The Cognitive Impact of Contemporary Television Series

The Cognitive Impact of Contemporary Television Series Jesús Jiménez-Varea and Alberto Hermida, Editors Television serial fiction is one of the most popular cultural products around the world today, and there is much indirect evidence that its stories influence the understanding of those who watch and enjoy it. All the chapters gathered in this collection address the idea that the specific aesthetic and narrative properties of television seriality contribute to distinct ways of conveying cognitive impact in a broad sense: from content learning, to reflection on social and philosophical issues, to character engagement and emotional reactions. The Cognitive Impact of Contemporary Television Series goes through some of the thematic constants of the last decade of television seriality, such as dystopia, coming-of-age or metaphysical drama, making panoramic views and delving into specific case studies, like The Purge, The End of the F***ing World and Undone, among many others. This book will be of interest to graduate students and scholars working in television studies, as well as in film studies, cognitive media theory, media psychology, and aesthetics. Jesús Jiménez-Varea holds a Master of Science in Theoretical Physics and a PhD in Media and Communication from the Universidad de Sevilla (Spain), where he is an Associate Professor. His works on seriality, comics, vigilantism, violence, and ideology have appeared in international journals and collections. Alberto Hermida is an Associate Professor in Media and Communication from the Universidad de Sevilla (Spain). He holds a PhD in Communication Studies and his main lines of research and teaching are digital image and aesthetics, mise-en-scène in film and television, and seriality. 6 9 783034 353809 ISBN 978-3-0343-5380-9 www.peterlang.com CULTURAL MEDIA STUDIES · 6 Cover image: ©KPG-Ivary/Shutterstock.com Edited by The Cognitive Impact of The Cognitive Impact of Contemporary Television Contemporary Television SeriesSeries Jesús Jiménez-Varea and Alberto Hermida 9783034353809_cvr_eu.indd All Pages9783034353809_cvr_eu.indd All Pages 07-Mar-25 12:36:2107-Mar-25 12:36:21 The Cognitive Impact of Contemporary Television Series Jesús Jiménez-Varea and Alberto Hermida, Editors Television serial fiction is one of the most popular cultural products around the world today, and there is much indirect evidence that its stories influence the understanding of those who watch and enjoy it. All the chapters gathered in this collection address the idea that the specific aesthetic and narrative properties of television seriality contribute to distinct ways of conveying cognitive impact in a broad sense: from content learning, to reflection on social and philosophical issues, to character engagement and emotional reactions. The Cognitive Impact of Contemporary Television Series goes through some of the thematic constants of the last decade of television seriality, such as dystopia, coming-of-age or metaphysical drama, making panoramic views and delving into specific case studies, like The Purge, The End of the F***ing World and Undone, among many others. This book will be of interest to graduate students and scholars working in television studies, as well as in film studies, cognitive media theory, media psychology, and aesthetics. Jesús Jiménez-Varea holds a Master of Science in Theoretical Physics and a PhD in Media and Communication from the Universidad de Sevilla (Spain), where he is an Associate Professor. His works on seriality, comics, vigilantism, violence, and ideology have appeared in international journals and collections. Alberto Hermida is an Associate Professor in Media and Communication from the Universidad de Sevilla (Spain). He holds a PhD in Communication Studies and his main lines of research and teaching are digital image and aesthetics, mise-en-scène in film and television, and seriality. 6 www.peterlang.com CULTURAL MEDIA STUDIES · 6 Cover image: ©KPG-Ivary/Shutterstock.com Edited by The Cognitive Impact of The Cognitive Impact of Contemporary Television Contemporary Television SeriesSeries Jesús Jiménez-Varea and Alberto Hermida 9783034353809_cvr_eu.indd All Pages9783034353809_cvr_eu.indd All Pages 07-Mar-25 12:36:2107-Mar-25 12:36:21 The Cognitive Impact of Contemporary Television Series Cultural Media Studies Leandra H. Hernández and Amanda R. Martinez Series Editors Vol. 6 PETER LANG New York - Berlin - Bruxelles - Chennai - Lausanne - Oxford The Cognitive Impact of Contemporary Television Series Edited by Jesús Jiménez-Varea and Alberto Hermida Open Access: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CCBY 4.0 license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/ © 2025 by Jesús Jiménez-Varea and Alberto Hermida Published by Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, USA [email protected] - www.peterl ang.com This publication has been peer reviewed. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jiménez Varea, Jesús, editor. | Hermida, Alberto, editor. Title: The cognitive impact of contemporary television series / Jesús Jiménez-Varea, Alberto Hermida. Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2025. | Series: Cultural media studies, 2641–1415; 6 | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2024036923 (print) | LCCN 2024036924 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433199936 (paperback) | ISBN 9783034353809 (hardback) | ISBN 9781433199943 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433199950 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Television plays–History and criticism. | Cognition. | Television–Psychological aspects. Classification: LCC PN1992.65 .C66 2025 (print) | LCC PN1992.65 (ebook) | DDC 384.55/3209–dc23/eng/20240813 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/202 4036 923 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/202 4036 924 DOI 10.3726/b22366 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG ISSN 2641-1415 (print) ISBN 9781433199936 (paperback) ISBN 9783034353809 (hardback) ISBN 9781433199943 (ebook) ISBN 9781433199950 (epub) DOI 10.3726/b22366 CONTENTS List of Tables vii Introduction ix Jesús Jiménez-Varea and Alberto Hermida Chapter 1. The Cognitive Impact of Television Series: A Preliminary Study 1 Héctor J. Pérez and Víctor Hernández-Santaolalla Chapter 2. Metaphysical Drama at the Downturn of Peak TV 17 Alberto N. García and Pablo Castrillo Chapter 3. Undone: Representation of Schizophrenia and the Unconscious Mind in an Animated TV Series 37 Beatriz Herráiz Zornoza and Jaime López-Díez Chapter 4. The Awkwardness Effect: Engagement with Clumsy Characters in TV Series 71 Marta Boni vi contents Chapter 5. Cognition and Emotion in Dystopian TV Serial Worlds: The Purge 85 Alberto Hermida and Jesús Jiménez-Varea Chapter 6. Temporal Unity and Discontinuity: Unifying Disparate Narrative Meanings in the Fan Text Chronologically Lost 121 Jared W. Aronoff Chapter 7. An Overview of Recent Coming-of-Age Serial TV: The Remarkable Aesthetics of The End of the F***ing World 139 Mónica Barrientos-Bueno and Pablo Echart Notes on the Contributors 163 Index 169 LIST OF TABLES Table 1. TV series that most influenced respondents in the US and Spain. 8 Table 2. Reasons for viewing the series crossed with the question of learning from TV fiction series (%). 10 Table 3. Aspects of the series that respondents like most crossed with the question of learning from TV fiction series (%). 11 Table 4. Reason for identifying the moment chosen as particularly interesting crossed with the question of learning from TV fiction series (%). 12 Table 5. Relationship between cognitive and aesthetic values (%). 13 Table 6. Words related to mental health used by Alma or by other characters. 53 Table 7. Word frequency. 54 Table 8. Percentage of episode duration spent representing some form of Alma’s subjective alternative reality (each episode is between 20 and 22 minutes long). 57 Table 9. Abnormalities and other symptoms required to diagnose schizophrenia present in Alma. 59 newgenprepdf xiv jiménez-varea and hermida most stimulating examples of contemporary seriality and a worldwide cult phenomenon that stands out for its daring aesthetics. More precisely, the analysis focuses on three aesthetic elements in which this British series departs from its referent, Charles Forsman’s graphic novel of the same name: the dramatic creation of the characters, the tone and the mise-en-scène of the television show. As a general conclusion of most of the chapters collected in this monograph, it can be drawn that both specific (multi-plots, temporal prolongation, familiarization with the characters) and non-specific characteristics of audiovisual seriality cooperate to make television series a communicative modality capable of articulating sophisticated discourses on complex themes and situations (philosophical issues, moral dilemmas of a socio-political nature, altered states of consciousness, vital conflicts, etc.) that have a cognitive, emotional, and affective impact on the viewers. By their very nature, both purposive sampling and the subsequent case studies have a great strength and a corresponding weakness depending on the point of view: on the one hand, the idiographic character of the in-depth case study favors reflection and the advancement of theory in the scientific field; on the other hand, transferability to other case studies is necessary, as well as extensive quantitative studies to verify the external validity of the findings of the case studies. Logically, this gives rise to further lines of research, as is natural in any scientific project of a certain scope. The Cognitive Impact of Contemporary Television Series stems from an R&D project funded by the Ministry of Science of the Government of Spain, “Interactions between cognitive value and aesthetic properties in contemporary series”, coordinated by Héctor J. Pérez and