Defining 'Quality TV.'

Wilcox and Lavery (2002) identify 9 defining characteristics of ‘quality TV’ – can you apply any of these to other television series that you have viewed recently? Are there any other characteristics that you could add to their list?

I should warn, I don't own a television, because I have a teeny tiny apartment, so the only time I watch tv is when I go home during holidays, and when I watch the limited number of shows I follow religiously online. So sorry if I can't answer all the questions.

• Quality TV usually has a quality pedigree. 

-

• Desirable demographics notwithstanding, quality shows must often undergo a noble struggle against profit-mongering networks and non-appreciative audiences. 

For this, the only show that really comes to mind is my all time favourite, South Park. It’s roots are pretty humble, Trey Parker and Matt Stone originally began making the short animations with crate paper which would eventuate into the show it is today. It really goes without saying that South Park has seen it’s fair share of non-appreciative audiences, due to style, the fact it is an adult cartoon, content, violence, and social commentary taken to extreme and ridiculous lengths, the show has a tendency to give voice to unpopular opinions and shed light on stigma, leading it to negative backlash, death threats, lawsuits, and threats of cancelation. Parker and Stone originally had the choice of the show being produced by MTV or by Comedy Central. They figured that MTV would censor it to the point of the target audience becoming children, so instead signed to Comedy Central. The show is now so popular, that it has resulted in the channel’s major world-wide success, the opposite of a struggle against profit-mongering networks, I suppose.

• Quality TV tends to have a large ensemble cast. 

I this is kind of interesting, because in my opinion, there are plenty of soap opera shows/drama shows which have huge casts of main characters, and are absolute rubbish, but I enjoy shows with few main characters, and a huge number of minor (ensemble) characters which add to the story. Again, the only true example I can think of is South Park. There are four main characters- Kyle, Stan, Cartman, Kenny – as well as them, each has their parents, who play a role in almost every story, Stan’s father Randy is a predominant character who has episodes based around him. There are children in the boy’s class at school, their friends, for the most part, Butters, who features in most every episode, having quite a few (usually at least one per season) “Butters Episodes” as Parker and Stone call them. There is the boys teacher, Mr./Mrs/Mr. (again) Garrison, the school counsellor, other teachers, the principal, and other staff. The boy’s extended family, other child’s parents, and other towns folk. South Park has a cast of over 300 characters, and only 4 main characters. Each character is unique, and memorable, even if they only appear in one episode to aid the story. The number of characters enriches the story, rather than being detrimental to it.

• Quality TV has a memory. 

Truth. Nothing is more annoying than when TV shows ignore things that have previously happened; it becomes episodic and frustrating. I also found that in the X-Files with Scully’s constant scepticism, which ended up being pretty unfounded after, you know, 9 seasons. And example would be the show Dexter, the main character provides voice over of his thoughts periodically, and he is often referencing prior events, struggles, murders and murderers. The past events are often linked to the present even if not directly, but often take an important psychological toll on the character/s.

• Quality TV creates a new genre my mixing old ones.

-

• Quality TV tends to be literary and writer based. 

This seems often to be true, in my experience. Take for example Dexter as mentioned above, which is based on a series of books by Jeff Lindsay. Another is the fantasy series Game of Thrones, which is amazing, is based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series, and remains, at least for the first season, fairly true to the books. Many of crime novelist Agatha Christie’s works have been dramatized, such as the Miss Marple series, and the Poirot series, as well as over 50 other adaptations of her novels. The long-running Midsummer Murders is based on books by Caroline Graham. The murder-mystery series Wire in the Blood, is also based on a series of books by Val McDermid. Also the series Pillars of the Earth is based on the novel of the same name by Ken Follet.

• Quality TV is self-conscious. 

-

• The subject matter of quality TV tends toward the controversial. 

Again, see South Park and it's commentary on socio-political issues.

• Quality TV aspires towards ‘realism’. 

The only thing I can think of that is really fitting, is the 2005 series Rome. If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s incredible. While it does have a few shortcomings in terms of historical accuracy , such as the death of Mark Antony, etc, but it’s so perfect in it’s representation of ancient Roman culture, environment, religion, politics, war, and attitude towards woman, class, family, state, sex, and honour. The characters are based on historical figures – Julius Caesar, Pompei Magnus, Gaius Octavian, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, etc. Even the other main characters, such as Atia and Servillia of the Julii were genuine people in history. I would certainly say the show aspires toward and achieves realism.

