Layered Flow: Transnational Adaptations of 'High-End' Television Drama

Abstract

This thesis examines transnational adaptations of ‘high-end’ television dramas. In the context of this thesis, 'high-end' drama refers to weekly, hour-long, continuing, season-renewable series and serials with high budgets and high-production values, which are designed to attract highly desirable ‘blue-chip’ audiences. The above characteristics distinguish ‘high-end’ dramas from other forms of television fiction such as single-plays, anthologies, sitcoms, and daytime soap operas.

It is worth noting that ‘high-end’ drama is not a genre, but rather a set of ambitions and aspirations. As a category ‘high-end’, is at best, indexical, with many of its characteristics related to budgets, resources and production values tied into the specificities of the industries in which it is being produced. The United States has remained the most prolific and dominant producer and exporter of ‘high-end’ drama. American ‘high-end’ drama has set many benchmarks for the narratives, aesthetics and production values of all other examples of ‘high-end’ drama. These benchmarks have proven to be aspirational for ‘high-end’ drama producers around the world and have helped to situate the United States as the core nation in term of the flow and transfer of television drama on the global market. But even while the United States has been a dominant exporter of ‘high-end’ drama, its networks have been notoriously resistant to imports from other countries, leading to an imbalance of television trade with many of its periphery nations and trading partners. Inhibitors ranging from a perceived audience aversion to foreign cultural markers such as foreign accents and subtitles to a surplus of domestic production have been sources of resistance to the success of imported and foreign television dramas in the American market.

The current American television environment is characterized by increased transmission hours, multiplying means of dissemination, increased competition, diversified genres and fragmented audience shares. Even in the wake of (and in some instances due to) audience fragmentation, production costs have been escalating in this competitive environment as a way to attract and retain audiences. High costs and diminishing returns have meant that, increasingly, the risks taken in television drama production need to be tempered by certain guarantees and sound products with proven track records. The adaptation and remake of successful shows originating in culturally proximate markets is one of the options increasingly being considered by American television networks which are locked in intense competition. While American networks continue to remain resistant to imports of finished television dramas, they have been gradually more receptive to the idea of drama adaptations, whereby they can mitigate any incongruent cultural, institutional or creative aspect of the original non-American programmes selected for American adaptation.

Using Life on Mars as an instance of such a transfer, in this case from the United Kingdom to the United States, this thesis will evaluate the creative, institutional and cultural imperatives underpinning the broader process of format adaptation in the category of television drama. This evaluation is undertaken using a discursive model, which this thesis proposes, called ‘Layered Flow’. This ‘layered flow’ model is distinct for its analysis of the narrative, aesthetic and cultural dimensions of both the original and adapted drama texts so as to determine the various modifications and transformations at work.