Narrative Complexity in Television

Jason Mittell 29 JASON MITTELL Narrative Complexity in Contemporary American Television longside the host of procedural crime tended Bordwell’s approach to television, suggesting that dramas, domestic sitcoms, and reality com- programs like Twin Peaks and The Singing Detective might petitions that populate the American televi- be usefully thought of as “art television,” importing norms A sion schedule, a new form of entertainment from art cinema onto the small screen.2 Although certainly television has emerged over the past two decades to both cinema influences many aspects of television, especially critical and popular acclaim. This model of television concerning visual style, I am reluctant to map a model of storytelling is distinct for its use of narrative complexity storytelling tied to self-contained feature films onto the as an alternative to the conventional episodic and serial ongoing long-form narrative structure of series televi- forms that have typified most American television since sion and thus believe we can more productively develop its inception. We can see such innovative narrative form a vocabulary for television narrative in terms of its own in popular hits of recent decades from Seinfeld to Lost, medium. Television’s narrative complexity is predicated West Wing to The X-Files, as well as in critically beloved on specific facets of storytelling that seem uniquely suited but ratings-challenged shows like Arrested Development, to the series structure that sets television apart from film Veronica Mars, Boomtown, and Firefly. HBO has built its and distinguish it from conventional modes of episodic reputation and subscriber base upon narratively com- and serial forms. plex shows, such as The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Curb Narrative complexity is sufficiently widespread and Your Enthusiasm, and The Wire. Clearly, these shows offer popular that we may consider the 1990s to the present an alternative to conventional television narrative—the as the era of television complexity. Complexity has not purpose of this essay is to chart out the formal attributes overtaken conventional forms within the majority of of this storytelling mode, explore its unique pleasures and television programming today—there are still many more patterns of comprehension, and suggest a range of reasons conventional sitcoms and dramas on-air than complex for its emergence in the 1990s. narratives. Yet just as 1970s Hollywood is remembered In trying to understand the storytelling practices of far more for the innovative work of Altman, Scorsese, contemporary American television, we might consider and Coppola than for the more commonplace (and often narrative complexity as a distinct narrational mode, as more popular) conventional disaster films, romances, and suggested by David Bordwell’s analysis of film narrative. comedy films that filled theaters, I believe that American For Bordwell, a “narrational mode is a historically distinct television of the past twenty years will be remembered set of norms of narrational construction and comprehen- as an era of narrative experimentation and innovation, sion,” one that crosses genres, specific creators, and artistic challenging the norms of what the medium can do. Thus movements to forge a coherent category of practices.1 for argument’s sake it is useful to explore how today’s Bordwell outlines specific cinematic modes such as clas- television has redefined narrative norms in a series of ways sical Hollywood, art cinema, and historical materialism, that I label “complex.” Even though this mode represents all of which encompass distinct storytelling strategies neither the majority of television nor its most popular while still referencing one another and building on the programs (at least by the flawed standard of Nielsen rat- foundations of other modes. Kristin Thompson has ex- ings), a sufficiently widespread number of programs work The Velvet Light Trap, Number 58, Fall 2006 ©2006 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819 VLT 58 4-Mittell.indd 29 9/28/06 3:22:13 PM 30 Narrative Complexity against conventional narrative practices using an innovative aesthetic issues that have typically been downplayed in the cluster of narrational techniques to justify such analysis.3 development of television studies as a field.8 Drawing upon Obviously, the labels “conventional” and “complex” are this range of sources, we can establish a detailed account not value-free descriptions, just as terms like “primitive” of the narratological form that contemporary American and “classical” signal evaluative standpoints in film stud- television offers as a true aesthetic innovation unique to its ies. While I have argued elsewhere for the importance medium. This new mode, which I term narrative complex- of questions of value in studying television, a tendency ity, is not as uniform and convention driven as episodic that contemporary critical approaches dismiss, I do not or serials norms (in fact, its most defining characteristic propose these terms as explicitly evaluative.4 Complexity might be its unconventionality), but it is still useful to group and value are not mutually guaranteed—personally, I much together a growing number of programs that work against prefer watching high-quality conventional programs like the conventions of episodic and serial traditions in a range The Dick Van Dyke Show and Everybody Loves Raymond to of intriguing ways. While some point to this emerging the narratively complex but conceptually muddled and form as “novelistic” television, I contend that it is unique logically maddening 24. However, narrative complex- to the television medium despite the clear influences from ity offers a range of creative opportunities and palette other forms such as novels, films, videogames, and comic of audience responses that are unique to the television books.9 medium and thus should be studied and appreciated as In examining narrative complexity as a narrational a key development in the history of American narrative mode I follow a paradigm of historical poetics that situates forms.5 Arguably, the pleasures potentially offered by formal developments within specific historical contexts complex narratives are richer and more multifaceted than of production, circulation, and reception.10 Following a conventional programming, but value judgments should historical poetic approach, innovations in media form are be tied to individual programs rather than claiming the not viewed as creative breakthroughs of visionary artists superiority of an entire narrational mode or genre. Thus but at the nexus of a number of historical forces that work while we should not shy away from evaluative dimensions to transform the norms established with any creative prac- in narrative transformations, the goal of my analysis is not tice. Such an analysis examines the formal elements of any to argue that contemporary television is somehow better medium alongside the historical contexts that helped shape than it was in the 1970s but rather to explore how and innovations and perpetuate particular norms. So what are why narrative strategies have changed and to consider the the relevant contexts that enabled the emergence of nar- broader cultural implications of this shift. rative complexity? A number of key transformations in Television scholars have typically been reluctant to the media industries, technologies, and audience behaviors focus their analyses on the medium’s narrative form, as coincide with the rise of narrative complexity, not func- television studies emerged from the twin paradigms of tioning as straightforward causes of this formal evolution mass communications and cultural studies, both of which but certainly enabling the creative strategies to flourish. tend to foreground social impacts over aesthetic analysis, Although there is much more to examine about these although using markedly different methodologies. Analy- various contextual developments, a brief overview of key ses of conventional television narration are surprisingly changes in 1990s television practices points to both how limited, with classic work by Horace Newcomb, Robert these transformations impact creative practices and how Allen, Sarah Kozloff, John Ellis, and Jane Feuer representing formal features always expand beyond textual borders. the bulk of the field.6 Some early accounts of innovative One key influence on the rise of narrative complexity narrative strategies by Newcomb, Christopher Anderson, on contemporary television is the changing perception of Thomas Schatz, and Marc Dolan suggest the antecedents the medium’s legitimacy and its appeal to creators. Many of contemporary narrative complexity in Magnum, P.I., St. of the innovative television programs of the past twenty Elsewhere, and Twin Peaks.7 More recently, Steven Johnson years have come from creators who launched their careers and Jeffrey Sconce have offered their own accounts of in film, a medium with more traditional cultural cachet: contemporary television’s narrative form, offering insights David Lynch (Twin Peaks) and Barry Levinson (Homicide: that I build upon throughout; I take these writings as a Life on the Street and Oz) as directors, Aaron Sorkin (Sports sign that media critics are turning attention to formal and Night and West Wing), Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, and VLT 58 4-Mittell.indd 30 9/28/06 3:22:14 PM Jason Mittell 31 Firefly), Alan Ball (Six Feet Under), and J. J. Abrams (Alias comprised of viewers who watch little other television is

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