This edited collection examines a new phase in the creation of transnational high-end drama in television’s current multiplatform era. Fuelled by the wider international exposure that internet distribution has brought to TV shows, this phase for high-end drama is one of unprecedented budgets and costs, frequent transnational coproduction and increased cultural diversification. While this drama continues to be facilitated by national broadcasters, fuelling the above trio of influences upon it has been the commissioning activity of multinational subscription-video-on-demand (SVoD) providers. This book showcases leading examples of transnational TV drama, produced outside the US, yet involving collaboration with US-owned SVoDs. It foregrounds some new potentials for drama creation in the context of its strategic importance to providers as different as national broadcasters and multinational SVoDs. This book helps to explain why today’s high-end dramas are demonstrating new elements of cultural specificity despite their common objective to engage a diverse international audience.

This book examines the creative strategies, narrative characteristics, industrial practices and stylistic tendencies of complex serial drama. Exemplified by shows like HBO's The Sopranos, AMC's Mad Men and Breaking Bad, Showtime's Dexter, and Netflix's Stranger Things, complex serials are distinguished by their conceptual originality, narrative complexity, transgressive lead characters and serial allure. As a drama form that continues to expand and diversify in today's television, HBO's Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones, Netflix's Orange Is the New Black and Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale provide further examples. Dunleavy investigates the strategies that underpin the innovations, influence and success of complex serial drama, giving students and scholars a nuanced understanding of this contemporary TV form.

Notwithstanding the challenges of a limited population size and the struggle to fund such costly forms of screen production as high-end film and television, both of these New Zealand screen industries have been the site of significant expectation, achievement and cultural influence. Whilst there is a growing body of academic work on New Zealand film and television, relatively little exists on industries, institutions and policy, which this book will address. Written by renowned experts in the field, Trisha Dunelavy and Hester Joyce, this book will provide an authoritative text on the emergence and significance of New Zealand film and television as major cultural and creative industries.

This book examines the creative strategies, narrative characteristics, industrial practices and stylistic tendencies of complex serial drama. Exemplified by shows like HBO's The Sopranos, AMC's Mad Men and Breaking Bad, Showtime's Dexter, and Netflix's Stranger Things, complex serials are distinguished by their conceptual originality, narrative complexity, transgressive lead characters and serial allure. As a drama form that continues to expand and diversify in today's television, HBO's Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones, Netflix's Orange Is the New Black and Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale provide further examples. Dunleavy investigates the strategies that underpin the innovations, influence and success of complex serial drama, giving students and scholars a nuanced understanding of this contemporary TV form.