Jesús Jiménez-Varea between 2018 and 2022. The volume also results from the project titled “Multi-plot aesthetics and information density in contemporary television series”, coordinated by Héctor J. Pérez and funded by the BBVA Foundation between 2022 and 2024. Bibliography Blanchet, R., & Vaage, M. B. (2012). Don, Peggy, and other fictional friends? Engaging with characters in television series. Projections, 6(2), 18–41. Carroll, N. (2019). Movies, narration and the emotions. In C. Rawls, D. Neiva, & S. S. Gouveia (Eds.), Philosophy and film. Bridging divides (pp. 209–221). Routledge. García, A. N. (Ed.). (2016). Emotions in contemporary TV Series. Palgrave Macmillan. Kelleter, F. (2017). Five ways of looking at popular seriality. In: F. Kelleter (Ed.), Media of serial narrative (pp. 7–34). The Ohio State University Press. Introduction xv Kuijpers, M. M., Hakemulder, F., Bálint, K., Doicaru, M., & Tan, E. (2017). Towards a new understanding of absorbing reading experiences. In: F. Hakemulder, M. M. Kuijpers, E. S. Tan, K. Bálint, & M. M. Doicaru (Eds.), Narrative absorption (pp. 29–47). John Benjamins. Mittell, J. (2015). Complex TV: The poetics of contemporary television storytelling. New York University Press. Nannicelli, T., & Pérez, H. J. (Eds.). (2022). Cognition, emotion, and aesthetics in contemporary serial television. Routledge. Nannicelli, T. (2016). Appreciating the art of television: A philosophical perspective. Taylor & Francis. Plantinga, C. (2009). Emotion and affect. In: P. Livingston & C. Plantinga (Eds.), The Routledge companion to philosophy and film (pp. 86–96). Routledge. Smith, M. (1999). Engaging characters: Fiction, emotion, and the cinema. Clarendon Press. Smith, M. (2017). Film, art, and the third culture: A naturalized aesthetics of film. Oxford University Press. ·1· THE COGNITIVE IMPACT OF TELEVISION SERIES: A PRELIMINARY STUDY Héctor J. Pérez and Víctor Hernández-Santaolalla The widespread success and popularity of television series as a cultural product makes their cognitive impact a particularly interesting object of study. Because serials are narratives extended over time, they have the potential to impact millions of viewers for months or even years. Narration is a communicative modality with a wealth of resources, the most powerful of which are aimed at eliciting emotional responses that interact with cognition. However, scholars in various fields have expressed skepticism about the idea of narration as a source of knowledge. Philosophers, for example, have raised doubts about the epistemic nature of fictional stories (Stolnitz, 1992). Epistemologists also deny that the arts can offer knowledge because they are not capable of complying with specific requirements of the sciences; for example, the existence of experts able to evaluate the validity of the truths they supposedly provide. Nevertheless, researchers in various branches of psychology have been confirming the persuasive power of narrative for decades (Braddock & Dillard, 2016). In line with the above, the first section of this chapter cites recent studies that provide a comprehensive overview of research in the field of narrative persuasion theory, specifically that dealing with the interplay between aesthetic properties and cognitive value. This prior research can shed light on how the aesthetic and artistic qualities of narratives interact with knowledge, which 2 pérez and hernández-santaolalla is conceived here in a broad sense, including learning not only about ethics and morality but also geographical or historical knowledge. In this context, this chapter also explores related concepts such as the “climactic moment” and “narrative absorption.” The literature review is followed by an exploratory study of the viewers’ experience in relation to this aesthetic-cognitive interaction. Finally, the results are presented and discussed with reference to prior theory, in order to draw some conclusions and identify limitations and possible directions for future research. This chapter thus has two main objectives: to offer a theoretical discussion on the interplay between the aesthetic and cognitive values of television fiction series (a subject of study which, despite receiving more attention in recent years, continues to be relegated to a marginal position in narrative and reception studies), and; to present an empirical exploration of how audiences experience this interplay. This research project has a foundation in aesthetic theory, as it aims to identify how the aesthetic properties of a work of art contribute to its cognitive value. It takes inspiration from studies of the relationship between imagination and knowledge. Two distinct but overlapping perspectives on this relationship are worth point out here. The first is Martha Nussbaum’s defense of novels as a “paradigm of moral activity” (1985, p. 516), whereby she establishes an analogy between moral imagination and creative imagination by describing how a literary image written by Henry James in his novel The Golden Bowl can attain a moral quality completely dependent on its artistic qualities. The moral knowledge conveyed by the image “is not simply intellectual grasp of propositions” but “seeing a complex concrete reality in a highly lucid and richly responsive way; it is taking what is there, with imagination and feeling” (p. 521). According to Nussbaum, James’s artistic imagination in the construction of this passage is what leads him to express a complex reality with such richness and lucidity. The second perspective is offered by Angela Breitenbach (2020) in the field of theory of science, who similarly suggests that the imagination is similar in the two very different domains of aesthetic experience and scientific research. She makes the analogy between an aesthetic experience based on a set of imaginative activities, referring to the dance piece Vollmond by Pina Bausch, and a key moment in the development of quantum mechanics, when Werner Heisenberg tells how he conceived one of his theories during a sleepless night. Breitenbach argues that “both artworks and theories strike us as beautiful when they force a range of imaginative activities on us” and “that the same kinds of imaginative activity also contribute to achievements of understanding” (p. 8). Accordingly, she proposes that this homogeneous vision of the processes of imagination The Cognitive Impact of Television Series 3 posits the aesthetic experience in science and the cognitive value of art as two phenomena with the same root, and this would explain both the cognitive value of art and the aesthetic value of science. Both Nussbaum (1985) and Breitenbach (2020) posit an interaction between artistic and cognitive qualities, and imagination seems to be the main mechanism driving this interaction. In many cases, these processes are due to an artistic creative act that elicits an emotion (or various emotions) from the spectator. In addition, there are emotions specific to art, such as wonder (Fingerhut & Prinz, 2018). This suggests that both psychologists and neuroscientists could contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between the specifically aesthetic emotions elicited by a work of art and the perception, comprehension, and memorization of its content resulting from the main act of cognition it provokes. There are already some studies that consider aspects of this relationship and that can serve as a good foundation for further research in this area (Appel et al., 2019; Bartsch & Hartmann, 2017). As a preliminary step, this research project considers two aspects of TV series that could benefit from the triangulation approach proposed by Murray Smith (2017). The first is a phenomenon that would surely be of great interest for a scientific study: the climactic moments of serial fiction. The climax is a point where the aesthetic experience often involves a kind of “cocktail” of artifact emotions and narrative/cognitive progress (Pérez, 2022). These are highly localized moments that involve a strategic interaction between emotions and knowledge, constituting one of the most important of such interactions in any narrative. The second is the concept of the psychology of narrative absorption. Kuijpers et al. (2017) propose a new modality, which they call “artifact absorption,” referring to an experience shaped by the formal qualities of the narrative that make the aesthetic experience of that narrative unique. To explore this phenomenon, Hermida et al. (2021) analyze a number of scenes from the Spanish fiction series La peste (Movistar+, 2018–2019), well known for the visual refinement and painterly quality of its images. In many cases, such images aim to foster a sort of forensic fandom with an aesthetic dimension, where, for example, the viewer investigates the relationship between the scenes in the series and famous works of art. The appreciation and evaluation of these careful visual compositions also teaches viewers about the aesthetics of lighting, composition, and miseen-image. In fact, La peste has its own “making of” series, which examines the visual elaboration of various scenes. Artifact absorption may offer cognitive benefits similar to narrative absorption, whose positive influence in persuasive terms has been empirically tested with favorable results. In short, if there is any 4 pérez and hernández-santaolalla cognitive benefit a work of art can have, in many cases it may be an understanding of the artistic properties of the work itself. It is important to stress that the vision of the cognitive impact of a television series proposed here is not restricted entirely to ethics and morality, as interesting as these two areas are. Serials can also broaden our geographical knowledge by showing us foreign places in detail. Perhaps one of the most noteworthy examples of this is the depiction of Baltimore in The Wire (HBO, 2002–2008) (García, 2017). The aesthetic emotion elicited by the images of