrome transmission 192, 193, 195, 196, 204, 208, 209, 210–11 Bondarchuk, Sergei: Waterloo 212 Booth, Wayne C.: quoted 131 Bordwell, David: quoted 131, 153–4 ‘box-set’ 42 Bradshaw, Peter: quoted 144 Bramall, Rebecca and Ben Pitcher: quoted 130, 139 branding 18, 196, 217, 223, 236 Breaking Bad 19–20, 21–2 Cranston, Bryan/WaltHeisenberg 19–20, 22, 43 season 2 19

season 5 episode 16/’Felina’: script quoted 20 Brecht, Bertolt 136, quoted 131 Brideshead Revisited 109–10 Britton, Piers D.: quoted 171, 186 broadcast television 4, 18, 88, 144, 156, 216, 236–7n.1 Father Ted 62, 63, 65, 75 Vanity Fair 192, 193, 196, 203, 207–8, 209, 211–12 Brunsdon, Charlotte: quoted 106, 107 Bruzzi, Stella: quoted 116 Buonanno, Milly: quoted 5 Butler, David: quoted 180 Butler, Judith: quoted 78 cable television 18 Cartoon Network [Adult Swim] 88 Caldwell, John: quoted 91 camera work generally 24, 46, 52–3, 183, 184, 185, 202, 204, 207 ‘as live’ 168, 186 depth-of-field 48, 52–3, 55 (out of) focus 53, 153–4 multi-camera studio 168, 173, 176, 178, 181, 188 in Vanity Fair 194, 196, 199, 200, 201, 202–3, 204, 205–6 see also television studios point-of-view shots 46, 53, 69, 81, 225, 229, 232, 234 slow motion 70 static 197 see also cinematography Campaign 216–17 Cardwell, Sarah xv, 92, 196, 202, 210 quoted 5, 7 Carlson, Adam: quoted 150 catch-up services 42

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242 Index CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) 85, 208, 211 Chaney, Jen: quoted 148, 153, 155, 161 Channel 4 (broadcaster/ distributor) 62, 65, 82n.1 Chapman, James: quoted 179 Charles, Alec 171–2, quoted 172 Chenevix Trench, Richard: quoted 151 cinema 136 aspect ratio 202 British New Wave 195–6 European neo-realism 195–6 film studies 136, 138 Hollywood 193, 210, 211 silent (early films) 179, 198 Tom Mix 181 see also Wiene, Robert source for televisual techniques/ sensibilities 42, 64, 68–72, 75, 76–8, 175, 178, 195–6, 203, 210 Technicolor 210 cinematography/cinematographers 68, 112, 154, 186, 187, 211 location shooting 180, 186, 189n.7 for Vanity Fair 194, 195–6, 197, 199–200, 201, 203, 205–6, 206, 212 telecine inserts 175, 181, 194, 199, 206, 207 stock footage 205 see also camera work classic novel dramatisation 192, 195, 196, 210, 212 see also Brideshead Revisited; The Forsyte Saga; Vanity Fair; War and Peace Clayton, Alex: quoted 100

CNN (Cable News Network) 51 colour transmission 192–213 saturation 194, 205, 211 spatiality 194, 200, 201, 202 ‘complex tv’ 1–2, 5, 6–7, 21, 41–2 appearance of simplicity 194 complication/complexification 3, 8–9, 106, 127, 154, 223, 237n.2 expressive richness 84, 92, 93, 101, 106, 168, 195, 201–2, 233, 234 Cornell, Paul et al.: quoted 185 Coronation Street 178 costume 146–7, 149–50, 150, 152, 181, 185, 187–8 in Vanity Fair 197–8, 200, 204, 205, 207, 208, 212 see also Killing Eve hair styling 147, 197 makeup 118, 197 Cox, Fiona E.: quoted 108 Crafton, Donald: quoted 98–9 Creeber, Glen: quoted 101n.2 cultural studies 105 Davis, Amy M. et al.: quoted 87 Davis, Glyn and Gary Needham: quoted 171 Davison, Annette: quoted 90 Dexter 43, 45 dialogue 23, 129, 131, 176, 185, 202, 203 digital culture 90 memes 73, 120 see also internet direct address 72 in The Handmaid’s Tale 24, 33–4, 34 in House of Cards 44–6, 48, 50, 54, 55, 56, 58n.2 see also framing: to-camera Disney ABC (American Broadcasting Company) 144, 208, 211

