scholarly journals American Telefantasy: An Introduction

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Halliday ◽  
Rhys Owain Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Doctor Who ◽  
Fair Share ◽  
Buffy The Vampire Slayer ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
Park Avenue ◽  
General Capacity ◽  
True Blood ◽  
Horror Story

Television schedules are rife with Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. The re-launched Doctor Who and its prime-time Saturday night stablemate, Merlin spearhead the rise of contemporary British Telefantasy (Being Human, Misfits et al.).  Meanwhile, their American equivalents attract audiences of millions, extensive media attention and, since Peter Dinklage’s Emmy and Golden Globe-winning performance in Game of Thrones, widespread critical acclaim through mainstream industry awards.  Histories of “quality” television are awash with examples of American Telefantasy that have left an indelible impression on popular cultural (and even socio-political) imaginaries; Star Trek, The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost, and Battlestar Galactica all being enduringly popular examples. As American television networks prepare to launch their all-important “Fall” schedules, ushering in a new year of programming, it is evident that Telefantasy will continue to garner its fair share of TV viewers’ attention – whether due to hotly-anticipated debuts (666 Park Avenue, Arrow, The Neighbors, Revolution), finales (Fringe), provocative content (American Horror Story, True Blood, The Walking Dead, or a general capacity to entertain, bewitch or amuse (Community), Falling Skies, Grimm, Once Upon a Time, Supernatural).

scholarly journals Zmieniający się paradygmat opowiadania we współczesnych serialach grozy

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (17) ◽  
pp. 11-20
Author(s):  
Artur Borowiecki
Keyword(s):  
Buffy The Vampire Slayer ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
The Sopranos ◽  
Horror Story ◽  
Walking Dead

Od czasu emisji serialu Rodzina Soprano (The Sopranos, 1999–2007) można zaobserwować nowy etap w historii kinematografii, popularnie nazywany „złotym okresem telewizji”. Główną jego cechą są seriale złożone narracyjnie. Twórcy tych utworów korzystają z nowych środków stylistycznych, a także eksperymentują z ukonstytuowanymi od początku istnienia telewizji schematami narracyjnymi. W artykule podjęto tematykę serialowych horrorów, które zalicza się właśnie do produkcji złożonych narracyjnie. Na przykładzie wybranych sezonów popularnych amerykańskich seriali grozy: Buffy, postrach wampirów (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1997–2003), Żywe trupy (The Walking Dead, 2010–), American Horror Story (2011–) i Channel Zero (2016–2018) oraz serialu amerykańsko-angielskiego Dom grozy (Penny Dreadful, 2014–2016) omówiono kwestię zmian w strategiach narracyjnych tychże seriali. Szukano odpowiedzi na następujące pytania: czy współczesne seriale grozy przeszły podobną metamorfozę jak dramaty jakościowe i na czym ta zmiana polega? Czy występują postmodernistyczne kolaże, zakłócenia w warstwie temporalnej linii narracyjnych? Czy twórcy wplatają nowatorskie rozwiązania, podążając za myślą formalistów rosyjskich, w struktury narracyjne? I w końcu czy można mówić o nowym typie seriali horrorów, czy są to jedynie powielone wzorce, które wcześniej występowały w serialowym dyskursie grozy?

Labor

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebekah Sheldon
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
History Of

The fifth chapter considers the anxious fantasy of life’s withdrawal in contemporary sterility apocalypses. These fantasmatic representations—principally Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men and the science fiction franchise Battlestar Galactica—hinge on the miraculously restored fertility of a woman of color. Ultimately, these works serve to highlight the history of racialized labor and enforced reproduction.

scholarly journals The nuclear taboo,Battlestar Galactica, and the real world: Illustrations from a science-fiction universe

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 348-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Fey ◽  
Annika E Poppe ◽  
Carsten Rauch
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Real World ◽  
The Real ◽  
Battlestar Galactica

scholarly journals Doctor Who–themed weddings and the performance of fandom

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Elizabeth Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
50Th Anniversary ◽  
Doctor Who ◽  
Wedding Ceremony ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Fan Identity ◽  
Diverse Audience

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the science fiction/fantasy TV series Doctor Who (1963–1986, 1996, 2005–), 50 couples chose to marry, renew vows, and engage in civil partnerships during a mass Doctor Who–themed wedding in London. By using Doctor Who fandom as a case study, I explore how fans are able to construct, define, and maintain their identity in wedding culture by the meaning they ascribe to objects present in the wedding performance. By using the concept of weddings as performance narratives, I describe how fans are able to tell the story of their experience and identification with fandom, but because not everyone identifies with fandom, fans must communicate this narrative in a highly selective manner, choosing details that both satisfy their identities as fans and make sense to a diverse audience of fans and nonfans alike. In doing so, fans are negotiating this identity within the heteronormative structure of wedding culture. The presence of the wedding ceremony reveals that fan identity and performance, despite seeming subversive to mainstream, are actually influenced and shaped by these traditional spaces and rituals.

scholarly journals LEGO Dimensions meets Doctor Who: Transbranding and New Dimensions of Transmedia Storytelling?