cities and other locations in TV series is probably related to what we learn about those locations, and that emotion can stimulate our curiosity and even our desire to get to know these places better by visiting them. In Spain, for example, the Canary Islands has become a popular setting, as the Canarian government offers very favorable economic conditions for the filming of television series in an effort to attract more visitors. The Spanish serial Hierro (Movistar+, 2019–2022), which takes its name from a small island in the Canary archipelago, is an example of the success of Canarian tourism policy. Images of the landscape images are used systematically in this series in a narratively structured way; for example, the locations of many key events are presented through the use of fascinating aerial shots, such as one of the key events in the last episode of the second season. A similar case can be found in the aesthetic and narrative dynamics of another series, True Detective (HBO, 2014–), in which the story is constructed with reference to the geographical environment in which the plot develops. Thus, the major streets of Louisiana, Los Angeles, or Arkansas, depending on the season, constitute a very recognizable hallmark and an essential technique for establishing the setting and developing a symbolic construction. Another type of knowledge that TV series frequently offer is historical knowledge. Indeed, there is a significant number of historical series that provide viewers with an aesthetic experience that serves as a support for teaching about the historical events they narrate (Warner, 2009). The role of narrative absorption is a key question in this study. As is the case in cinema, the processes of narrative absorption in serial fiction are related to the presence of the three main narrative emotions: suspense, curiosity, and surprise. But unlike cinema, these three narrative emotions are extended over time. The prolongation of emotions or of certain moods, the spectator’s temporally extended relationships with the characters, and the emotional bonds that arise therefrom (which have provoked a long and very fruitful debate in cognitive theory) are important characteristics of TV series (Nannicelli, 2016). The Cognitive Impact of Television Series 5 Although Ted Nannicelli quite rightly points out that there is no necessary connection between artistic achievement and temporal prolongation, TV series scriptwriters have often used the larger amount of time at their disposal to develop very specific artistic strategies that would have been impossible in shorter narratives. For example, suspense can be used effectively to direct the viewer’s attention to content likely to become a source of cognitive value later on. When the scriptwriters orchestrate a suspenseful moment in an original way, vesting it with artistic value, this will probably have a cognitive effect. An example of this could be found in the series Your Honor (Showtime, 2020), where the viewer is led on a meticulously planned path of suspense which, as a side effect, makes the knowledge of the circumstances surrounding a moral dilemma the focus of attention. Indeed, the series seems geared toward providing an answer to the question asked on its promotional poster (“How far would you go to save your son?”). The same is true of curiosity: any artistic effect can help enhance the viewer’s interest in a question explored in the narrative. It is very interesting to observe the systematic nature of certain narrative aesthetic effects in serials, which are spread out through the episodes of one or several seasons. The animated series Undone features unique and creative transitions between scenes. It could be hypothesized that there is an interaction between the aesthetic properties of these animated transitions and the narrative content. It seems reasonable to assume that the curiosity provoked by such strange transitions is somehow contagious and stimulates our interest in the main content of the plot at the same time, especially because the way these transitions are proposed in itself makes us wonder whether it has any relationship to the mental state of the protagonist. Surprise is another powerful resource with cognitive effects that have been described in detail by cognitive psychologists (Reisenzein et al., 2019). The effect of a surprising event can be one of the major stimuli that lead viewers to review the story as a whole again, and to decipher its meaning. This process of pondering meaning is one of the clearest signs of cognitive gain offered by any narrative (Pérez & Reisenzein, 2020). Here again, artistry plays an important role, as the originality of the orchestration of the surprise is an aesthetic quality that may influence the degree of predictability of the plot twist, making it decisive in the cognitive effect of the narration as a whole. Based on the theoretical framework outlined above, a preliminary study was conducted on viewers’ experiences of the cognitive-aesthetic impact of a television series. The intention was to make an initial exploratory approach to the phenomenon of learning through television series from the perspective of 6 pérez and hernández-santaolalla the interaction between cognitive and aesthetic elements, in order to determine whether, how, and when such learning occurs. In other words, the purpose was to identify whether a television series could serve as an instrument for learning, and how what is narrated interacts with how it is narrated and vice versa. Method Sample A questionnaire was applied to a sample of US and Spanish respondents over the age of 18. Specifically, 579 responses were initially obtained from the United States and 460 from Spain. However, after excluding questionnaires that were not properly completed and responses by subjects who stated that they never watched television series, the total number of responses was 473 (271 from the United States and 202 from Spain). In terms of demographic data, in the case of the United States, 56.9% of the respondents were women and the mean age was 49.6 years with a standard deviation of 16.27. In the case of Spain, 57.1% were women, while the average age was 25.3 years with a standard deviation of 10.20. Thus, although both samples had fairly equal gender percentages, the average age of Spanish respondents was markedly lower. Variables Regarding the variables considered, apart from demographic data or viewing frequency, the focus was on whether viewers believed a TV series could act as an instrument for learning about reality and, if so, how this learning occurred. Thus, after a first general question, respondents were asked to provide the title of a TV fiction series that had influenced their knowledge, values, attitudes, or behavior on a subject. Bearing in mind that this is a first approximation to the phenomenon, the aim of this study was precisely to allow the respondents, as viewers, to respond based on their own experience. The following questions were thus to be answered with reference to the television series they themselves had selected. The first question was why they watched or were watching the TV series, with a series of options to serve as a guide: interest in the topic; the way the story is told; its aesthetic qualities; the authors and/or actors involved; the broadcasting The Cognitive Impact of Television Series 7 channel; recommendations, or; familiarity with other references (such as the novel on which the TV series might be based). They were also asked about the most attractive aspects of the series, such as the cinematography, the set or costumes, the casting, the music, or the dialogue. Next, in keeping with the idea that responses should be based on personal experience, they were asked to identify a moment (event or situation) in the TV series in question that they found particularly appealing or interesting. At the same time, they were asked to indicate whether this moment was selected for its beauty, its interesting content, or both―according to their own subjective perspective. They were then asked about the expressive aspect(s) that made the particular moment chosen especially interesting, such as visuals, acting, casting, music, dialogue, or storytelling. Subsequently, participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement regarding the beauty and interest of the moment they selected using a 5-point Likert scale. Finally, two closing questions about the interaction between cognitive and aesthetic values were incorporated .: “Do you think your interest in the subjects that particular moment deals with increases your appreciation of its beauty?” and “Do you think the beauty of that particular moment contributes to your interest in its content?” Procedure The questionnaire was administered using a tool provided by the Survey Monkey website between February 15 and 19, 2021, in the case of the United States, and between June 9 and 28, 2021, in the case of Spain. All data were analyzed using the IBM© SPSS© Statistics 25 package. For the statistical analysis of the data, a descriptive analysis of the variables was carried out first, considering the frequency of the nominal variables and the mean and standard deviation in the case of the Likert-type scales. Next, the variable of respondents’ belief in relation to the teaching potential of the series was crossed with (1) their reasons for choosing the series, (2) the specific aspects they liked most about the series, and (3) their reason for choosing the specific moment they identified as particularly interesting. These variables were used to determine the relationship between the series’ ability to teach about reality and the factors that are most valued in the series. Thus, in order to determine whether there were statistically significant differences, the Pearson’s chi-squared test was applied. 