Quality TV

Contemporary American Television and Beyond

Janet McCabe, Kim Akass

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780857731708
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Médias et arts de la scène
• Subtopic: Histoire et critique de la télévision

In his seminal book "Television's Second Golden Age", Robert Thompson described quality TV as 'best defined by what it is not': 'it is not "regular" TV'. Audacious maybe, but his statement renewed debate on the meaning of this highly contentious term. Dealing primarily with the post-1996 era shaped by digital technologies and defined by consumer choice and brand marketing, this book brings together leading scholars, established journalists and experienced broadcasters working in the field of contemporary television to debate what we currently mean by quality TV. They go deep into contemporary American television fictions, from "The Sopranos" and "The West Wing", to "CSI" and "Lost" - innovative, sometimes controversial, always compelling dramas, which one scholar has described as 'now better than the movies!' But how do we understand the emergence of these kinds of fiction? Are they genuinely new? What does quality TV have to tell us about the state of today's television market? And is this a new Golden Age of quality TV? Original, often polemic, each chapter proposes new ways of thinking about and defining quality TV.
There is a foreword from Robert Thompson, and heated dialogue between British and US television critics. Also included - and a great coup - are interviews with W. Snuffy Walden (scored "The West Wing" among others) and with David Chase ("The Sopranos" creator). "Quality TV" provides throughout groundbreaking and innovative theoretical and critical approaches to studying television and for understanding the current - and future - TV landscape.

PART 1

Defining Quality

Critical Judgements and Debate

1

Is Quality Television Any Good?

Generic Distinctions, Evaluations and the Troubling Matter of Critical Judgement

Sarah Cardwell

What is ‘quality television’? Is it the same as ‘good television’? If not, what relation do they bear to one another? Viewers, critics and scholars persistently draw curious distinctions between quality and good television, and yet simultaneously find themselves implicitly asserting overlaps between the two. This chapter draws out a range of features by which the two categories might be distinguished, while acknowledging some of the ways in which they are interrelated, and questions the usefulness of demarcating the two. The recent high visibility of ‘American quality television’ and the scholarship that focuses on it has opened up new possibilities for thinking about the question of quality versus good television. Ultimately, and invaluably, these issues focus the television scholar’s mind upon the act of critical judgement or evaluation, broadly conceived – a subject that has been sorely neglected in the field until now.

It is clearly unrealistic to hope for an immediate clarification, let alone resolution, of complex and abiding concerns regarding the role of critical judgement within television studies. Indeed, unsurprisingly, when we are determined to speak more carefully and reflexively about quality and good television, about evaluation and critical judgement, about criteria and discrimination, our understanding of television as an art form appears to be complicated rather than simplified. However, the process is invigorating, for we are also able to lay out some tentative distinctions and to be more precise, honest and reflective in our assessments of programmes. Television studies has for too long lacked sufficient attention to detail in conceptual matters (and indeed in textual analysis). The aim of this chapter is therefore to proffer some claims regarding quality and good television in order to provoke the reader through exposing and perhaps unsettling his or her assumptions about the evaluation of television programmes. Polemically, this chapter urges that we all examine more closely and disclose more honestly our own systems and criteria of judgement, and engage more deeply with those television programmes we deem worthy of such engagement.

Quality: A Generic Classification

In the week that my television students watched the 1995 classic-novel adaptation of Persuasion, one student responded intriguingly with the statement, ‘I could see it was quality television, but I didn’t like it’; when questioned further, he suggested that he found the programme ‘boring’. His reaction, which is by no means an atypical response to artworks, including television programmes, raises some interesting questions. Perhaps the central question is this: if the student did not enjoy the programme, if he did not value it, or experience it in positive ways, why did he say it was ‘quality television’? What does it mean to call something quality television?

The most reasonable answer here is that the student had identified certain textual characteristics that signify or represent high quality; in fact, when pressed on this matter, he acknowledged that the programme was carefully constructed, well acted, well filmed and based on a good story adapted from a classic novel. In view of these assessments, the student felt that he ‘should’ have liked it – and yet he did not. So he tempered his own, intuitive response with a statement about how he could see that the programme was of high quality.

What this instance exposes is one aspect of the intricate and sometimes rather curious system of judgement we use to assess texts. We are able to conclude that something is of high quality based not on our own experience or critical judgement of it, but on our recognition of particular aesthetic features it contains. At this level, to label something ‘quality television’ is more like making a generic classification: it is comparable to agreeing that a certain film is a Western. This part of the process is more dependent upon the observation and apprehension of textual qualities than on our immediate, subjective responses, emotions and evaluations. Thus, in spite of feeling ‘bored’ by Persuasion, the student wished to assert that it was quality television and to credit it with several praiseworthy characteristics.

