Hill Street Blues as narrative
- 1 March 1985
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Critical Studies in Mass Communication
- Vol. 2 (1) , 1-22
- https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038509360058
Abstract
Hill Street Blues marks a time in American television history when program quality won out over viewer quantity. The purpose of this essay is to explore claims to quality and innovation by examining the program in terms of narrative theory. Through detailed analysis of one episode, the series is revealed as a modernist text that mixes televisual, filmic, and literary forms and conventions. Despite its complexity, ambiguity, and discontinuity, the Hill Street Blues narrative maintains its intelligibility primarily through the use of melodrama, a storytelling mode that is characteristically straightforward and ideally suited to the television medium.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- Narrative FictionPublished by Taylor & Francis ,2003
- Television as a cultural forum: Implications for research∗Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 1983