14 pérez and hernández-santaolalla Discussion and Conclusions The data obtained from the respondents—notwithstanding certain differences between countries—confirm the potential of TV fiction series as educational tools, which is consistent with previous literature, especially in the field of narrative studies (Braddock & Dillard, 2016). It is also interesting, though not surprising, that most respondents who recognize their cognitive value watch TV series because of how the story is told (i.e., the aspect they value most is the storytelling) or because of their interest in its subject, although this is particularly clear in the case of Spanish respondents. However, it should not be overlooked that, while these are the two most common factors, respondents in both countries identified aesthetic properties, which include images, music, acting, and locations, as the third most important reason for watching a TV series. On the other hand, although these general findings apply equally to both countries, the results also reveal some notable differences between them. For example, while Spanish respondents are more likely to choose a series based on its subject matter or on recommendations from people close to them, US respondents tend to base their choices more on the channel or platform distributing the series or their creators or actors, suggesting a higher level of loyalty in this sense. In short, cognitive considerations prevail over aesthetic or artistic factors, both in the choice of a series to watch and, with limitations, in the identification of a particularly interesting moment in that series. The main objective of this research has been to examine the interaction between cognitive and aesthetic values in serialized narrative. In this respect, and in line with Nussbaum (1985) and Breitenbach (2020), the respondents’ answers show clearly that they perceive an interaction between artistic and cognitive qualities: the artistic quality of a particularly appealing moment in a series can increase its cognitive value, and (to a lesser extent) vice versa. The data obtained in this preliminary study thus appear to confirm the cognitive importance of television fiction series, as well as the interaction between aesthetic and cognitive values when evaluating a specific moment in such series. However, these results should be taken with caution, given the exploratory-descriptive nature of the study and the limitations discussed below. In this regard, questions such as the differences found between countries and the prevalence of cognitive and aesthetic factors over others offer avenues for further exploration. The Cognitive Impact of Television Series 15 Limitations and Directions for Future Research The main limitation of this study is related to the specific moments identified by respondents as being of particular interest in their chosen series. As noted above, in most cases the specific moments could not be analyzed due to a lack of specifics in the respondents’ descriptions, hindering the location of these moments in the series. It is evident that the moments identified, such as certain identifiable scenes from Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, are often directly related to the climactic moment (Perez, 2022) and to narrative absorption (Kuijpers et al., 2017)―as it is such moments of the narrative that directly or indirectly elicit the emotions of suspense, curiosity, and surprise (Nannicelli, 2016), but the small sample size makes it impossible to draw any kind of conclusion. Future research should delve deeper into the selection, perception, and interpretation of these moments by television series viewers. This important limitation points directly to another prospective future line of research. Certain series or, more specifically, moments in those series, could be provided to participants in order to explore the interaction between cognitive and aesthetic elements. A more specific audiovisual sample would make it possible, even with a large number of participants, to identify the value given to each aspect when evaluating a series or moment. Such future research would make it possible to identify the real importance that the cognitive and aesthetic elements have for viewers of a given series, as well as how they interact with each other. Bibliography Appel, M., Schreiner, C., Haffmans, M. B., & Richter, T. (2019). The mediating role of event-congruent emotions in narrative persuasion. Poetics, 77, 101385. Bartsch, A., & Hartmann, T. (2017). The role of cognitive and affective challenge in entertainment experience. Communication Research, 44(1), 29–53. Braddock, K., & Dillard, J. P. (2016). Meta-analytic evidence for the persuasive effect of narratives on beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. Communication Monographs, 83(4), 446–467. Breitenbach, A. (2020). One imagination in experiences of beauty and achievements of understanding. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 60(1), 71–88. Fingerhut, J., & Prinz, J. J. (2018). Wonder, appreciation, and the value of art. Progress in Brain Research, 237, 107–128. 16 pérez and hernández-santaolalla García, A. N. (2017). Baltimore in The Wire and Los Angeles in The Shield: Urban landscapes in American drama series. Series—International Journal of TV Serial Narratives, 3(1), 51–60. Hermida, A., Barrientos Bueno, M., & Pérez, H. J. (2021). Interacción entre propiedades estéticas y valor cognitivo: más allá de la absorción narrativa en La Peste. Arte, individuo y sociedad, 33(3), 995–1013. Kuijpers, M. M., Hakemulder, F., Balint, K., Doicaru, M. M., & Tan, E. S. (2017). Towards a new understanding of absorbing reading experiences. In: F. Hakemulder, M. M. Kuijpers, E. S. Tan, K. Bálint, & M. M. Doicaru (Eds.), Narrative absorption (pp. 29–47). John Benjamins. Nannicelli, T. (2016). Appreciating the art of television: A philosophical perspective. Taylor & Francis. Nussbaum, M. (1985). “Finely aware and richly responsible”: Moral attention and the moral task of literature. The Journal of Philosophy, 82(10), 516–529. Pérez, H. J., & Reisenzein, R. (2020). On Jon Snow’s death: Plot twist and global fandom in Game of Thrones. Culture & Psychology, 26(3), 384–400. Pérez, H. J. (2022) Aesthetics of the narrative climax in contemporary TV serials. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 80(2), 214–223. Reisenzein, R., Horstmann, G., & Schützwohl, A. (2019). The cognitive-evolutionary model of surprise: A review of the evidence. Topics in Cognitive Science, 11(1), 50–74. Smith, M. (2017). Film, art, and the third culture: A naturalized aesthetics of film. Oxford University Press. Stolnitz, J. (1992). On the cognitive triviality of art. Journal of Aesthetics, 32(3), 191–200. Warner, K. (2009). Talking about theory of history in television dramas. Continuum, 23(5), 723–734. ·2· METAPHYSICAL DRAMA AT THE DOWNTURN OF PEAK TV Alberto N. García and Pablo Castrillo The era that John Landgraf calls “peak TV” (Rose & Guthrie, 2015), characterized by the churning out of vast amounts of scripted seriality each year, has obviously resulted in a great diversity of series. This diversity is to a large extent the product of the commercial mandate of competition, as content creators seek to attract the audience’s attention through a range of offerings, some of which involve a degree of experimentation and innovation. At the same time, screen entertainment often relies on tried-and-true ingredients: character types, master plots, conventions, formats, formulas, and so on. These time-tested structures designed to connect with audiences include the notion of genre, a widely theorized concept that not only encompasses questions of content (conflict, theme, worldview) and form (aesthetics, style, mise-en-scène) but also has marketing value because it helps package the product for its potential audiences. It seems reasonable to assume that when the logic of competition is imposed on innovation in a creative-industrial context that values past success, one result will be genre hybridization. This dynamic applies to genres and sub-genres in television (e.g., the noir and superhero genres in Gotham), resulting in an environment saturated with “narrative plenitude” (Buonanno, 2018, pp. 4–7), which seems to call for further scrutiny of patterns and trends that may 18 garcía and castrillo emerge out of the plethora of productions. One such trend is a hybridized subgenre that has appeared in recent years that explores questions of the hereafter, the nature of material reality, the spiritual dimension of human existence, and other such concerns. Meaningfully, a critic writing in 2019 about that year’s Emmy Awards noted a surprising number of shows seemingly obsessed with the topic of death: Barry (HBO, 2018–2023), Fleabag (Amazon, 2016–2019), Russian Doll, and The Good Place (NBC, 2016–2020) (James, 2019). Moreover, certain other productions made in the same period occasionally address related topics, such as the miniseries Maniac (Netflix, 2018), the serials The OA (Netflix, 2016–2019), Legion (FX, 2017–2019), and Dark (Netflix, 2017–2020), and selected episodes of anthology series such as Black Mirror (Channel 4/Netflix, 2011), Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams (Channel 4/Amazon, 2017–2018), and the remake of The Twilight Zone (CBS All Access, 2019–2020). However, the focus of this study is not on serial narratives concerned with death in general, but with a more specific group of series released in a period of time that could be perceived as the waning years of “peak TV,” preceding (or overlapping with) the “streaming wars,” and which portray characters discovering a dimension of existence that transcends the material world, questioning their assumptions about reality and challenging their certainties about the meaning of life. These shows take unusual aesthetic approaches that maximize the expressive capabilities of the audiovisual medium through the manipulation of narrative structure and mise-en-scène. Their