References:

Wilcox, R. & Lavery, D. (2002). Introduction, in R. Wilcox & D. Lavery

Fighting the forces: what’s at stake in Buffy the vampire slayer. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

South Park Studios Webpage.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/

Week Eight: PK Dick: More Than Just An Author

According to Brown (2001), Dick's early novels conformed to the genre of science fiction; "he used the popular leitmotifs of SF - alien worlds, precognition, ray-guns, but employed them to his own agenda." However, Brown (2001) cites that Dick used science fiction to "explore his obsession with metaphysics, the nature of perceived reality, good and evil, and the abuse of power.  He was obsessed with the idea that the universe was only apparently real, an illusion behind which the truth might dwell."

A dominant theme of Dick's works is that of changing the reader's perception of reality.  As Brown (2001) identifies, Juliana Frink in The Man in the High Castle, "makes a discovery that changes her perception of reality - always a dominant theme in Dick's work - as she learns how Grasshopper came to be written".   Even in Scanner Darkly the main character Bob Arctor scrambles from one identity to another in his role as undercover cop and friend to a junky.

As Brown (2001) cites "in opposition to Nazi ideology, Dick posits the philosophy of Tao, which offers a means of examining the universe through the principals of interconnectedness - or Jungian Synchronicity - at odds with Western ideas of a universe that functions on the mechanistic basis of cause and effect".  That is to say, that whilst drawing on the themes of Nazism/Facism, Dick was heavily influenced by the I Ching, the ancient Chinese book of divination or fortune telling, and challenged traditional Western thinking in his writing.  According to Mountfort (2006), "Dick regarded the I Ching itself as having in a sense written High Castle".  However, in A Scanner Darkly, Dick "had come to feel that the I Ching had deliberately misled and betrayed him".

The Man in the High Castle was written in the Sixties when World War II was still relatively recent in society's mind.  PK Dick wrote at a time when ideals of culture, religion, anti-semitism, racism, fascism, socialism, capitalism and civil rights were being questioned, and the way society lived was simply out for debate.   According to Brown (2001), Dick was "a visionary whose manic novels of fractured realities presented a future that, like all good science fiction, was less prescriptive of what was to come than descriptive of the present".

Man in the High Castle is so much more than the separate characters the book portrays:  an American, a Jew, an Italian, a woman, a Japanese officer, a Japanese married couple, then a Swede (with an English name, Baynes) who turns out to be a German, each with their own identity or unidentity.  It appears to be almost a collection of short stories each with Dick's own point of view.  All the short stories are tied together by a fictitious alternative history ie: that World War II was won by the Germans and the Japanese, and the world as we know it is mapped out completely differently.  There is a narrative bow around all the characters, and that is the theme of the real history, that Germany and Japan actually lost the war.   This is portrayed in the novel within the novel by the character in the high castle (Abendsen) who writes about our real truth about WWII in The Grasshopper Lies Heavy.

The information on P K Dick has been swirling around my head for several weeks now.  In retrospect I think that was Dick's intention as a writer.  After viewing the movie,"Scanner Darkly", then reading the book "The Man in the High Castle", my belief is that it was Dick 's intention to make the reader think, really think, about the world we live in and how we live it, our own reality and our own irreality, to find Chung Fu, or Inner Truth.  In essence he wanted us to turn what we find familiar upside down and inside out and rethink what we believe is true to us and our own world.  Both Scanner Darkly and Man in the High Castle warrant viewing/reading more than once to fully understand their intricacies.

References: 

Dick, P.K. (2001; 1962). The Man in the High Castle. London: Penguin.

Linklater, R. (Director). (2006). A Scanner Darkly.

Brown, E. (2001). Introduction. In Dick, .K., The Man in the High Castle (p.v-xii). London: Penguin.

Mountfort, P. (2006). Oracle-text/Cybertext in Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. Conference paper, Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association annual joint conference, Atlanta 2006.

Week Eight: What is the difference in emphasis between the terms science fiction and speculative fiction? Which is the Man in the High Castle?

Speculative fiction is a term that covers all forms of science fiction. Many subgenres fit under the term speculative fiction in including alternative history, fantasy, horror, cyberpunk, dystopia and many more (Lost books, 2011). Although science fiction falls under speculative fiction it is usually based on science and technology of the future. If science fiction becomes too unrealistic is can cross over to another subgenre of speculative fiction called fantasy. Science fiction texts are frequently set in a different world such as space, or in the future (Read, write, think, 2005). Apart from only exploring science, technology and the future the speculative fiction genre has a wider boundary and looks at philosophy, language and history. I believe that The Man in the High Castle predominantly falls under speculative fictions specifically under the subgenre of alternative history, however it also has some forms of science fiction through using different worlds such as outer space. Philip K Dick uses alternative history throughout the novel The Man in the High Castle and questions what would have happened to the world of Japan and Germany had won the Second World War. Dick creates a different history and outcome of the world that we would live in if the war had been won by the opposite side. He also shows how it would be run and brings in forms of racism to show how different cultures feel about one another in the alternate history of the world.  Even though the book is mainly based on alternative history and speculative fiction, science fiction begins to appear when spaceships take over parts of the solar system in the story, the books moves into an outer space setting and elements of science fiction develop. I believe that The Man in the High Castle falls under speculative fiction as is it mainly based on an alternative history and science fiction only plays a small part in the book.

