On the Expulsion of Television from Television Series: Reality TV and Seasonal Seriality

The article examines reality TV as a serial form: it emphasizes the economic foundation of serial forms and elaborates how contemporary series, through the media-historical incision of DVD and streaming, introduce a third unit into the traditionally two-tiered organization of series and episode: the season. The ‘season’ functions as a formative principle for the organization of television serial narration. Such a ‘seasonal seriality’ can be observed not only in fictional series, but also in reality TV. Using Germany’s Next Topmodel as an example, the article shows how the casting format can be read as a staggered series whose time structures are fundamentally traceable to the basic unit of the season, analogous to fictional series.