thematic and aesthetic elements thus earn them the descriptor “metaphysical drama,” borrowed here from studies of filmmakers such as Terrence Malick or Andrei Tarkovsky, who “strive to represent the ineffable features of human reality” through “a firm intuition that reality conceals within itself the invisible markings of our nature as desiring, moral, and spiritual agents” (Caruana, 2009, p. 186). Within these conceptual boundaries and with a view to maintaining a clear focus and a manageable body of works, this chapter will only examine four TV shows: the miniseries Devs (FX/Hulu, 2020), the first seasons of the 8-episode serials Russian Doll (Netflix, 2019–) and Undone (Amazon, 2019– 2022), and the three-season serial The Leftovers (HBO, 2014–2017). Although many other shows explore transcendental themes, these four represent a range of creators, formats, networks, settings, and aesthetics that are diverse enough to become significant, and perhaps even representative of a certain current or shared concern. Our sample includes a mix of TV shows, ranging from miniseries to three-season narratives. We explore the work of experienced TV writers like Damon Lindelof alongside debutantes such as Natasha Lyonne, Metaphysical Drama at the Downturn of Peak TV 19 and newcomers from the film medium like Alex Garland. Furthermore, these shows come from various platforms, including a premium channel (The Leftovers), basic cable (Devs), and competing streaming services (Undone, Russian Doll). Some shows feature revolving, Groundhog Day-like narratives (Russian Doll), while others follow a more traditional linear structure (The Leftovers), and innovative adult-animation proposals like Undone. While the inclusion of a comedy (Russian Doll) in this category may be questioned, it is important to note that the term “drama” as it is used here does not refer to the cinematic genre (which would consequently exclude comedy), but instead to the broader sense of “dramatic representation” on the screen. On the other hand, science-fiction series which, true to a traditional concern of the genre, tackle the subject of self-conscious machines and their contested humanity, have been deliberately omitted from this analysis because of their significant thematic emphasis. Humans (Channel 4/AMC, 2015–2018), Westworld (HBO, 2016–2022), and Raised by Wolves (HBO Max, 2020–2022), to name but a few, are rooted in the enduring tradition of the sentient automaton, a trope that has been explored once and again throughout cinematic history, from Metropolis (Lang, 1927) to, precisely, Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014). These humanoid narratives explore their own philosophical quandaries related to the nature of the artificial creature and man’s defiant tendency to play god-creator, concerns that are not quite the same as those of the metaphysical drama. This study makes no claims that this metaphysical trend is exclusive or particularly unique to television or serialized narratives, although the aesthetic effects associated with “temporal prolongation” (Nannicelli, 2016, p. 65) could perhaps be described as a distinctive feature. Nor is it suggested here that this is a new phenomenon in seriality; it is only argued that metaphysical drama is an identifiable trend that has emerged in recent years in various serialized formats, characterized by innovative or at least distinctive aesthetic features. However, before delving into the analysis of those features, some explanation is required of the two key concepts that underpin this research: the cognitive-aesthetic approach to serialized screen narratives, and the operating notion of metaphysics applied to this study. Thus, in this chapter, we will begin discussing theoretical concepts regarding the cognitive value of screen aesthetics, gradually moving toward our case-specific analysis. We will first introduce the concept of metaphysics and explain how an aesthetic experience can enhance one’s understanding or experience of the spiritual dimension of human existence—or, at least, of 20 garcía and castrillo screen characters. And from there, we will break down three aesthetic-narrative approaches to conveying the metaphysical through the medium of television: a dramatic design centered on a character’s ontological search for meaning; a deployment of narratological devices that manipulate frequency, order, and single linearity; and a mise-en-scène that embodies a decomposition of physical reality punctuated by symbolic iconography. Aesthetic Cognitivism and the Metaphysical Screen The approach taken to metaphysical drama in this study assumes a certain degree of overlap of cognitive and aesthetic values in narrative works of art, especially those represented on the screen. The assumption is that deep meaning becomes accessible at the intersection—or rather, the confluence—of content and form. As philosopher Christoph Baumberger (2013) writes, “we praise certain artworks for their profundity and subtlety, for the insights they provide or for how they make us see the world anew […]. These are artistic evaluations that also seem to be, or to depend on, cognitive evaluations” (p. 41). How does this process operate, and consequently, what kind of insights about the world can metaphysical drama series provide? Baumberger (2013) makes a sharp distinction between “propositional knowledge” and “understanding.” While the former consists of “justified (or reliably generated) true belief,” whose acquisition would constitute what is commonly held to be a “cognitive advancement” (p. 43), understanding “is not a species of belief,” because it is holistic (meaning that “it cannot be broken down into discrete bits”), graduated (“understanding admits of degrees”), not factive, and “related to a plurality of epistemic goals” (p. 50). When considered in the context of film or television spectatorship, it seems that Baumberger’s notion of “understanding” is much more apt to describe the cognitive functions at play in the viewing process. This reasoning does not preclude the possibility of any propositional knowledge being acquired through the spectator’s experience, but merely means that it is neither its primary function nor its most common outcome. Baumberger (2013) identifies a series of cognitive contributions that artworks can make. Many of his examples come from literary fiction, but they can also be applied to television series. These contributions include developing “new categories for classifying actual objects,” introducing us to “new perspectives on Metaphysical Drama at the Downturn of Peak TV 21 objects that enhance our understanding of them,” raising “important questions that prompt further inquiry,” instances of phenomenal knowledge supplied by “broadening our experience in encompassing things we might never otherwise have undergone or felt,” and establishing “connections between what we already believe” (pp. 51–55). Albeit without the rigor that is to be demanded of the professional epistemologist, we venture to suggest that all of these contributions constitute a kind of cognitive advancement that could be described as cognitive functions of narrative film or TV series. This seems to be supported by Baumberger’s (2013) illustration of the phenomenon through literary fictions, which he describes as “thought experiments in art” because they “ask what would happen if we assume that certain conditions [are] obtained and invite us to explore the consequences of making these assumptions” (p. 55). This seems clearly attributable to the narrative content of television series. But what can be said of their aesthetic configuration? How does content converge with form for the purpose of advancing our understanding? In principle, there is no apparent opposition between these two dimensions of the work of art. Philosopher Roger Pouivet (2000) has disproved the commonly held Kantian position “that aesthetic experience is emotional and that emotions are essentially noncognitive” (p. 50), arguing that ascribing emotions to purely subjective and private states is erroneous. On the contrary, “having certain emotions supposes that one is able to understand a situation and thus hold rational beliefs regarding it” (Pouivet, 2000, p. 50). This is a statement that at least in abstract terms can be applied to narrative film and television spectatorship. Furthermore, Pouivet (2000) points out, “aesthetic experience is of a cognitive kind” because “it implies pieces of knowledge, functions as a conceptual activity, and fulfills an urge to know” (p. 52). On the other hand, in his as yet unpublished doctoral dissertation (on metaphysical film and television, as it happens), Matthew Cipa adopts the art critic Arthur C. Danto’s straightforward explanation of the “what” and “how” of the work of art: “if you can answer two questions […] what’s it about—what’s the content—and how does it embody the content, you’ve probably gone as far as anybody knows how to go” (Danto, 2014, p. 26, as cited in Cipa, 2020, p. 12). Danto’s definition seems to imply a necessary, intrinsic rapport between what may be understood as artistic substance and expressive accident, matter and shape, discourse and mode. Cipa (2020) further stresses this symbiotic relationship with Katherine Thomson-Jones’ “semantic account” of the content-form dyad, whereby 22 garcía and castrillo content is “the meaning of a work” and form is “the means by which that meaning is expressed or presented” (p. 13). However, there remains another conceptual obstacle to overcome when applying this framework of aesthetic cognitivism to the subject of metaphysics, given the filmic medium’s aptitude for capturing and presenting space and time (movement) and, consequently, the difficulty it has in transcending such categories. In order to clarify this point, it may be useful first to propose a working definition of the term “metaphysics.” The etymology of the term is the well-known Greek