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Hills
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Corporate Ownership ◽  
Doctor Who ◽  
Consumer Socialization ◽  
Transmedia Storytelling ◽  
Interactive Entertainment ◽  
Time Warner ◽  
Intellectual Properties

This article explores how the ‘toys-to-life’ videogame LEGO Dimensions (WarnerBros. Interactive Entertainment/Traveller’s Tales/The LEGO Group, 2015) mashes upmany different franchise storyworlds and brands. Specifically, I focus on how DoctorWho (BBC, 1963—), the British TV science fiction series, is licensed and transmediallyengaged with in Dimensions. I consider how the transbranding of LEGO Dimensionsappears to co-opt children’s “transgressive play” (Nørgård and Toft-Nielsen, 2014)by combining intellectual properties, but actually continues to operate according tologics of shared corporate ownership where many of the combined storyworlds areultimately owned by Time Warner (placing Dimensions in competition with Disney’sown ‘toys-to-life’ game). Considering what value might accrue to the brand of DoctorWho by participating in LEGO Dimensions, I identify this as a particular example of“What If?” transmedia (Mittell, 2015), arguing that LEGO Dimensions’ Doctor Whonevertheless fluctuates in terms of its brand (in)authenticity. The Starter Pack remainscloser to LEGO Games’/Traveller’s Tales’ established format, subordinating Who, whilstthe separate Level Pack engages more precisely with Doctor Who’s history, albeit stilldisplaying some notable divergences from the TV series (Booth, 2015). Although LEGODimensions challenges influential theories of transmedia storytelling (Jenkins, 2006;Aldred, 2014), its transbranding and child/adult targeting accord with established approachesto transmedia licensing (Santo 2015) and fan-consumer socialization (Kinder1991).

scholarly journals This Show Was Religious?!: Online Reactions to Religion in Lost and Battlestar Galactica Finales

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-314
Author(s):  
Charlotte Howell
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
Popular Television ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
Religious Elements

As the American populace is increasingly identifying as non-religious, religious representation is surprisingly also increasing on television, leading many to discuss the limits and boundaries of acceptable representations of religion through the cultural forum of television. The series finales of Lost and Battlestar Galactica serve as a particular pair of case studies I place in discussion with each other about religious-representational and generic concerns. Online reactions in discussion forums or comment sections to the religious elements in these finales generally occur in one of two ways: negative reactions that set the religious endings in opposition to the genre expectations viewers had for the shows or generally positive reactions that focus on the religious themes as successful affective tools that provided adequate or at least justified narrative closure. In both discursive strains, the tone was overwhelmingly respectful and occasionally aware that those entering into the discussions were engaging in larger cultural debates, providing one site of exploring the changing role of religion in popular television through a study of expectations of science fiction narratives and their conclusions.

How Speculative Fiction Can Teach about Gender and Power in International Politics: A Pedagogical Overview

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 240-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Boaz
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
State University ◽  
The Core ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
Units Of Analysis ◽  
Separate System

Abstract Fictional universes can be treated as discrete units of analysis in which we see the operation of international relations theory. This article discusses insights gleaned from a course created at Sonoma State University called “Gender and Geopolitics in Science Fiction and Fantasy,” in which feminist theory and international relations approaches are integrated, and science fiction and fantasy texts serve as the mechanism through which to examine the key themes and questions. This article provides an overview of the pedagogy to highlight the usefulness of speculative fiction in teaching. Each of the fictional universes is treated as a separate system where gender and political dynamics manifest in ways that observers of international relations will recognize. The core texts are Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, Jessica Jones, Star Trek, Misfits, and Watchmen. The major theories and approaches explored here have implications for gender studies and feminist theory, the concepts of metaphor and allegory, and game theory.

The Doctor and Technical Lawyering

2018 ◽  
pp. 133-163
Author(s):  
Kieran Tranter
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Doctor Who ◽  
Legal Ethics ◽  
British Science ◽  
Being There ◽  
Sound Judgment

This chapter argues that the British science fiction television icon Doctor Who provides guidance on how to live well as an entity designated ‘lawyer’ within the networks of technical legality. Technical legality challenges the received tradition of legal ethics. Lawyering is revealed not as a ‘profession’ but a demonic calling to be an alchemist of death and time. This calling to be a ‘time lord’ who brings ‘death’ immediately suggests Doctor Who. A consistent theme through the unfolding text that is Doctor Who has been the ‘ethics’ of the Doctor. The Doctor overcomes and endures because the weight of his responsibility for death and time is within his time lord being. There is neither sound judgment nor technical somnambulism in the Doctor’s actions. Instead his actions appear as a hybrid of both, unified by an acceptance that actions performed from this location break, change and destroy the networks of the present. Ultimately, the Doctor shows that lawyering within technical legality demands an accepting of the powers of time and death to safeguard ‘life.’

Monstrous Forms

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Charles Hart
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Television Show ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
The Common ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
Horror Story ◽  
Walking Dead

It makes us jump. It makes us scream. It haunts our nightmares. So why do we watch horror? Why do we play it? What could possibly be appealing about a genre that tries to terrify us? Why would we subject ourselves to shriek-inducing shocks, or spend dozens of hours watching a television show about grotesque flesh-eating monsters? Horror offers us a connection to fears that are otherwise unspeakable, even inconceivable, so why do we seek it out? Monstrous Forms offers a theory of horror that works through the genre across a broad range of contemporary moving-image media: film, television, videogames, YouTube, gifs, streaming, virtual reality. This book analyzes our experience of and engagement with horror by focusing on its form, paying special attention to the common ground, the styles, and forms that move between mediums. It looks at the ways that moving-image horror addresses its audiences; the ways that it elicits, or demands, responses from its viewers, players, browsers. Camera movement (or “camera” movement), jump scares, offscreen monsters—horror innovates and perfects styles that directly provoke and stimulate the bodies in front of the screen. Analyzing films including Paranormal Activity, It Follows, and Get Out; videogames including Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Layers of Fear, and Until Dawn; and TV shows including The Walking Dead and American Horror Story, Monstrous Forms argues for understanding horror through its sensational address and dissects the forms that make that address so effective.

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