A further facet of commonplace conceptions of ‘quality’ is also evident here: to label something with the word is not necessarily synonymous with offering a personal endorsement; we can make a distinction between categorising something ‘generically’ as quality television, and offering a considered evaluation that the same programme is ‘good’. Quality television may be perceived as being good for its viewers – morally or educationally edifying – but it may still be experienced as worthy, dull, conventional or pretentious.

The assessment of a programme as good television, in contrast – while it is indeed determined by that programme’s particular aesthetic qualities – is more aptly defined by the audience’s experience of it. Good television is rich, riveting, moving, provocative and frequently contemporary (in some sense); it is relevant to and valued by us. It speaks to us, and it endures for us. If the student had enjoyed the programme, he would perhaps have described it as good television as well as quality television.

I shall elaborate further on this distinction between quality and good television later. At this point one final observation is necessary. The student’s response also suggests that the recognition of quality and the perception of ‘value’ (i.e. the generic classification and the personal evaluation) are hard to separate completely. If a programme is regarded as being quality television, viewers may feel more compelled to give it a chance, to remain more open to seeing its attributes for themselves. That is, critical evaluations may be more subjective, based on our own experiences, our feelings of like or dislike,¹ but they are also framed by broad, culturally specific understandings of what is considered good quality. In the case of Persuasion cited above, the student was aware of at least two previous ‘evaluations’ of the programme. First, he was aware that it was considered quality television, and this implies not just certain generic features but also a broad cultural consensus that the programme exhibits potentially impressive characteristics – it is regarded with a certain ‘seriousness’. Second, the student knew that I had chosen to screen the programme on my television aesthetics course; he could therefore assume that I considered it to have significant enough merits to warrant its study. This guided him in seeking out the qualities of the text that I might have chosen to value, rather than dismissing the programme on the basis of a personal preference. He sought to ‘balance’ his view, in recognition of the critical evaluation of another, significant person and that of a wider milieu. This is a microcosmic instance of a viewer being aware of what we could call a ‘critical community’, which determines what is to be classified as quality, and which appears to imply that we ought also to find those high-quality texts good, and value them appropriately.

Problems with Quality Television

So what are the ‘generic’ traits of quality television, and why have they come to be regarded as potentially valuable or good? Interestingly, classifications of quality television appear to be deeply affected by national context. Contemporary British quality television differs from its American counterpart; similarly, the critical community of scholars and critics appears to take a different stance towards these two groups of programmes. The stance most commonly taken towards American quality television enhances the possibilities for future television scholarship.

Academics writing about British quality television seem to exhibit a level of discomfort with their subject matter.² They seek to maintain not so much a critical distance as an emotional distance from such programmes. It is intriguing to note the underlying struggle in such academic writing: scholars fluctuate between taking up a rather superior stand over these programmes, regarding them as somehow manufactured, mediocre, trying too hard, and yet simultaneously exhibiting a sympathy with and respect for some of their key features – especially those of ‘realism’ and attention to detail.

There is perhaps a concern that quality television is a commercial wheeze, an over-priced product that, at root, is little different from its cheaper variations (the unfortunate modern connotations of the word ‘quality’ that have been endowed upon it through its being appended to far too many mediocre boxes of chocolates and other consumables). Such a fear – or prejudice – is evident in John Caughie’s claim that quality television is actually ‘a middle-brow term’ (2000: 210); he hopes to undermine its supposed pretensions to grandeur and cut it down to size. There is an élitist tone in his criticism, which is not to say that he is incorrect, but simply to note that, in assimilating all quality television to the mediocre, Caughie reveals his anxiety about seeming to admire such programmes. The middle-brow is regarded as inauthentic – neither proudly popular or plebeian nor firmly highbrow and artistic. Instead it panders to the middle ground – and to the middle classes, who have not fared well within television studies, given the Marxist history of the field and the prominence of theorists who hold special scorn and the sharpest criticism for any work with bourgeois aspirations or connotations.³

Caughie’s implication that quality television is not necessarily good television is useful, though, for it also reveals a laudable desire to make precisely that distinction I outlined above: between quality television (the generic product) on the one hand and good television (serious drama, worthy of his critical attention) on the other. Charlotte Brunsdon echoes this when, revisiting the topic of quality and good television, she clarifies her own understanding of the difference between the two, positing a similar distinction, and suggesting that ‘the point about this adjectival/generic distinction [quality television] is that it makes it possible to think about bad “quality television” and indeed good non-quality television’ (1997: 108). That is, by recognising quality as a generic description rather than a term of positive critical evaluation, we are able to engage more straightforwardly and with fewer reservations in the evaluation of all television.

