Synecdoche Rijeka

written by Mario Kikaš

 

To talk about TV series today as a new phenomenon would be belated, and perhaps even a bit presumptuous. On the other hand, not to notice or to ignore their growing importance among the people and the changes that have recently occurred in the way they are produced and received—that would be too elitist. It is enough to notice new stages in the development of the Internet and television production that have led to the series not being fixed, in terms of time and space, with a standard television program and a schedule that will then correspond to some imagined ideal-type schedule of working people with working hours from 9 to 5. Drama series, predominantly American and British productions, will no longer sail for several years from the time of their domestic distribution to national networks on the European (semi)periphery. Their availability through legal or semi-legal channels is almost instantaneous regardless of geography, and the location and time of their reception is not limited to a part of the day after the central news broadcast and to the space of the living room. Of course, this does not mean that, in terms of genre, that is, formally and historically, the drama series, which we will focus more on in this introduction, do not inherit their current form from earlier forms, such as radio serials or nineteenth-century novels published in sequels, most commonly in magazines as the primary medium of that earlier phase of technological development of the media. It should also be observed that the media of production as well as the way of reception, have also greatly influenced the content itself, that is, the way of presenting a particular plot.