Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks is an American television series that first aired on the ABC network in the United States on 8 April 1990. Despite its critical acclaim the show was cancelled at the end of its second season in 1991 and remained off-air until its third series, titled Twin Peaks: The Return, was aired on the premium television network Showtime in 2017. The show was created by renowned filmmakers David Lynch and Mark Frost, whose television successes included police drama Hill Street Blues, and it was widely promoted as the series that would “change television.” The program, set in the fictional northwestern US town of Twin Peaks, was focused on the central mystery surrounding the murder of local schoolgirl Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) and the efforts of FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) in solving the case. The show featured a cast of inhabitants of the town and was renowned for quirky characters, dream sequences, and surrealism, which were seen as hallmarks of David Lynch’s cinematic work. The question of “who killed Laura Palmer?” constituted the key narrative enigma for the first season of the show. When this mystery was resolved at the midpoint of the second series, audience interest waned, and the show’s declining viewing figures led to its cancellation. The program’s original run ended on a cliffhanger where lead character Dale Cooper became possessed by the evil spirit BOB (who was responsible for Palmer’s death while possessing her father Leyland Palmer [Ray Wise]). In 1992, David Lynch directed the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, which involved a return to Twin Peaks to depict the events leading up to Laura Palmer’s murder. The film was initially viewed as a disappointment, especially for those who wanted resolution to the show’s cliffhanger ending. Fire Walk with Me has since been reappraised and is now widely viewed as a groundbreaking piece of filmmaking. In 2016, David Lynch and Mark Frost began teasing a Twin Peaks–related announcement on their social media, with The Return of the series on Showtime announced soon after. While some setbacks were encountered when Lynch temporarily departed due to conflicts over budget and artistic vision, Twin Peaks: The Return aired in 2017 and was widely hailed as a return to form for the series. Throughout its history, Twin Peaks has attracted a loyal fanbase and critical attention on issues, including authorship, aesthetics, narrative, and genre.

The Efficacy of Basic Sentence Pattern Approach for EFL Learners in Writing

As a fundamental component of language, writing has been identified as the least proficient domain in acquiring a new language. Due to this universal idea, this research has been designed to find a more effective method to improve the writing skills of EFL learners and makes an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of a basic sentence pattern (BSP) drill through film corpus-based activities. To do this, as a pre-test, EFL learners were asked to make questionnaires with basic sentence patterns that translate Korean sentences into English to determine how much basic knowledge they had. For the questionnaires and the basic sentence pattern drill, the script of the American television series Modern Family (Lloyd & Levitan, 2014) was collected and categorized into five basic sentence patterns. Then, the learners were taught about the 5th basic sentence pattern, the most difficult pattern and were trained to practice this sentence pattern, repetitively, for a month. As a final step, they took a post-test after another month’s training. The results show the overall score was enhanced significantly from pre-test to post-test. This finding demonstrates that basic sentence patterns can enable EFL learners to develop their sentence accuracy in writing.

#PrettyLittleLiars: ABC Family in TV’s Post-Network Era

<p>This thesis explores the branding of ABC Family as a home for ‘Millennial’ viewers through its original TV drama programme, Pretty Little Liars. ABC Family emerged during what Amanda Lotz (2007) terms the ‘post-network’ era of American television, a period that has been characterised by fierce inter-network competition and the availability of TV programming on a larger array of platforms, including online platforms. These revolutionary changes have been coupled with the emergence of a commercially desirable demographic known as the ‘Millennials’, a group of young people who are considered to be ‘native’ to this ‘post-network’ environment and whose media use and preferences are challenging networks to revise their strategies and develop programmes that aim to solicit their attention and engagement. Pretty Little Liars has been specifically constructed to assert the brand identity of ABC Family as a channel “for and about Millennials” (Liesse A2). This programme has sought to distinguish itself within teen-oriented TV drama by incorporating cinematic aesthetics, serial storytelling, narrative complexity, and intertextuality – all of which have been characteristic of adult-oriented ‘high-end’ TV drama in the ‘post-network’ era. Pretty Little Liars has supplemented these efforts to distinguish itself by cultivating a thriving online presence. Important to this online presence are the use of ‘transmedia storytelling’ and social media. As this thesis demonstrates, transmedia storytelling and social media have the capacity to significantly extend the experience of a TV programme beyond what is aired on television. Importantly, their deployment in support of Pretty Little Liars has been successful in encouraging consistent viewing of new episodes as they are broadcast, a pattern that persists despite the post-network era’s capacity for delayed viewing on alternative platforms. This thesis undertakes an in-depth examination of ABC Family’s ‘post-network’ strategy in three chapters, each of which takes a different critical perspective. Chapter One examines the internal and external challenges that contributed to the emergence of ABC Family’s rebranding. Chapter Two analyses Pretty Little Liars as a ‘high end’ teen-oriented TV drama that functions to elevate the profile of ABC Family while simultaneously engaging ‘Millennial’ viewers. Finally, Chapter Three explores the transmedia extensions of Pretty Little Liars that function to supplement the television narrative in ways that encourage and reward consistent viewing patterns and long-term loyalty.</p>