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Index 243 Channel 91 Studio 98 Doctor Who 85, 167–88 Alderson, John/Wyatt Earp 173, 174, 176–7, 177, 178, 179–80, 181, 183, 184 Baker, Tom/The fourth Doctor 183, 187 Beale, Richard/Bat Masterson 174, 175, 176–8, 177, 179–80, 181, 182, 183–4 ‘classic’ period 167–88 Cotton, Donald 173, 186 Daleks 167, 168, 187 Derbyshire, Delia 168 Grainer, Ron 168 Hartnell, William/The first Doctor 169, 173, 174, 176–84, 177, 185–6 Jacobs, Anthony/Doc Holliday 173, 174, 175, 176, 179–80, 182, 183 Lane, Jackie/Dodo 173, 174, 176–7, 177, 178, 180, 181, 184 Lodge, Bernard 168 Marshe, Sheena/Kate 175, 176 McCoy, Sylvester/The seventh Doctor 172 Newbery, Barry: quoted 175 Purves, Peter/Steven 173, 174, 176–7, 177, 178, 180, 181, 184 queer reading of 170–88 series 1 serial 1 episode 1: ‘An Unearthly Child’ 169–70 script quoted 169 serial 2: ‘The Daleks’ 182, 187 serial 4: ‘Marco Polo’ 181 serial 6: ‘The Aztecs’ 181 serial 8: ‘The Reign of Terror’ 181

series 2 serial 4: ‘The Romans’ 181 series 3 serial 2: ‘The Myth Makers’ 181, 186 serial 6: ‘The Celestial Toymaker’ episode 4: ‘The Final Test’ 179, 182 serial 7: ‘The Gunfighters’ 175, 179–81, 183, 185, 187–8 episode 1: ‘A Holiday for the Doctor’ 173–85, 174, 176, 177 script quoted 181, 182, 183, 184–5 series 5 serial 4: ‘The Enemy of the World’ 187 series 10 serial 1: ‘The Three Doctors’ 172 serial 2: ‘Carnival of Monsters’ 172 series 11 serial 2: ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ 182 series 12 serial 2: ‘The Ark in Space’ 182 series 13 serial 3: ‘Pyramids of Mars’ 182–3 serial 4: ‘The Android Invasion’ 187 series 14 serial 3: ‘The Deadly Assassin’ 186 serial 6: ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’ 180, 182–3 series 16 serial 3: ‘The Stones of Blood’ 187 series 21 serial 1: ‘Warriors of the Deep’ 180 series 22 serial 2: ‘Vengeance on Varos’ 172

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244 Index serial 3: ‘The Mark of the Rani’ 180, 186–7 series 25 serial 2: ‘The Happiness Patrol’ 172, 186–7 script quoted 172 series 26 serial 2: ‘Ghost Light’ 186–7 ‘sideways stories’ 179, 180, 187 TARDIS 167, 168–70, 177, 179, 181 Troughton, Patrick/The second Doctor 187 Tucker, Rex 175 twenty-first century manifestation 167–8, 182 see also under aesthetics of television; framing; simplicity Donaldson, Lucy Fife xv Drake, P.: quoted 160 Dressen, Austin and Charles Taliaferro: quoted 49 Dunleavy, Trisha 100, quoted 92–3 DVD (digital video disc) 42, 65, 71 Eaton, Mick: quoted 26–7, 35, 37n.10 editing/cutting 48, 54, 70, 154, 175, 183, 184, 194, 201–2, 204–5 crosscutting/cutaways 90, 114, 118, 151 jump cuts 231, 234 long takes 197, 200–1, 204–5 in The Long Wait 225, 226, 228, 231, 232 montage 24, 32, 132–5, 139–40, 228–9, 231 in real time 168 shot/reverse-shot 176, 229 Ellis, John: quoted 17, 25–6 Equity 205 ER 25, 77, 144

