Long Form Television Drama

What Long Form Television Drama covers

Long Form Television Drama is examined in Component 02, Evolving media. It covers the set dramas one by one: Mr Robot and the unreliable narrator; Killing Eve and the gendered spy thriller; Atypical and the representation of neurodiversity; Stranger Things, nostalgia and the Netflix franchise; Lupin, disguise and postcolonial Paris; Money Heist and the second life of a national drama; Trapped, Nordic noir and the Icelandic industry; and Deutschland 83, the Cold War and the export of German drama. It also covers the streaming economy and the funding of long form drama; the global distribution of non-English language drama; genre hybridity, intertextuality and multiple narrative strands; media language and representation; and audiences, fandom and the regulation of on-demand drama.

The 13 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Mr Robot and the unreliable narratorRecall questions on Mr Robot: Elliot Alderson's double life and voiceover, why he is an unreliable narrator, off-centre framing and colour, fsociety and E Corp, its genre hybrid, Baudrillard's hyperreality, its post-2008 context, Fight Club and The Matrix, mental illness, and USA Network's commission.Open →
• Killing Eve and the gendered spy thrillerRecall questions on Killing Eve: Eve Polastri and Villanelle, how it subverts the spy thriller, Villanelle's first scene and costume, Carolyn Martens, van Zoonen and Butler applied to it, Sandra Oh's casting, black comedy, Sid Gentle Films and BBC America, its UK release and the characters' mutual obsession.Open →
• Atypical and the representation of neurodiversityRecall questions on Atypical: Sam Gardner's goal and Antarctic narration, the Gardner family and Casey's storyline, its sitcom and coming-of-age hybrid, therapy scenes, criticism of its first-season portrayal of autism and the response, nothing about us without us, its Netflix release, and Gauntlett applied to its audience.Open →
• Stranger Things, nostalgia and the Netflix franchiseRecall questions on Stranger Things: its 1983 Hawkins setting and opening disappearance, the Dungeons and Dragons scene, the Upside Down, its debts to Spielberg, King and others, the title sequence, Cold War anxiety, Joyce Byers, Baudrillard, Todorov and Neale applied to it, its ensemble strands and value to Netflix.Open →
• Lupin, disguise and postcolonial ParisRecall questions on Lupin: Assane Diop and Arsène Lupin, the Marie Antoinette necklace and the Pellegrini family, racial invisibility in the heist, Gilroy's double consciousness, the Senegalese immigrant backstory, heist conventions, non-linear narrative, Paris, dubbing, Barthes's myth and Assane as a father.Open →
• Money Heist and the second life of a national dramaRecall questions on the heist at the centre of the first episode, the city names, the voiceover, the Dalí masks and red jumpsuits, and how that imagery travelled.Open →
• Trapped, Nordic noir and the Icelandic industryRecall questions on Trapped: its isolated Icelandic town, the torso in the harbour, the blizzard as a narrative device, Andri Ólafsson and Hinrika, Nordic noir conventions and landscape, the harbour investment storyline, its pacing, its importance to Icelandic television, BBC Four and dubbing.Open →
• Deutschland 83, the Cold War and the export of German dramaRecall questions on the year and political situation, how Martin Rauch is recruited and held, the identity he takes in the West, and how consumerism is established.Open →
• The streaming economy and the funding of long form dramaRecall questions on subscription video on demand and how its income shapes commissioning, Hesmondhalgh on risk, the budgets of American long form drama, vertically integrated streaming services and owned originals, Curran and Seaton on concentrated ownership, independent producers' rights, all-at-once release and public service broadcasters.Open →
• Global distribution and the travel of non-English language dramaRecall questions on co-productions and pre-sales, subtitling and dubbing, cultural discount and how streaming reduces it, algorithmic recommendation, windowing, convergence, the influence of Nordic noir on European commissioning, and dependence on a single global distributor.Open →
• Genre hybridity, intertextuality and multiple narrative strandsRecall questions on genre hybridity and Neale's theory of genre, intertextuality and audience positioning, multi-strand narratives and story arcs, episodic and serial elements, cliffhangers in weekly and box-set release, cold opens, and Todorov and Lévi-Strauss applied to long form drama.Open →
• Media language and representation in long form television dramaRecall questions on camera angle, mise-en-scène, lighting, editing pace, sound and title sequences, Barthes's denotation, connotation and myth, costume as a sign, representation as construction and discourse, bell hooks on intersectionality, Gilroy's double consciousness, and representation across many hours.Open →
• Audiences, fandom and the regulation of on-demand dramaRecall questions on Stuart Hall's encoding and decoding and reader positions, Gerbner's cultivation theory and mean world syndrome, Bandura and his critics, Shirky and Jenkins applied to fandom, demographic and cultural factors in reading drama, Livingstone and Lunt, and regulating on-demand drama.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Long Form Television Drama further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Genre hybridity vs Intertextuality

  Genre hybridity: the combining within one programme of the conventions of two or more recognised kinds of drama, so it can be enjoyed in more than one way. Intertextuality: one text referring to, borrowing from or playing with another identifiable one, and depending on the audience recognising it.

• Subtitling vs Dubbing

  Subtitling: translating the dialogue as text on screen while the original voices and performances are kept. Dubbing: replacing the recorded dialogue with a new voice track in another language, which loses the original performance and its linguistic texture.

• Episodic vs Serial

  Episodic: a story opened and closed within a single hour of television, so a viewer who watches only that hour is satisfied. Serial: a story carried across a whole season, each instalment advancing an arc that is not resolved until the end.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Who is the protagonist of Mr Robot and what are his two working lives?

   Model answer

   Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer at the firm Allsafe by day and a vigilante hacker by night.

2. 2

   How does the opening episode of Mr Robot use voiceover to position its audience?

   Model answer

   Elliot narrates directly to an imagined ‘friend’, which makes the viewer his confidant and gives privileged access to a mind that turns out not to be trustworthy.

3. 3

   Explain why Elliot is called an unreliable narrator in Mr Robot.

   Model answer

   Everything is shown from his subjective viewpoint, and his dissociation, drug use and hallucinations mean what the audience sees cannot be taken as a record of events.

4. 4

   What does Elliot's renaming of E Corp as ‘Evil Corp’ tell an audience about the narration?

   Model answer

   The corporation is seen and heard only as Elliot names it, so his private judgement is imposed on the world the audience is shown.

5. 5

   Describe the distinctive framing used throughout Mr Robot.

   Model answer

   Figures are pushed to the very bottom or the extreme edge of the frame, with large areas of empty space above and beside them, breaking the conventional rules of headroom and balance.

6. 6

   What meaning is created by the unbalanced compositions in Mr Robot?

   Model answer

   The empty space isolates Elliot within the image and suggests powerlessness, alienation and the sense of being watched.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Long Form Television Drama revision questions

What does Long Form Television Drama cover in OCR A-Level Media Studies?

13 subtopics: mr robot and the unreliable narrator, killing eve and the gendered spy thriller, atypical and the representation of neurodiversity, stranger things, nostalgia and the netflix franchise, lupin, disguise and postcolonial paris, money heist and the second life of a national drama, trapped, nordic noir and the icelandic industry, deutschland 83, the cold war and the export of german drama, the streaming economy and the funding of long form drama, global distribution and the travel of non-english language drama, genre hybridity, intertextuality and multiple narrative strands, media language and representation in long form television drama and audiences, fandom and the regulation of on-demand drama. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Long Form Television Drama organised?

By the OCR H409 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.