‘Serial Eruptions’ in US Television from the Fifties to the Seventies

Exemplified by the episodic series as the dominant narrative form, US television of the 1950s to 1970s has repeatedly been attested a conservative character, which is often summed up by the term ‘lowest common denominator’. Particularly in the discourse on so-called quality television, this period marks the return of the ever-same—and, thus, the antithesis to the innovations of recent television series. This article questions this arbitrary and reductionist demarcation and the linear understanding of history behind it, and rethinks the period in question as a constant process of negotiation between old and new narrative forms (from anthology and episodic series to continuing series).