Family Guy 88 Father Ted 61–82 Barrett, Sean/Father Fitzgerald 67, 71–2 catchphrases 62–3 Catholicism 61–2, 74, 75–6, 77, 79, 81–2 Craven, Gemma/Polly Clarke 64, 79, 80 Crowley, Donncha/Father Billy 67, 69, 70, 81 Gallivan, Colum/Father Reilly 67, 71 Grace, Brendan/Father Stack 76 Hannon, Neil 68 Kelly, Frank/Jack 62, 65, 67, 70, 78, 79 Linehan, Graham: 77 and Arthur Mathews 62, 65, 71, 78–9, 82nn.2–4 quoted 65 McCaul, Neil/Father Terry 67, 81 McKidd, Kevin/Father Deegan 67, 69, 71 McLynn, Pauline/Mrs Doyle 62–3, 66–7, 73, 79–81 McSorley, Gerard/Father Todd 66, 67, 72, 73–4 media coverage 62, 74, 78 Morgan, Dermot/Ted 62, 63, 64, 65, 66–7, 68, 69–74, 75–7, 78–81 Norton, Graham/Father Noel 74 O’Hanlon, Ardal/Dougal 62, 63, 65, 66–7, 68, 76–7, 78, 79, 81 series 1 episode 1: ‘Good Luck, Father Ted’ 74 episode 2: ‘Entertaining Father Stone’ 76, 78 episode 3: ‘The Passion of Saint Tibulus’ 62, 80 script quoted 62

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Index 245 episode 5: ‘And God Created Woman’ 64, 65, 72–3, 79, 80 script quoted 64, 73 series 2 episode 1: ‘Hell’ 63, 74, 79 script quoted 63, 79 episode 7: ‘Rock a Hula Ted’ 74, 78–9 episode 8: ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol and Rollerblading’ 79 script quoted 79 episode 9: ‘New Jack City’ 76, 78 script quoted 76 episode 10: ‘Flight into Terror’ 77 script quoted 77 episode 11: ‘A Christmassy Ted’ 62, 63, 65–72, 68, 73–4, 75, 76, 80–2 script quoted 66–7, 69, 70, 72, 74, 75–6, 81 series 3 episode 3: ‘Speed 3’ 76–7 episode 4: ‘The Mainland’ 80 episode 7: ‘Night of the Nearly Dead’ 77 Taylor, Joe/Feather Cleary 67, 70, 71 see also under broadcast television feminist critique 78–81, 161, 196 flashbacks 24–5, 32–3 Folsom, Jake: quoted 147–8 The Forsyte Saga 192, 196 Fotis, Matt: quoted 163n.4 Fox Broadcasting Company 87, 88 framing 55, 56, 117, 153–4, 198, 200, 201–2, 227–8 close-ups 144, 158, 183, 225 big/extreme close-ups 25, 32

in The Handmaid’s Tale 24, 25, 30, 32, 33–4, 34 in House of Cards 46, 52, 54, 56 medium 48, 176, 177, 200–1 in Vanity Fair 197, 202, 203, 205 in Doctor Who 175, 176, 177, 177–8, 183–4 eye level 32 eye-line 46, 52–3, 56 frames within frames 55 long shot 175, 205, 212 low angle 68, 174, 174, 175, 184 medium shots 32, 144, 158, 176 overhead/high shot 32, 175 three-shot 178, 183 tight shot 178, 201 to-camera/direct address 72 in The Handmaid’s Tale 24, 33–4, 34 in House of Cards 39, 41, 44–58, 47, 52, 56, 58–9n.8 two-shot 201 wide shots 32, 158, 158, 175, 176, 207 Gaines, Jane 116 quoted 112–13 Game of Thrones 18 genres 9, 175 adaptation 16 see also The Handmaid’s Tale, Brideshead Revisited; The Forsyte Saga, Vanity Fair; War and Peace children’s programmes 9–10 costume drama 178–9, 181, 183, 210, 211, 212 see also Brideshead Revisited; The Forsyte Saga, Vanity Fair; War and Peace