What one may take from the study of British quality television, therefore, is the reasonable and useful desire to avoid assuming that quality television is synonymous with good television; this respects the commonplace experience of viewers, as is shown by my student’s response to Persuasion. Yet this has been accompanied by a broader reluctance to establish what the key features of quality and good television are – and especially to engage with the question of what good television is (Caughie, Brunsdon and Jason Jacobs are notable exceptions here).⁴ Unlike critics, whose jobs depend upon their making discriminations between and evaluations of programmes, television studies scholars have been far too unwilling to stake their claims about individual programmes. Relatively comfortable with the categorising of programmes as ‘quality television’, even if uncomfortable with the connotations of that label, scholars have chosen to accept the notion of quality television while avoiding tricky claims about what is actually good.

American Quality Television

Those scholars writing about American quality television appear to be less perturbed by the quality/value⁵ debate, and seem to be more comfortable offering unequivocally positive evaluations of quality programmes. Less concerned with distinguishing quality television from good television, scholars have been far more willing to accept the categorisation of a programme as quality television as an indication that it is also good television worthy of study. There is little of the reticence or ambivalence found in British writing on, for example, classic British literary adaptations when one reads articles about American contemporary quality television.⁶

For example, Christina Lane, in her essay on The West Wing, writes:

Following the tradition of ‘quality programs’ such as NYPD Blue and ER, Warner Bros.’ The West Wing dramatizes the moral ambiguity and complex, layered relationships between the private and public spheres. Drawing on numerous ‘quality’ conventions and styles, the NBC program employs ensemble casting, mobile camerawork, densely packed visual fields, hot splashes of light, accelerated pace, and narrative velocity in order to dramatize the complex questions it asks. . . The West Wing launches a number of contradictory positions while maintaining, through three-dimensional characterization and mastery of dialogue, a moral center that subtly and precariously stands up to repeated challenges (2003: 32).

Here, quality is initially spoken of as a set of conventions and stylistic features. This, however, is quickly accompanied by Lane’s positive evaluation of the programme and her desire to present it as worthy of critical attention – it is depicted simultaneously as being good television. This reflects the more widespread practice when scholars deal with American quality television rather than British quality television: there is a greater acceptance of the commercial and cultural association between quality and value – that is, scholars appear more willing to assume that American quality television is likely to warrant serious critical attention and that American quality television is also good television.

Lane thus conflates quality with value: she couches her critical judgement in terms of ‘quality’, condoning an association between the two. But there is still some anxiety evident in her writing. Throughout her essay, Lane puts the word ‘quality’ in inverted commas, following the predominant tendency in television studies. This suggests an excessive caution, as if she is afraid to lay her cards on the table and assert her critical judgement. It is as if to say that she esteems the programme but that, if push came to shove, she would not impose that view upon others. It is to put inverted commas around the very practice of critical judgement (I shall return to this later).

Lane writes of the traditions and conventions of quality television as if these were widely known and recognised. Although ‘quality television’ is not a genre in a true sense, she is correct to assume common awareness of continuities within this group of programmes. The call for papers for the ‘American Quality Television’ conference, which inspired this collection, offered a list of programmes as potential texts for discussion. These were: St. Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues, thirtysomething, Twin Peaks, The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ER, The Sopranos, Sex and the City and Six Feet Under. My immediate, instinctive response was to spot omissions and challenge wrongful inclusions. Why wasn’t The West Wing included? Why had they listed Buffy, ER and The X-Files? Friends and colleagues eagerly contributed to this discussion of the programmes the list ‘should’ have contained.

The first thing indicated by my and others’ responses is that we shared an experience and awareness of the generic nature of quality television. I and my interlocutors accepted the concept of such a list of programmes, and felt that the list constituted a coherent ‘set’, like a genre, in which there are texts that, although different, belong together in some way. There was a sense of connection, continuity, even development, across the group. This explains our reactions, our attempts to amend and refine the list; we perceived that there existed here a sense of ‘group identity’ that typified contemporary American quality television.

How can this identity be defined? What is creating it? As with a generic group, are we able to determine particular aesthetic features – elements of style, for example – that connect the programmes? How else could they be classed together, given their disparate subject matters, as a ‘strand’ of television? And most pertinently, what clues are provided in the word ‘quality’, which is suggested as the connecting feature of the group? What does an indicator of quality look like? If we can determine this, we can determine the reasons that this set of programmes might coherently and logically be grouped together.

Continuing with the generic analogy, let us consider how one might classify programmes as quality television on the basis of their exhibiting certain textual characteristics of content, structure, theme and tone. American quality television programmes tend to exhibit high production values, naturalistic performance styles, recognised and esteemed actors, a sense of visual style created through careful, even innovative, camerawork and editing, and a sense of aural style created through the judicious use of appropriate, even original music. This moves beyond a ‘glossiness’ of style. Generally, there is a sense of stylistic integrity, in which themes and style are intertwined in an expressive and impressive way. Further, the programmes are likely to explore ‘serious’ themes, rather than representing the superficial events of life; they are likely to suggest that the viewer will be rewarded for seeking out greater symbolic or emotional resonance within the details of the programme. American quality televis...