Manchester University Press
9 Grand designs
Abstract
This chapter argues that the US science fiction adventure series The Time Tunnel (1966–7) is about television: about the capabilities of the medium, the experience of watching it and the technological apparatus that television comprises. Visually, the series often adopts a grandiose, excessive visual style, especially in the opening episode focused on here. Key images are characterised by a sense of scale and visual spectacle, and the format seems calculated to advertise the attractions of colour television and the episodic adventure narratives that television offered in the US in the mid-1960s. The opening episode introduces the viewer to a massive underground base hidden beneath an American desert, in which an extraordinarily costly government project is being secretly carried out. At the heart of this technological facility, a physical apparatus, the massive Time Tunnel itself, acts as a portal for the protagonists to move to any moment in the past or the future, though without control over their destination. This premise is a self-reflexive representation of what television can do, transporting its viewer to real or simulated places and times beyond his or her experience, and engaging the viewer in thrilling narratives of exploration and peril. The style of the series, I suggest, articulates the substance of what television might be.
Abstract
This chapter argues that the US science fiction adventure series The Time Tunnel (1966–7) is about television: about the capabilities of the medium, the experience of watching it and the technological apparatus that television comprises. Visually, the series often adopts a grandiose, excessive visual style, especially in the opening episode focused on here. Key images are characterised by a sense of scale and visual spectacle, and the format seems calculated to advertise the attractions of colour television and the episodic adventure narratives that television offered in the US in the mid-1960s. The opening episode introduces the viewer to a massive underground base hidden beneath an American desert, in which an extraordinarily costly government project is being secretly carried out. At the heart of this technological facility, a physical apparatus, the massive Time Tunnel itself, acts as a portal for the protagonists to move to any moment in the past or the future, though without control over their destination. This premise is a self-reflexive representation of what television can do, transporting its viewer to real or simulated places and times beyond his or her experience, and engaging the viewer in thrilling narratives of exploration and peril. The style of the series, I suggest, articulates the substance of what television might be.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Figures vii
- List of contributors ix
- The Television Series xii
- Moments in Television, the collections xiv
- Acknowledgements xviii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Layers of style 18
- 2 New uniforms! Costume and the 1950s/60s in Call the Midwife 42
- 3 When style is substance and beyond 64
- 4 Representing mediated identity and consciousness in The Good Wife 86
- 5 Performing laughter in Friends 109
- 6 ‘You’re what’s wrong with America, Simpson’ 132
- 7 Resurrection, revelation, reception 156
- 8 Police Squad! The Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker style versus the substance of early 1980s television 178
- 9 Grand designs 202
- Index 225
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Figures vii
- List of contributors ix
- The Television Series xii
- Moments in Television, the collections xiv
- Acknowledgements xviii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Layers of style 18
- 2 New uniforms! Costume and the 1950s/60s in Call the Midwife 42
- 3 When style is substance and beyond 64
- 4 Representing mediated identity and consciousness in The Good Wife 86
- 5 Performing laughter in Friends 109
- 6 ‘You’re what’s wrong with America, Simpson’ 132
- 7 Resurrection, revelation, reception 156
- 8 Police Squad! The Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker style versus the substance of early 1980s television 178
- 9 Grand designs 202
- Index 225