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246 Index courtroom comedy 187 crime dramas/procedurals 22, 25, 37n.10, 106, 144 see also The Wire documentary 133 as a style 154 dystopia 16, 26, 27 see also The Handmaid’s Tale fantasy 160, 162, 179, 183, 210 horror/gothic 178, 183, 187 medical procedurals 25, 144 political drama/thrillers 53, 144, 155 see also House of Cards science fiction 178–9, 187 see also Stranger Things sitcoms 6, 26, 37n.10, 62, 63–4, 74, 75 see also Father Ted; The Thick of It; Veep westerns 173, 175, 180, 181, 182, 183, 189n.7 Giffney, Noreen: quoted 170 Goffman, Erving: quoted 111 golden ratio 221, 223, 237n.3 ‘good’/‘quality’/‘golden age’ television 1, 4, 9, 42 high-end 16, 17–18, 27, 101 Gordon, Bryony: quoted 144 Gravity Falls 91 Greene, Graham: quoted 210 Haining, Peter: quoted 173 The Handmaid’s Tale 16–36 Atwood, Margaret 16, 28 quoted 27 originating novel 16, 17, 22, 23, 27, 28, 35, 36n.3 quoted 27 awards 36n.1 Blake, Jordana/Hannah-Agnes 19, 20, 25, 29, 31, 32–3

Bledel, Alexis/Emily 17, 23, 29, 33 Dowd, Ann/Aunt Lydia 23, 29 Fiennes, Joseph/Fred Waterford 16, 19, 29, 30, 31, 33 media coverage 18–19, 27, 35 Miller, Bruce quoted 17, 20, 23, 31 see also under showrunners Minghella, Max/Nick 30, 31 Moss, Elizabeth/Offred-June 16–17, 19, 20–4, 25, 26, 28, 29–36, 34, 36–7n.6, 36n.3, 36n.5 narration/voice-over 23–4, 35 season 1 36n.5 episode 7: ‘The Other Side’ 23 episode 10: ‘Night’ 23 season 2 20, 41 episode 5: ‘Seeds’ 27 episode 8: ‘Women’s Work’ 29 episode 10: ‘The Last Ceremony’ 29, 33 script quoted 29 episode 12: ‘Postpartum’ 29–30, 32 episode 13: ‘The Word’ 17, 18, 19, 23, 25, 29, 30–4, 34, 35, 36–7n.6 script quoted 31, 33 season 3 18, 19, 30, 34–5, 36n.5 episode 1: ‘Night’ 34 Strahovski, Yvonne/Serena Joy 16, 19, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35 Sweeney, Sydney/Eden 29–30, 32 Whitford, Bradley/Joseph Lawrence 29, 33, 35 see also Schlöndorff, Volker; spectacle; under framing

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Index 247 Hanna-Barbera Productions 87, 100 Harris, Robert: quoted 148 Hat Trick Productions 82n.1 Havens, Raymond D.: quoted 219 HBO (Home Box Office) 18, 43, 143, 153 ‘heritage’ television 195, 208, 212 High Bridge Entertainment 43 Higson, Andrew: quoted 195 Hill, John: quoted 64 Hills, Matt: quoted 91 Hollis, Mark: quoted 235 House of Cards 39–58, 155 awards 58n.1 Birney, Reed/Donald Blythe 45, 46–7, 48, 49, 50, 51–2, 53, 54–5 Davies, Andrew 41 Dobbs, Michael: originating novel 41 Education Bill 45–7, 48, 49, 50–2, 59n.9 Fincher, David 42 Gill, Michel/President Garrett Walker 40, 45, 46–7, 49, 51 Jaffrey, Sakina/Linda Vasquez 40, 45–8, 50–1 Kelly, Michael/Doug Stamper 40, 49, 52, 53, 58n.7 Mara, Kate/Zoe Barnes 40, 49, 50, 53, 55 media coverage 40, 41, 42, 58n.2, 58n.4 season 1 40 episode 1: ‘Chapter 1’ 39–40, 45–9, 47, 52 script quoted 39, 46, 47, 48 episode 2: ‘Chapter 2’ 40, 45, 49–53, 52, 55, 56 script quoted 49–50, 51, 52, 54 episode 3: ‘Chapter 3’ 55 episode 6: ‘Chapter 6’ 58n.6, 58n.7

