This book, edited by Shannon Wells-Lassagne, Sylvaine Bataille-Brennetot and Florence Cabaret, offers various approaches to understanding the short form in television. The collection is structured in three parts, first engaging with the concept of brevity as inherent to television fiction, before going on to examine how the rapidly-changing landscape of « television » outside traditional networks might adapt this trope to new contexts made accessible by streaming platforms.

The final part of the study examines how this short form is inextricable from a larger context, either in its relation to seriality (from the crossover to the « bottle episode ») and/or a larger structure, for example in the reception of a larger whole through short but evocative clips in order to better weigh their impact (from « Easter Egg » fan videos to « Analyses of »).

The collection concludes with an interview with award-winning screenwriter Vincent Poymiro about his French series En thérapie (an adaptation of BeTipul/In Treatment).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Shannon Wells-Lassagne, Sylvaine Bataille-Brennetot and Florence Cabaret

Part 1: Confirming – and Deconstructing – Television Traditions of Brevity

• Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Subverting Anthology TV Series
  Julien Achemchame
• The Jewel in the Crown: A Miniseries between Short and Long
  Florence Cabaret
• Short Middle Ages: Comic Dramatization of Rhythm in French Shortcom Kaamelott
  Justine Breton
• Short but Serious? Slimming Down the Episode in ‘Prestige’ Drama Homecoming
  Sylvaine Bataille-Brennetot
• Twin Peaks, 25 Years Later: Whatever Happens Happens Now, and Nothing Else Matters
  Benjamin Campion

Part 2: New Media and New Forms: Web-series, Streaming Platforms and the Short Form

• Orders of Magnitude: Fractality and Granularity in Contemporary Television Series
  Florent Favard
• ‘Minute by Minute’: Short Form Deriality and Social Viewing and Waiting inSKAM
  Sara Tanderup Linkis
• Narrative Efficiency and the Constraints of the Short Form in Les Engagés
  Stéphane Sawas
  Crisis on Earth X or the Status of the Crossover Event
  Claire Cornillon

Part 3: Blurring Boundaries: Production, Paratexts and Reception of the Short Form

• Loops, Bottles and Clips: Structuring Brevity in American Television
  Shannon Wells-Lassagne
• Ovulate and Repeat: Temporal Uncertainties and the Serialising Effect of Narratives of ‘Women’s Time’ in the Sitcom Friends
  Jessica Thrasher
• ‘Spoilers Ahead!’: Short-circuiting Complex Series in Explainer Online Videos
  Sébastien Lefait
• Writing En thérapie: A Conversation with Vincent Poymiro
  Sylvaine Bataille-Brennetot, Florence Cabaret, and Shannon Wells-Lassagne with Vincent Poymiro
  

| Site de Edinburgh University Press