week9~

Wilcox and Lavery (2002) identify 9 defining characteristics of ‘quality TV’ – can you apply any of these to other television series that you have viewed recently?

1. Quality TV usually has a quality pedigree. (Friends)

2. Desirable demographics notwithstanding, quality shows must often undergo a noble struggle against profit-mongering networked and non-appreciative audiences (Gossip girl)

3. Quality TV tends to have a large ensemble cast. (Glee)

4. Quality TV has a memory (lost)

5. Quality TV creates a new genre by mixing old ones (prison break)

6. Quality TV tends to be literary and writer-based. (Glee)

7. Quality TV is self-conscious. (Friends)

8. The subject matter of quality TV tends toward the controversial. (gossip girl)

9. Quality TV aspires toward “realism”. (Lost)

Are there any other characteristics that you could add to their list?

Add:

Quality TV must have the health story and actors. Here I want to introduce Glee to you. This TV play is a good play in this year. There are health story, and actors in this TV play. In America, even Obama also like it. The plot is that: some young people like singing, but they are also the strange people in the school; a teacher wants to organize a team called glee, so they get together to finish their dream. In this TV play, there always some person wants to stop glee, so something happened. In a word, the TV play is a high quality TV, so I think the health story and actor is also important for a quality TV.

Reference

Wilcox, R. & Lavery, D. (2002). Introduction, in R. Wilcox & D. Lavery (eds) Fighting the forces: what’s at stake in Buffy the vampire slayer. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.