episode 7: ‘Chapter 7’ 59n.9 script quoted 59n.9 episode 13: ‘Chapter 13’ 56 season 2 40 episode 1: ‘Chapter 14’ 55 script quoted 55 season 5 episode 13: ‘Chapter 65’ 40 season 6 40 Spacey, Kevin/Frank Underwood 39–40, 42, 43–58, 47, 52, 56, 58n.2, 58n.4, 58n.6, 58n.7, 59n.9 Stoll, Carey/Peter Russo 40–1, 50 Wright, Robin/Claire Underwood 40 see also under; audiences: engagement; direct address; framing Howe, David J. and Stephen James Walker: quoted 180, 185 Howells, Coral Ann: quoted 23 Hulu Original Content 16, 17, 18, 23 Hutcheon, Linda: quoted 75 Iannucci, Armando In the Loop 144 see also under showrunners; Veep images 32, 154, 202, 210, 228, 232 title/(pre-)credits/opening sequences 90–1, 168–9, 197–9, 198 internet 18 Facebook 236n.1 online platforms 89, 216 streaming 4, 42, 153 see also All 4; Disney Channel; Hulu Original Content; Netflix YouTube 96–7, 236n.1 see also digital culture

248 Index intertextuality 63, 76, 77, 81–2, 108, 109 Ireland with Simon Reeve 61, 82 ITV 207, 208, 209, 212

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Jacobs, Jason xv–xvi, 92 Kajtár, László: quoted 57 Kennedy Martin, Troy 138 Killing Eve 104–23 Bodnia, Kim/Konstantin 113–14, 117, 118, 123n.13 Comer, Jodie/Villanelle-Oksana Astankova 104, 106, 107, 108–10, 109, 110–23, 115, 119, 120, 123n.13, 123n.14 de Gaye, Phoebe 111 quoted 104, 112 den Hollander, Jung Sun/The Ghost 113, 114, 117–18 Dodina, Evgenia/Tatiana 119–22, 120 McDonnell, Owen/Niko Polastri 108–9, 109, 110, 123n.11 Oh, Sandra/Eve Polastri 104, 106, 107, 110, 112–19, 115, 123, 124n.11, 124n.13 season 1 episode 1: ‘Nice Face’ 107, 113, 116 episode 2: ‘I’ll Deal with Him Later’ 110–11, 113, 123n.12 script quoted 110–11 episode 3: ‘Don’t I Know You?’ 113 episode 8: ‘God, I’m Tired’ 108 season 2 111 episode 1: ‘Do You Know How to Dispose of a Body?’ 108, 120

episode 4: ‘Desperate Times’ 116–19, 119 episode 5: ‘Smell Ya Later’ 108–9, 109, 114–16, 115 script quoted 115 episode 8: ‘You’re Mine’ 123n.13 season 3 episode 5: ‘Are You from Pinner?’ 119–22, 120 script quoted 120, 121 see also under spectacle Lasseter, John: Toy Story 98 Lattazzanio, Ryan: quoted 149 Lavik, Erlend 130, 131 quoted 127–8 Leach, Jim: quoted 171, 172 Leone, Sergio: ‘Dollars’ trilogy 189n.5 Librova, Hana: quoted 223 lighting 194, 204, 205, 207, 225, 227–8 fade to black 184, 232 Loach, Ken and Tony Garnett Cathy Come Home 195 Up the Junction 195 The Long Wait 216–36, 227, 230, 233 credits 237n.4 John Lewis 216–17, 223–4, 233, 235–6 Slow Moving Millie (Amelia Warner): ‘Please, please, please’ 216, 224, 225, 227, 228, 232, 237n.7 temporality 230–1, 233–4 see also under aesthetics of television; editing Lyons, Margaret: quoted 19, 34 MacCabe, Colin 138, 139, 140 quoted 24, 136 Machiavelli, Niccolò 39, 43, 48, 57