#PrettyLittleLiars: ABC Family in TV’s Post-Network Era

<p>This thesis explores the branding of ABC Family as a home for ‘Millennial’ viewers through its original TV drama programme, Pretty Little Liars. ABC Family emerged during what Amanda Lotz (2007) terms the ‘post-network’ era of American television, a period that has been characterised by fierce inter-network competition and the availability of TV programming on a larger array of platforms, including online platforms. These revolutionary changes have been coupled with the emergence of a commercially desirable demographic known as the ‘Millennials’, a group of young people who are considered to be ‘native’ to this ‘post-network’ environment and whose media use and preferences are challenging networks to revise their strategies and develop programmes that aim to solicit their attention and engagement. Pretty Little Liars has been specifically constructed to assert the brand identity of ABC Family as a channel “for and about Millennials” (Liesse A2). This programme has sought to distinguish itself within teen-oriented TV drama by incorporating cinematic aesthetics, serial storytelling, narrative complexity, and intertextuality – all of which have been characteristic of adult-oriented ‘high-end’ TV drama in the ‘post-network’ era. Pretty Little Liars has supplemented these efforts to distinguish itself by cultivating a thriving online presence. Important to this online presence are the use of ‘transmedia storytelling’ and social media. As this thesis demonstrates, transmedia storytelling and social media have the capacity to significantly extend the experience of a TV programme beyond what is aired on television. Importantly, their deployment in support of Pretty Little Liars has been successful in encouraging consistent viewing of new episodes as they are broadcast, a pattern that persists despite the post-network era’s capacity for delayed viewing on alternative platforms. This thesis undertakes an in-depth examination of ABC Family’s ‘post-network’ strategy in three chapters, each of which takes a different critical perspective. Chapter One examines the internal and external challenges that contributed to the emergence of ABC Family’s rebranding. Chapter Two analyses Pretty Little Liars as a ‘high end’ teen-oriented TV drama that functions to elevate the profile of ABC Family while simultaneously engaging ‘Millennial’ viewers. Finally, Chapter Three explores the transmedia extensions of Pretty Little Liars that function to supplement the television narrative in ways that encourage and reward consistent viewing patterns and long-term loyalty.</p>

Bigmouth Strikes Again: The Controversies of Morrissey and Cancel Culture

On May 14, 2019, Morrissey performed on American television using a pin of the far right For Britain party. When criticized, he succinctly responded on Twitter: “ Why don't you have freedom of speech? Or freedom to wear a pin on TV?” His online fandom reacted vehemently suggesting a “cancellation” of the artist. In this context, our proposal is to track constitutive parts of this process of “deception” with Morrissey, focusing specifically on a phenomenon that has gained visibility on socio-technical networks: the idea of “canceling.” To gauge the reaction of his fandom, we address this event from the perception that this response to the singer took place on the horizon of expectations constructed through the experience that fans had with his career over the decades. We also use the notion of expressive coherence, as an analytical guide to understand some of the implications and tensions related to Morrissey’s trajectory, examining how his historically constituted nostalgic performance tracks and sheds light on two questions that are essential to our analysis: “Was he really always like this?”; and “How did he become this person?” These are conjugated to a definitive affirmation: “I cannot be his fan anymore.”

TV as Bully

This chapter pushes back against notions of meritorious complexity, moral ambiguity, and cognitive “richness” in recent, high-profile American television series. It questions the heralding of television’s artistic transcendence above that of other narrative media and the use of cognitive theory to make such a case. I turn instead to literature on social psychology and bullying to make sense of our relationship to longform TV serials and investigate the ways in which a kind of bullying in the content and form of both serial and reality television has been normalized in an era popularly dubbed the “TV renaissance.” It concludes with a look at the relationship between a rising endorsement of aggressive populist leadership styles and the prevalence of bullying as causal logic on TV.

Synchronous and diachronic angles of the behavior in front of a camera (Bulgarian television practice)

The article discusses retrospectively certain established models of behavior in television news programs. In parallel with this it shows some innovative trends in the behavior in front of a camera. The main contribution of this text is the definition of an up-to-date model of behavior in front of the camera. Its characteristics are derived from the observation of the trends in the current period of television journalism development in Bulgaria; a typological parallel between the European and American television environments is drawn as well.

“What is my purpose?” Artificial Sentience Having an Existential Crisis in Rick and Morty

The American television show Rick and Morty, an animated science fiction sitcom, critiques speciesism in the context of bleak existentialist philosophy. Though the show focuses primarily on human characters, it also depicts various forms of artificial sentience, such as robots or clones, undergoing existential crises. It explicitly effaces any distinction between human sentience and artificial sentience, forcefully treating all sentient life with an equivalent respect (or disrespect). The show also problematizes human speciesism in relationship to terrestrial and extra-terrestrial life.

“What is my purpose?” Artificial Sentience Having an Existential Crisis in Rick and Morty

The American television show Rick and Morty, an animated science fiction sitcom, critiques speciesism in the context of bleak existentialist philosophy. Though the show focuses primarily on human characters, it also depicts various forms of artificial sentience, such as robots or clones, undergoing existential crises. It explicitly effaces any distinction between human sentience and artificial sentience, forcefully treating all sentient life with an equivalent respect (or disrespect). The show also problematizes human speciesism in relationship to terrestrial and extra-terrestrial life.