Although Film Studies has successfully (re)turned attention to matters of style and interpretation, its sibling discipline has left the territory uncharted - until now. The question of how television operates on a stylistic level has been critically underexplored, despite being fundamental to our viewing experience. This significant new work redresses a vital gap in Television Studies by engaging with the stylistic dynamics of TV; exploring the aesthetic properties and values of both the medium and particular types of output (specific programmes); and raising important questions about the way we judge television as both cultural artifact and art form. Television Aesthetics and Style provides a unique and vital intervention in the field, raising key questions about television's artistic properties and possibilities. Through a series of case-studies by internationally renowned scholars, the collection takes a radical step forward in understanding TV's stylistic achievements.

Acknowledgements Contributors Introduction, Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock Part One: Conceptual Debates 1. Television Aesthetics: Stylistic Analysis and Beyond, Sarah Cardwell 2. The Qualities of Complexity: Vast versus Dense Seriality in Contemporary Television, Jason Mittell 3. What Does it Mean to Call Television 'Cinematic'?, Brett Mills 4. Rescuing Television from "The Cinematic": The Perils of Dismissing Television Style, Deborah L. Jaramillo Part Two: Aesthetics and Style of Television Comedy 5. Why Comedy is at Home on Television, Alex Clayton 6. Situating Comedy: Inhabitation and Duration in Classical American Sitcoms, Sérgio Dias Branco 7. Arrested Developments: Towards an Aesthetic of the Contemporary US Sitcom, Timotheus Vermuelen and James Whitfield 8. Better or Differently: Style and Repetition in The Trip, James Walters 9. The Presentation of Detail and the Organization of Time in The Royle Family, James Zborowski 10. The Man From ISIS: Archer and the Animated Aesthetics of Adult Cartoons, Holly Randell-Moon and Arthur J. Randell Part Three: Critical Analyses of Television Drama 11. Don Draper and the Promises of Life, George Toles 12. Justifying Justified, William Rothman 13. HBO Aesthetics, Quality TV and Boardwalk Empire, Janet McCabe 14. Storytelling in Song: Television Music, Narrative and Allusion in The O.C., Faye Woods 15. Camera and Performer: Energetic Engagement with The Shield, Lucy Fife Donaldson 16. Flashforwards in Breaking Bad: Openness, Closure and Possibility, Elliott Logan 17. The Fantastic Style of Shameless, Beth Johnson Part Four: Non-Fiction and History 18. 'Let's Just Watch it for a Few Minutes': This is Your Life in 1958, Charles Barr 19. Gaudy Nights: Dance and Reality Television's Display of Talent, Frances Bonner 20. Television Sublime: The Experimental Television of Lithuanian CAC TV, Linus Andersson 21. Closer to the Action: Post-War American Television and the Zoom Shot, Nick Hall 22. Think-Tape: The Aesthetics of Montage in the Post-War TV Documentary, Ieuan Franklin 23. What FUIs Can Do: The Promises of Computing in Contemporary TV Series, Cormac Deane Index