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Index 249 MacRury, Iain and Michael Rustin: quoted 168–9 Mad Men 21–2, 26 Hamm, John/Don Draper 22 Mamoulian, Rouben: Becky Sharp 210 Matisse, Henri: quoted 234–5 McKee, Alan: quoted 171, 185 McLachlan, Ian K.: quoted 185 Miller, Lisa: quoted 18–19, 27 mise-en-scène 23, 105, 112, 116, 153–4, 187, 188, 197–9, 202–3 sets/scenic design 181, 184, 185, 195, 197, 202, 203, 212 Mittell, Jason 4–6, 100, 104, 105, 111, 123, 127, 237n.2 quoted 21, 106 Complex TV quoted 4, 9, 24, 41, 42–3, 44, 86, 104–5, 218 modernism 137, 138, 194 movement of/within the frame 53, 64, 175, 202, 204, 207, 229 pan 128, 176–7, 178, 184, 224, 228 pulling back 194 track 48, 53, 96, 175, 177, 184, 228, 229, 232 travelling shots 168 zoom 168, 229 Muir, John Kenneth: quoted 173 Murray, Susan: quoted 209 music 32, 34, 43–4, 52, 96, 120, 122, 184, 197–8, 227–8 montages 127, 132, 133 score 68, 70, 95, 168 Nannicelli, Ted xvi narrative 7–8, 17, 22–5, 34, 105, 111–13, 116–17, 196, 216

action/events 105, 116, 133, 137, 159 backstory 25, 43 change of tone 154–5, 173 character motivation 183, 184 codes in sitcom 63, 65 complexity 3–6, 19, 35, 42–3, 105, 127, 132, 172, 218 in Rick and Morty 84, 88, 92–3, 100–1 counter-narrative 23, 25, 183 detail 25, 42, 49, 76, 81–2, 86, 89, 90–1, 93 devices 41, 44, 152 ‘displacement’ 20, 179 exposition 128, 131, 157 genre-specific 17, 22, 175, 179 layering/strands 20, 85–6, 88, 133, 137, 151, 179 linear 42, 85, 168 long-form/grand 17, 88–9, 93, 122, 127, 172 metanarrative 4, 40, 41, 45, 48, 50, 56, 57, 182 ‘overarching story’ 22, 26, 35, 36, 61, 66, 88–9, 93 story arcs 4, 41, 42, 45, 48, 121, 155, 233 open-ended 17 patterns 86, 92 premises 22, 90, 170, 179 progression 21, 26, 28, 35–6, 182 ‘redundancy’ 127–8, 130–1, 136, 137, 175 simplicity 8–9, 42, 101, 168, 186, 187, 216, 224 structures/mechanisms 4, 25, 92, 97, 116, 179 NBC (National Broadcasting Company) 25, 41, 77, 208, 211 Netflix 39, 41, 42, 155

250 Index

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Newman, Kim: quoted 168, 169, 181, 187 Newman, Sydney 185 quoted 185 Norris, Bill: quoted 179–80, 181 NTSC (Natonal Television Systems Committee) 207–8, 209, 211 O’Mahony, Daniel: quoted 183 one-off plays 195–6 see also Loach, Ken Pallasmaa, Juhani: quoted 233 Pawson, John: quoted 222, 226 PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) 212 Masterpiece Theatre 211 Peacock, Steven xvi, 92 Pinker, Steven 139 quoted 138 Potter, Dennis: quoted 23 Potter, Ian: quoted 176, 178 premium/subscription television 17–18, 42 Prime Suspect 106, 107 production 98 budgets 42, 180, 193, 195, 196, 200, 212 videotape 168 values 42, 92, 174 public service broadcasting see under BBC; PBS puppetry 197–9, 198, 200 Radio Times 193–4, 204 Randell-Moon, Holly and Arthur J. Randell: quoted 88 realism 55, 136–7, 194, 195–6, 200, 201, 202 naturalism 138, 194 non-naturalism 185 Rick and Morty 84–101 Beth Smith 93–5, 97–8, 99 Harmon, Dick 96–7 Jerry Smith 93–4