phrase ta meta ta phusika, which may be loosely translated as “what comes after the Physics,” in reference to the order of Aristotle’s works. But the field of metaphysics is so broad that even the famous Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins its entry acknowledging that “it is not easy to say what metaphysics is” (Van Inwagen, 2021). The common ground seems to revolve around “the study of being qua being.” This implies a concern with primary causes and starting points. More than two millennia after Aristotle, philosopher Peter Van Inwagen (2015) is still wrestling with the same intellectual conundrums: “Metaphysics attempt to tell the ultimate truth about the World, about everything” (p. 4). Indeed, Van Inwagen’s definition of the concept covers a broad spectrum of topics such as individuality, temporality, being, cosmology, personal identity, and dualism. Brian Garret’s book What Is this Thing Called Metaphysics? (2006) includes chapters devoted to God, existence, causation, time, free will, and personal identity. In her Metaphysics: An Introduction (2014), Alyssa Ney reflects on ontology, abstract entities, time, persistence, causation, and free will, among other concepts. While all judgments regarding the scope and limits of this discipline shall be left to the professional metaphysician, our research repeatedly pointed back to concepts and themes within the same semantic field. For the purposes of this study, it is clear that the metaphysical concern with the nature of being includes the question of the origin and end of humanity and, therefore, the meaning of our existence. It is important to stress that the objective of this chapter is to offer a narrativeaesthetic analysis, not a philosophical inquiry. Nevertheless, we may conclude that metaphysics necessarily relates to the spiritual dimension of the human being, including what lies beyond the threshold of death, the meaning of spirituality, and whether it can be accessed to live purposefully or with a degree of harmony. In fact, for the purposes of this study, metaphysics could be taken to mean “what lies beyond” the realm of the physical. But the audiovisual medium, like other artistic languages but perhaps even more acutely, is confined to material Metaphysical Drama at the Downturn of Peak TV 23 representation of space and time by its mechanism of recording and reproduction, even while it may make use of fabricated images, as in animation and computer-generated graphics. The representation of the metaphysical therefore becomes a significant creative challenge. In this chapter it is argued that certain recent works of scripted seriality have made use of the expressive possibilities of the audiovisual medium in consonance with the prolonged condition of serial storytelling to develop a specific cognitive-aesthetic approach to human concerns of a metaphysical nature. The purpose of this research is to identify and describe the different ways that these concerns are expressed on-screen and conveyed to the audience. In this study, these strategies are grouped into three categories: the dramatic design of the text; narratological devices that manipulate temporal perception; and an aesthetic focus that offers alternative portrayals of space. These three categories are examined in the following sections. Dramatic Design: The Ontological Quest for meaning In most archetypical dramatic stories, the protagonist and other characters live a more or less ordinary existence until something happens that throws them off balance. This initial narrative event, which brings a transformative conflict into the plot, has been often called the “inciting incident” (Batty, 2013. p. 107), and it is generally considered decisive in drama and screenwriting theory because it contains the seed of the whole development of a story, ranging from the superficial obstacles that the protagonist must overcome to the more profound thematic implications that the audience will ruminate on afterward. In each of the four metaphysical dramas considered in this study, this inciting incident is almost paranormal because it is something characters cannot explain or make sense of, usually connected with death or the afterlife. The invasion of death in the world of the living is a shocking and in some cases traumatic event, tearing apart the characters’ false sense of security grounded on physical reality, and even stripping them of any resources they may have to tackle the new reality they suddenly find themselves inhabiting. It is at this moment that the characters seem to lose the sense of unity which, in the words of metaphysics philosopher Jussi Backman (2018), was once the cornerstone of “the entire Western philosophical tradition” (p. 480). Paradoxically, the “new reality” in which they find themselves is the same one in which they 30 garcía and castrillo transported to another realm of existence where he finds Patti, a character who killed herself in season one and has haunted him ever since. The quasipsychedelic plot of “International Assassin” presents Kevin with an odd dramatic mission: in order to free himself of Patti’s presence in “real” life, he must assume the role of a professional hitman in this “alternative” life and kill Patti. Should he succeed, he will return to the real world free of his haunting visions. The reason for this, however, is never addressed. Similarly, in Undone Alma spends long stretches of the story in some kind of liminal universe that allows her to travel across time and between individual perspectives. Devs makes explicit reference to Hugh Everett’s many-worlds theory1 and its final episode (S01E08) closes with the main protagonist and antagonist inhabiting a simulated existence inside the supercomputer, along with their loved ones, who are unaware that they are living in a fabricated world (are they even them?). Similarly, in its final episode in the first season (S01E08: “Ariadne”), Russian Doll makes use of parallel lines of existence based on different choices, even presenting them in a split-screen scene. This kind of visual manipulation ties in with the third and last category of strategies, related to aesthetic features. Mise-en-scène and Visual Palette: Representing the Great Beyond While narratology is a suitable analytical method for aesthetic devices that manipulate narrative time, it would seem logical to focus on mise-en-scène and visual effects for an analysis of the category of space. This is not to say that visual devices cannot configure our perception of the temporal dimension. Indeed, the aforementioned use of split-screen representation of parallel timelines in Russian Doll is also effectively a manipulation of space. Similarly, in Undone the background art stretches, shrivels, or shatters when the passage of time is sped up or slowed down. Nevertheless, most of the manipulations of mise-en-scène by means of visual effects identified in this study are patently related to space. The series analyzed quickly call the viewer’s attention to such manipulations, some of which may be perceived as disruptive. The places inhabited by the characters seems to decompose in a way that gradually exacerbates their existential angst. This is less obvious in Devs and The Leftovers than in Russian Doll and Undone, and the clear difference between these two pairs suggests a gradation of levels of intervention in the spatial configuration of the story world, ranging from Metaphysical Drama at the Downturn of Peak TV 31 minimum to maximum, which for the purposes of this study are divided into three categories: metaphorical, diegetic, and cinematic. At the least intrusive level, metaphorical intervention in the narrative space involves the characters’ subjective perception that their world has changed. This is typical of conspiracy and psychological thrillers, and supernatural thrillers could also be placed in this category. These stories offer an extremely realistic representation of the world that is disrupted by a threat to all ordinary, reality-based expectations. Usually, the effect of such a threat is portrayed directly through the limitation or elimination of the characters’ agency. The effectiveness of their actions in ordinary circumstances now appears to be severely curtailed: this is no longer “their world.” In Devs, we see this from the moment when Lily realizes that the death of her boyfriend is not an ordinary crime, but a cover-up operation associated with international industrial espionage. From this point on, she enters a universe that is entirely foreign to her, where nothing is as it seems. She now needs to question everything and everyone around her (most obviously, the homeless man who sleeps on her doorstep, who turns out to be a Russian operative). However, the narrative pushes beyond this spy-genre plotline to delve into a deeper questioning of reality, prompted by Forest’s deterministic ideas and his creation of a quantum supercomputer. After learning of his plans (and how they relate to Sergei’s death), Lilly’s reality becomes transformed beyond recognition. Something similar may be observed in The Leftovers, in the supernatural occurrence that serves as the premise for the series: a traumatic and seemingly arbitrary loss tears at the very fabric of society and transforms it radically. After the events of “the Fourteenth,” the characters’ behavior, expectations of social order, the meaning of religion, and even the conduct of the State and its institutions become unrecognizable. Moreover, the protagonist and other characters fall prey to what may be either a psychological breakdown or some kind of supernatural intervention, as they begin hearing voices and behaving irrationally. The unprecedented set of circumstances makes them question their own sanity as they live in a permanent state of doubt about whether they are experiencing “reality” or not. In this narrative context, the actions of the characters—their interventions in