Post by snacky on Apr 15, 2014 4:44:07 GMT
While googling about for the sad fate of Lord Bowler, I came across this book "The Essential Cult TV Reader". While it's analysis is hardly original (most of the points have been made on a thousand fan forum threads before), the introduction brings up the most important factors in a cult TV show's success - and I think they apply well to MM.
Some of the fundamental points:
- passionate, enduring, socially-organized fan audience (Hello, Murdoch Mondays)
- imaginary universe that supports an inexhaustible range of narrative possibilities, inviting, supporting, and rewarding close textual analysis, interpretation, and inventive reformulations. (Do you hear tha CC? Inexhaustible!)
- a meta-genre that caters to intense, interpretive audience practices affording fans enormous scope for further interpretation, speculation, and invention. (Wait, wasn't that the previous point?)
- hyperdiegesis: the creation of a vast and detailed narrative space, only a fraction of which is ever directly seen or encountered while within the text (The whole alternative Victorian era!!!)
- celebrated for supposed uniqueness
- the fervency of a program's audience support, the degree to which its language and catchphrases (and props?) enter its audience's vocabulary, fans determination to amass collectibles and memorabilia, and conventions at which like-minded souls can congregate and share their passion. (Bloody Hell you Toffs, Tossers, and Dollymops - I know you want that homburg, too! Maybe you can get one at the British meet-up).
- are cult tv shows obligated to answer to fan clamor for greater involvement. (yes, if that fan involvement is paying the rent)
- genre-hybrid/genre-bending = cult status. (probably)
- the intro talks about cameos/nostalgia, but I think it misses another form of fan service: in-jokes that the audience shares at the expense of the show's characters. Also easter eggs that cross-reference other cult shows (this shows appreciation of the audience's knowledge and taste)
- Bring Your Own Subtext: intertextuality, metatextuality, and serialization. (I think this was only made possible by the rise of recording, enabling the audience to watch the key "texts" over and over)
- do the conspiracy theories invoked by cult tv support a kind of counterculture?
- something about internationalization (MM has that covered). The ironic and cynical bastions of American TV might only make sense to an American audience.
- something about intensity of character investment (which makes betrayal of fan expectations all the more traumatic)
- yet fans also like to be surprised. Tricky.
- my own thought: the fantasy element has to have consistent rules or be close enough to the real world to be plausible.
I think this is all worth thinking about as MM forges its way into future seasons. Whether the producers and writers intended it or not, MM really is a cult TV show. The question is, will the producers and writers continue to try to leverage that?
One curious thing is that MM doesn't occupy nearly the scale of fan-creativity space as a show of its longevity should. I wonder why. D:
Some of the fundamental points:
- passionate, enduring, socially-organized fan audience (Hello, Murdoch Mondays)
- imaginary universe that supports an inexhaustible range of narrative possibilities, inviting, supporting, and rewarding close textual analysis, interpretation, and inventive reformulations. (Do you hear tha CC? Inexhaustible!)
- a meta-genre that caters to intense, interpretive audience practices affording fans enormous scope for further interpretation, speculation, and invention. (Wait, wasn't that the previous point?)
- hyperdiegesis: the creation of a vast and detailed narrative space, only a fraction of which is ever directly seen or encountered while within the text (The whole alternative Victorian era!!!)
- celebrated for supposed uniqueness
- the fervency of a program's audience support, the degree to which its language and catchphrases (and props?) enter its audience's vocabulary, fans determination to amass collectibles and memorabilia, and conventions at which like-minded souls can congregate and share their passion. (Bloody Hell you Toffs, Tossers, and Dollymops - I know you want that homburg, too! Maybe you can get one at the British meet-up).
- are cult tv shows obligated to answer to fan clamor for greater involvement. (yes, if that fan involvement is paying the rent)
- genre-hybrid/genre-bending = cult status. (probably)
- the intro talks about cameos/nostalgia, but I think it misses another form of fan service: in-jokes that the audience shares at the expense of the show's characters. Also easter eggs that cross-reference other cult shows (this shows appreciation of the audience's knowledge and taste)
- Bring Your Own Subtext: intertextuality, metatextuality, and serialization. (I think this was only made possible by the rise of recording, enabling the audience to watch the key "texts" over and over)
- do the conspiracy theories invoked by cult tv support a kind of counterculture?
- something about internationalization (MM has that covered). The ironic and cynical bastions of American TV might only make sense to an American audience.
- something about intensity of character investment (which makes betrayal of fan expectations all the more traumatic)
- yet fans also like to be surprised. Tricky.
- my own thought: the fantasy element has to have consistent rules or be close enough to the real world to be plausible.
I think this is all worth thinking about as MM forges its way into future seasons. Whether the producers and writers intended it or not, MM really is a cult TV show. The question is, will the producers and writers continue to try to leverage that?
One curious thing is that MM doesn't occupy nearly the scale of fan-creativity space as a show of its longevity should. I wonder why. D:
But I can't really think of anything better.
)