Morty Smith 84–5, 86–7, 90, 93 Rick Sanchez 84–5, 86–7, 90, 93–8, 99, 100 Roiland, Justin 91 season 2 episode 3: ‘Auto Erotic Assimilation’ 84–5, 86, 88, 93–7, 100, 101 script quoted 85, 87, 94, 95 Smith family 93, 96 Summer Smith 84–5, 86–7, 93, 95 title sequence 90–1 Unity 84–5, 86–7, 95, 96, 97, 101n.1 see also under aesthetics of television; narrative: complexity Robb, Brian J.: quoted 172, 179, 183, 187 Rosenberg, Alyssa: quoted 145 Ruskin, John: quoted 235 Satell, Greg: quoted 41 satire 82, 117, 160, 161, 162, 163, 163n.4, 202 see also The Thick of It; Veep schadenfreude 143, 145, 149, 150, 151, 153, 162 scheduling 88, 196 Schlöndorff, Volker: The Handmaid’s Tale (film) 17, 28 serial form 4, 5–7, 17–19, 21–2, 37n.8, 56, 101n.2, 122, 127 ‘complex serials’ 19, 22–6, 86, 88–9, 92, 107–8, 123, 218 multi-season/long-format 4, 101, 193, 212 in The Handmaid’s Tale 16, 17–18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 28, 35

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Index 251 see also Breaking Bad; Brideshead Revisited; Coronation Street; Dexter; Doctor Who; ER; Game of Thrones; Killing Eve; Mad Men; Rick and Morty; Stranger Things; The Handmaid’s Tale; The Sopranos; The Wire; Vanity Fair; War and Peace series drama/generic/episodic 5–6, 7, 17–18, 21, 26, 37n.10 see also Ballykissangel; Doctor Who; Family Guy; Gravity Falls; Prime Suspect; South Park; The Simpsons showrunners 154 Iannucci, Armando 144, 154 see also his own entry as film director; under Veep Jean, Al 89 Mandel, David 154–5 Miller, Bruce 20 see also under The Handmaid’s Tale Showtime 43 simplicity and simplistic 3, 5, 9, 78, 84, 97, 105, 138, 211, 219 in Doctor Who 171, 172, 174, 186, 188 beyond television 2, 218–23 and conventionality 21, 28, 195, 217–18 economy of means 10, 106 simplification 130, 219 as something created 223 as undervalued 2, 9, 218–19, 236 The Simpsons 87–8, 89 Bart Simpson 89 Homer Simpson 89

Smart, Billy: quoted 195 Smith, Murray: quoted 43, 136 The Sopranos 21–2, 26 Gandolfini, James/Tony Soprano 22, 43 Sorlin, Sandrine: quoted 54 sound 32, 154, 181, 187 effects 32 soundtrack 216, 225, 227–8, 232 South Park 88 spectacle 147, 175, 176, 193, 198, 205, 210 in The Handmaid’s Tale 27, 29–30, 32, 36–7n.6 in Killing Eve 113, 115, 116–17, 118 Stranger Things 92–3 Stutesman, Drake: quoted 112 subplot 42, 63, 66, 94 subtext 50, 56, 173 Taylor, Don 203 quoted 203 technological development 8, 27, 153, 179, 193, 194, 196, 206, 208, 210–11 television studies/scholarship 1–3, 7–10, 14, 84, 86, 127, 136–8, 217–18, 221, 234–6 television studios 175, 189n.4 BBC Television Centre 168, 173, 179–80, 184, 186–7, 189n.4, 204, 205, 209 Ealing 207 Thackeray, William Makepeace see Vanity Fair theatre farce 69, 72, 145, 151, 161, 162, 163 ‘fourth wall’ 41, 44, 46, 47, 56, 57, 58, 202 Jacobean/Shakespearean drama 48