Lost Books. (2011). What is Speculative Fiction? Retrieved from http://www.lostbooks.org

Read, Write, Think. (2005). Definition of Science Fiction. Retrieved from

http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CEcQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.readwritethink.org%2Ffiles%2Fresources%2Flesson_images%2Flesson927%2FSciFiDefinition.pdf&ei=Be5XUMjVLIaOiAenloHYAw&usg=AFQjCNFpMZA-IjM2XQpHQtDJib52r8D60Q&sig2=e7sikgHNHWKCTYM0AuWxkw

Man in the High Castle

What is the difference in emphasis between the terms science fiction and speculative fiction? Which is in Man in the High Castle? 

Before reading the Man in the High Castle I had never heard of the term 'speculative fiction'. I had no idea what it meant or how it was different from science fiction. But while reading the book I did some research on what this kind of 'fiction' was all about.

Before doing some research I thought why do we need yet another genre description? I mean we already have science fiction, fantasy and horror and so on. But I found that speculative fiction can encompass literature ranging from hard science to epic fantasy. It can demonstrate a whole range of different genres while keeping the storyline strange and intense. And it can also introduce alternate history. Which is main plot in Man in the High Castle.

I believe Man in the High Castle is speculative fiction because it takes a different path from usual science fiction. The story is set in an alternate history world, where Nazi Germany and Japan win WW2.

Man in the High Castle represents a rare theme where there is a 'story with a story'. The novel within the book is The Grasshopper Lies Heavy by Hawthorn Abensden. The book within a book shows an alternative universe where the Axis lost WW2 to the allies, following a sequence of events. By having two false realities the idea of false and true reality becomes inaccurate, because more than two realities exist. 

Even though Man in the High Castle is speculative fiction both genres are capable of pushing the boundaries of our imaginations. Both genres often borrow inspiration of real-life events or experiences.

References:
Dick, P. K. (2001; 1962) The Man in the High Castle. London: Penguin
N.A. The Man in the High Castle Themes. Retrieved from http://www.bookrags.com

Speculative Fiction Genre.

What is the difference in emphasis between the terms science fiction and speculative fiction? Which is The Man in the High Castle? 

The Man in the High Castle, is a an alternate history, being that it has taken genuine historical events, and posed the questions, “what if that never happened? What if the outcome had been different, or the exact opposite? What if the cause of that was something else, or was this?” etc. Alternative histories are in essence, speculative, and thus can be classified as speculative fiction. Spec. fiction can also be classed as an “umbrella term” to encase all science fiction, in the sense that most science fiction is speculative because it works on the “what if?” factor, whether it is realistic (alternate out come to a war) or seemingly unrealistic (if robots were generating a false reality in which we are all functioning in, as in the Matrix series). Examples of science fiction’s speculative nature would be: “what if time travel were possible?” and “what if humans discovered life in outer space?” and “what if robots/A.I. became as intelligent as human beings?” and so on.

Other popular genres which fall under speculative fiction are dystopian and utopian narratives, posing questions of what defines a dystopia and a utopia (each can be both or either based on POV), and “what if” certain events unfolded to lead to this world becoming a reality. Dystopia/utopia usually takes place in our world, through the means of creating an alternate history which then results in a dystopian or utopian society, though this is purely based on the POV from which the reader sees the world; The world could be the POV character’s paradise, and another character’s hell.

Dystopian narratives, more often than not, speculate an alternate or possible future, based on current or potential socio-political issue, such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, Rupert Thompson’s Divided Kingdom, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, Richard Bachman’s (Stephen King) The Running Man, and the currently popular, Susan Collin’s The Hunger Games trilogy, among many others. The general fantasy genre is to some extent speculative, though more often than not takes place in an alternate world, which is not unlike our own (populated with humans/humanoid intelligent life/characters and based on their interactions with the world and creatures around them) though certain conditions are different, such as the seasons in a Song of Fire and Ice, the fauna and flora may, more often than not, be different, like “what if dragons were real?” and the characters’ may have different cultures, beliefs and powers, such as in the world of Earthsea. By this definition, all fantasy, science fiction, and alternate history and/or future, among others, are in essence speculative.

References:

What is the difference between speculative and science fiction? (n.d.)

Retrieved from: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_speculative_and_science_fiction