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252 Index medieval morality plays: Vice figure 43, 48, 58n.5 Richard III 58n.4 source of television techniques/ material/personnel 181, 196, 197, 199, 202 theatricality/staginess 45, 53, 55, 58n.2, 199, 200, 202 The Thick of It 144, 162, 164n.5 Thoreau, Henry David: quoted 222 Trump, Donald 41, 154, 155, 159, 160, 161 Tucker, Rex see under Doctor Who; Vanity Fair The Twilight Zone 85 UHF (ultra high frequency) 209 Vanity Fair (1967) 192–213 1956 dramatisation 196 Chapman, Spencer 192–3, 204, 206, 207, 210 Conroy, David 205, 211 episode 1: ‘The Famous Little Becky Puppet’ 197–201, 198, 201 Giles, David 192–3, 204, 205 Grahame, Ailsa/Miss Pinkerton 199, 200, 201 Hampshire, Susan/Becky Sharp 192–3, 197, 199–201, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207 Marsden, Roy/George Osborne 205 Moffatt, John/Jos Sedley 205 serial form 192–3, 195–6, 211–12 Taylerson, Marilyn/Amelia Sedley 197, 199–201, 201, 202, 204, 205 Thackeray, William Makepeace 198–9, 202

original source novel 192, 196–7, 198–9 quoted 199 Tucker, Rex 197, 205, 206 see also broadcast television; camera work: multi-camera studio; cinematography: location shooting; framing; Mamoulian, Rouben; mise-en-scène: costume; under aesthetics of television Veep 143–63 awards 163n.2, 163n.3 Chlumsky, Anna/Amy Brookheimer 144, 161 Dunn, Kevin/Ben Cafferty 144, 156, 159 Hale, Tony/Gary Walsh 144, 152, 157, 163n.2 Iannucci, Armando 143, 144, 148, 154 quoted 154, 160, 161 see also his own entry as film director; The Thick of It; under showrunners Louis-Dreyfus, Julia/Selina Meyer 144, 145–8, 146, 149–52, 150, 153, 155–62, 158, 163n.2 Miller, David 163n.3 quoted 154 Phillips, Sally/Minna Häkkinen 145–8, 146 Scott, Reid/Dan Egan 144, 152 season 2 episode 5: ‘Helsinki’ 145–8, 146 script quoted 145, 146 season 3 episode 7: ‘Special Relationship’ 149–52, 150

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Index 253 script quoted 150, 151, 152 season 4 155 season 5 154 season 7 155 episode 4: ‘South Carolina’ 156 episode 7: ‘Veep’ 155–9, 158 script quoted 156, 157, 161 Seehorn, Rhea/Michelle 156–7, 158 Simons, Timothy/Jonah Ryan 144, 155, 161 Sutherland, Sarah/Catherine Meyer 144, 156 Walsh, Matt/Mike McLintock 144, 150, 152 VHF (very high frequency) 209 Viacom 88 videotape 76, 89, 96–7, 168, 186, 194, 196, 211 viewing/viewers 24, 49, 101 children 9–10, 88 in domestic space 56, 171, 172, 203, 211 fans (and their theories) 4, 84, 87, 88–92, 93, 96–7, 100 figures 173, 209 glance theory 91 television sets 210 as voyeurism 43 see also audiences War and Peace 212 Warner Brothers Television 84 Weinbrot, Howard: quoted 163n.4 Wells, Paul: quoted 98, 100 The West Wing 41, 144 Wheatley, Helen: quoted 205 Wiene, Robert: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari 178, 179, 182, 184 Wild, Min: quoted 163n.4

The Wire 126–41 Gilliard Jr, Larry/Barksdale 128–9, 133 Peters, Clarke/Freamon 133, 137 Reddick, Lance/Daniels 126, 128, 130 Robinson, Corey Parker/Sydnor 128–9 Royo, Andre/Bubbles 128–9, 139 season 1 episode 3: ‘The Buys’ 126–7, 128–31 script quoted 128, 129, 130 episode 13: ‘Sentencing’ 132–3 season 2 episode 12: ‘Port in a Storm’ 133, 134 season 3 episode 12: ‘Mission Accomplished’ 133, 134 season 4 episode 13: ‘Final Grades’ 133, 134 season 5 138 Simon, David 135, 137 Sohn, Sonja/Greggs 128–9, 133 West, Dominic/McNulty 126–7, 128–30, 133 Williams, Michael K. /Omar 129–30, 135 Wolfson, Sam: quoted 8 Wood, Tat: quoted 170 and Lawrence Miles: quoted 173–4, 181, 183 Worsley, T. C.: quoted 168 writers 19–20, 22, 34, 37n.8, 164n.5 Yamaguchi, Ryuichi: quoted 163n.4