the diegesis—no longer have the effects expected and often result in more significant conflict. On the second level of spatial manipulation is the gradual decomposition of diegetic reality, as seen in Russian Doll. Nadia’s world physically shrinks in each episode as characters and objects disappear one by one. This strange phenomenon grows worse as the pressure increases to find an answer to the enigma 32 garcía and castrillo of her recurring cycle of death and return. At the same time, the other characters are unaware of any transformation of reality. Finally, the third and most patent level, classified here as the cinematic, is observed evident in Undone, an animated series in which the physical reality of the story world is directly manipulated by the characters. Indeed, not only do Alma and Jacob leap across space and time at will, but they also interact with the material world around them, breaking the confines of the setting or causing it to collapse in moments of emotional intensity. They make places disappear and replace them with other locations, and in some cases they do this by manipulating the plasticity of the setting. Of course, the animated medium is particularly suited to creating effects like these. What is common to these three aesthetic devices, and the reason for grouping them together despite their differences, is that they all represent the decomposition of reality as a kind of liminality between life and death, the waking world and the dream world, or sanity and madness. In fact, an ontologically unstable world is a diegetic feature common to all these series. The metaphysical inciting incident brings about critical moments when characters cross the boundaries between worlds or dimensions. In the series finale of The Leftovers, for example, Nora enters “the chamber,” a kind of sensory-deprivation tank, to travel to the other side, just as Kevin Garvey journeyed through an alter life in the aforementioned episode “International Assassin” (S02E08). This sense of fragility in the story worlds is reinforced by using iconic props and set items as symbols. In Devs, Lily wears a pendant with the infinity symbol, alluding to Forest’s obsession to return to when his daughter was still alive and create a simulated world in which time becomes eternal. The title Russian Doll is a metaphor in itself, as Nadia peels off layers of her own characterization to find the true core of her identity and free herself from her trauma and the defense mechanisms she subsequently acquired to deal with it. White doves are a recurring motif in The Leftovers, and it is significant that the last shot of the entire series shows doves coming back to Nora’s farm. The dove is typically recognized as a symbol of peace, and has a special meaning in Christianity as an embodied representation of the Holy Spirit. Their homecoming in the series finale (S03E08) suggests a peaceful closure for Nora’s dramatic inner journey. On the other hand, in Undone, the small electronic Blackjack game becomes a sort of anchoring device to keep Alma grounded in reality amidst her many leaps through memory. The fact that Blackjack is a game of chance gives the Metaphysical Drama at the Downturn of Peak TV 33 prop another layer of meaning that may not be consciously recognized by the viewer. In addition to the small details outlined above, all four series also make use of religious iconography. This should not be surprising considering the fact argued here that metaphysics is their common denominator. In The Leftovers, cults are portrayed as a plague that has spread since the vanishing of “the Fourteenth.” The most prominent among the various new sects is the Guilty Remnant, a group whose quasi-monastic hermits wear white robes, chain-smoke cigarettes, and observe a vow of silence while following people around to remind them of the ones they lost. Additionally, they purchase religious buildings (such as Matt’s Christian church in season 1) and occupy them, making a powerful statement about the uselessness and decline of traditional religion in a world infested with doubt and sorely lacking answers to the collective trauma. In Russian Doll, Nadia investigates her Jewish heritage, desperate to find a supernatural explanation for her predicament. Alma’s Catholic upbringing in Undone is a source of conflict with her devout mother, and she is unable to find meaningful answers in its doctrine. And Devs, which initially seems quite unconcerned with religion, turns out to be a deep examination of determinism-versus-free will, a frequent subject of theological debate in Protestant doctrines such as Calvinism. Its final episode reveals that the name of Forest’s secret laboratory is not an abbreviation of “developers” as is initially inferred, but the Latin word for God in archaic script: “Deus.” This reference explicitly connects the project to a supernatural vision of existence, or to its negation through the antagonist’s arrogation of Godlike powers. Finally, in the realm of visual devices, another recurring feature of the four series is framing the protagonist in front of or within a mirror.2 While the metaphysical conundrum can be represented on screen through the disruption of space and time or the use of religious iconography, it can also be hinted at in a character’s reflection. In many scenes in films and series alike, looking in a mirror has been portrayed as an act of pensive self-assessment, a device often used to punctuate a dramatically momentous sequence or even to convey a pivotal moment of decision in the character’s journey. In Russian Doll, Nadia begins every new iteration of her birthday party in front of a mirror, a pose that is mirrored by the parallel character of Alan Zaveri, who is similarly introduced in front of his bathroom mirror with a toothbrush in his mouth. In The Leftovers, the members of the Guilty Remnant remove all mirrors and refuse to look at their own reflections. The set design of Devs, particularly the supercomputer facility, is crowded with reflections of the characters in the glass 34 garcía and castrillo panes of the suspended room and the golden pillars flanking the entrance. Even more poignantly, Episode 7 contains a scene where Forest’s employees use the supercomputer to watch a projection of themselves a few seconds into the future, eliciting panicked reactions at the seemingly inescapable determinism that rules their existence. Conclusions The aim of identifying prominent formal features in various thematically related series is to shed some light on a particular expressive pattern. As pointed out in the introduction, the overlapping dramatic and thematic concerns of these recent series seems to warrant their classification as a sub-group or sub-category, based on their treatment of space and time on screen to portray different levels of spiritual life or existence beyond the material dimension. Through these portrayals, they offer viewers a cognitive challenge through an interrogation of our understanding of this complex question. It is interesting to note that these series tend to refrain from offering definitive answers to the thought-provoking questions they pose. Their endings are ambiguous, and many perplexing events in their plots are left unexplained. But this is also an aesthetic choice that delivers or reinforces the cognitive value of what they are attempting to express, which might be referred to as the uncertainty of transcendence. The Leftovers, Russian Doll, Undone, and Devs are series that offer viewers a prolonged exploration of questions that challenge assumptions of our shared experience of time and space, the realm of the material. Moreover, given that television is a mode of representation essentially based on time and movement, these narratives deploy bold aesthetic devices to subvert that shared experience so that time and space themselves become means of expressing their metaphysical concerns. As Cipa (2020) suggests, in series like these “it is not just that metaphysical concepts are artistically explored, but that part of the exploration involves the expression of particular perspectives on, attitudes toward, or interpretations of metaphysical concepts” (p. 13). In this regard, the metaphysical drama operates, as it were, at the limits of its representational power, by manipulating the categories of time and space through story design, narratology, mise-en-scène, and visual aesthetics. In so doing, they also challenge the assumed certainties of the spectator’s everyday experience, which define not only the material realm, but also televisual storytelling itself. Metaphysical Drama at the Downturn of Peak TV 35 Notes 1 The many-worlds theory is discussed, but not really shown, as parallel coexisting universes. As mentioned above, it is occasionally displayed as a limited, all-in-one overlapping of choices within a scene. 2 Although there are other recurrent visual motifs that appear in the four series analyzed, they are not consistently employed in all of them. For example, Devs features the motifs of the door and the threshold to reinforce the notion of crossing realities, while the chamber of the quantum computer is portrayed with solemnity and even religious undertones (the temple-like structure and arrangement are hard to miss). Similarly, Russian Doll draws the audience’s attention to the pistol-shaped handle of the bathroom door where Nadia is resurrected over and over again. As production designer Michael Bricker explains, “[w] hen you’re first introduced to Nadia you have no idea what she’s stepping into, but you see this strange Alice in Wonderland door that tells you things will be unexpected once she passes through that threshold” (Specter, 2019). Bibliography Backman, J. (2018). The one is not: On the fate of unity in post-metaphysical philosophy. Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, 17, 480–485. Batty, C. (2013). Writing the screenplay. In: G. Harper (Ed.), A companion to creative writing (pp. 98–114). Wiley-Blackwell. Baumberger, C. (2011). Art and understanding. In defence of aesthetic cognitivism. In: M. Greenlee, R. Hammwöhner, R. Köber, C. Wagner, & C. Wolff (Eds.), Bilder sehen. Perspektiven der bildwissenschaft (pp. 41–67). Schnell+ Steiner. Bernstein, M. (1990). Fatalism revisited. Metaphilosophy, 21(3), 270–281. DOI: 10.1111/j.14679973.1990.tb00529.x Buonanno, M. (2018). Widening landscapes of TV storytelling in the digital media environment of the 21st century. Anàlisi: Quaderns de Comunicació i Cultura, 58, 1–12. DOI: 10.5565/ rev/analisi.3133 Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces. New World Library. Caruana, J. (2009). Kieslowski and Kiarostami a metaphysical cinema. In S. Woodward (Ed.), After Kieślowski (pp. 186–201). Wayne State University Press. Cipa, M. (2020). Metaphysical film and television: The aesthetic experience of abstract reality [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Queensland. DOI: 10.14264/uql.2020.755 Clayton, S. (2007). Mythic structure in screenwriting. New Writing, 4(3), 208–223. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.2167/new 571.0 Cuevas, E. (2009). La narratología audiovisual como método de análisis. Portal de la Comunicación, 1–12. http://www.por talc omun icac ion.com/uplo ads/pdf/53_ esp.pdf Danto, A. C. (2014). Remarks on Art and Philosophy. The Acadia Summer Arts Program. Freeland, C. A., & Wartenberg, T. E. (Eds.). (1995). Philosophy and film. Routledge. Garrett, B. (2006). What is this thing called metaphysics? Routledge. 36 garcía and castrillo James, C. (2019, August 12). Emmys: How the best comedy series nominees mine death for humor. The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollyw oodr epor ter.com/news/gene ral-news/ how-best-com edy-ser ies-emmy-nomin ees-mine-death-humor-1230 212/. Luckmann, T. (1990). Shrinking transcendence, expanding religion? Sociological Analysis, 51(2), 127–138. DOI: 10.2307/3710810 Nannicelli, T. (2016). Appreciating the art of television: A philosophical perspective. Routledge. Ney, A. (2014). Metaphysics: An introduction. Routledge. Pouivet, R. (2000). On the cognitive functioning of aesthetic emotions. Leonardo, 33(1), 49–53. DOI: 10.1162/002409400552234 Specter, E. (2019, February 12). What’s up with the bathroom door on Russian Doll? Garage. https://gar age.vice.com/en_us/arti cle/j57 gvx/russ ian-doll-netfl ix. Rose, L., & Guthrie, M. (2015, August 8). FX Chief John Landgraf on Content Bubble: ‘This Is Simply Too Much Television.’ The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollyw oodr epor ter. com/live-feed/fx-chief-john-landg raf-cont ent-813 914. Ruschmann, E. (2011). Transcending towards transcendence. Implicit Religion, 14(4), 421–432. DOI: 10.1558/imre.v14i4.421 Russin, R., & Downs, W. M. (2000). Screenplay: Writing the picture. Harcourt College Publishers. Van Inwagen, P. (2015). Metaphysics. Routledge. Van Inwagen, P., & Sullivan, M. Metaphysics (2014). In: E. N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2021 Edition). https://plato.stanf ord.edu/archi ves/win2 021/entr ies/ meta phys ics/. ·3· UNDONE: REPRESENTATION OF SCHIZOPHRENIA AND THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND IN AN ANIMATED TV SERIES Beatriz Herráiz Zornoza and Jaime López-Díez This chapter focuses on the first season of the animated series Undone (Amazon, 2019–), a production of extraordinary expressive quality that takes us inside the mind of Alma, its lead character. The series depicts her experiences from the perspective of a present altered by her traumatic past. The point of view is marked by a duality that leaves the viewer uncertain as to whether Alma is suffering from schizophrenia or whether she has inherited her father’s powers to manipulate time. In addition, its creators construct a very sophisticated narrative with constant spatial and temporal jumps that confuse the reality experienced by the main characters and the reinterpretation of the events, all supported by a very striking visual design. The series begins with Alma’s hospitalization due to a car accident, which triggers a state of confusion for the protagonist. Alma begins to relive traumatic events from her past, particularly the Halloween night when she was abandoned by her father, who died that same night in a traffic accident, leaving her wandering the streets. Through Alma’s eyes the viewer experiences the consequences of this traumatic event, while through the rest of her family members (her mother, Camila, and her sister, Becca) and her boyfriend, Sam, she is able to reconstruct the events in a supposedly more objective way. 38 herráiz zornoza and lópez-díez The themes addressed in the series are always explored through dichotomies—between madness and sanity, science and the metaphysical powers, family/romantic relationships and social conventions—while also alluding to the stigmas of immigration, betrayal, and moral conflicts. This animated dramedy series was directed by Hisko Hulsing and created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg and Kate Purdy, who previously explored mental health issues in other animated projects. It uses rotoscoping, 3D imagery, painted backgrounds, and 2D animation, with a visually powerful mise-enscène that leverages each of these techniques. This study focuses on this complex visual and narratological design with the intention of unravelling how mental illness is depicted in the series. To contextualize the study, a review is offered of the literature on the representation of mental illness in animated film and television fiction, with a particular focus on schizophrenia, in order to better understand how it is represented in the series, and to establish a method of analysis. Literature Review Mental Health Promotion and Prevention: Stigma and Discrimination Mental illness is a growing challenge worldwide (Votruba and Thornicroft, 2016). The United Nations included mental health among its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the UN Agenda 2030, and identified it as a priority issue (United Nations, 2015), especially during the COVID-19 pandemic (United Nations, 2021). The promotion of mental health and the prevention and treatment of mental illness are viewed as essential “to reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases” (United Nations, 2015). In this context, the World Health Organization (WHO) has determined two indicators to assess mental health: (1) the suicide rate; and (2) the proportion of people treated for a severe mental illness (World Health Organization, 2015). In relation to the first of these indicators, to promote mental health and prevent mental illness the WHO recommends reducing stigmatization of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, decriminalizing suicide, suicide attempts, and other acts of self-harm, and promoting responsible media reporting on cases of suicide by training media professionals and others producing content for screen or stage on how to cover suicide (World Health Organization, 2013). Representation of Schizophrenia and Unconscious Mind 39 Mental health stigma is defined as “devaluation and discrimination expressed toward, and experienced by, people affected by mental health problems” (Gronholm & Eaton, 2020, p. 232). It has negative consequences for people with mental health issues, and it is present in every society (Gronholm & Eaton, 2020). It is especially important to reduce stigma in children, adolescents, and students, as they are the most vulnerable target groups (Hinshaw, 2005). Moreover, stigmatization may result in social discrimination (Link et al., 2004). Education is the most effective way of reducing stigma and discrimination; this includes providing accurate information about mental illness, and eradicating misconceptions and myths (Corrigan et al., 2001). In this regard, media formats such as film (Edney, 2004; Pirkis et al., 2006) and television fiction (Hoffner & Cohen, 2014) that often label mental patients as “different” (Cross, 2004; Fawcett, 2015; Castello, 2020) can play a major role. For example, exposure to media content dealing with suicide can give rise to the so-called Werther effect—named after Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), whose publication led to an increase in suicides—or to its opposite, the Papageno effect, depending on the nature of such content (Cruikshank & Sevigny, 2020). With respect to television series and films, Pirkis et al. (2006) suggest that “the mental health sector (policymakers, mental health professionals, and people with mental illness and their families) should collaborate with the film and television industries (producers, directors, scriptwriters, and actors) to minimize negative portrayal and maximize positive portrayal” (p. 536).1 Schizophrenia In its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, now in its fifth edition (hereinafter DSM-5, 2013), the American Psychiatric Association classifies schizophrenia under Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders. Thus, it is a type of psychotic disorder. To be diagnosed with schizophrenia, a patient must exhibit some of the following five symptoms for a significant period of time (one month or longer), including at least one of the first three on the list (American Psychiatric Association, 2019, p. 99): 1. Delusions: Defined as “fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence.” These are usually considered troubling when they involve “a loss of control over mind or body.” There are several types of delusions: persecutory (e.g., believing that others wish 46 herráiz zornoza and lópez-díez All these productions offer an exploration of mental illness, and many of them also attempt to delve into the state of mind of the characters, to visually represent how they perceive reality from their disturbed perspective. The results are often highly poetic and spatio-temporally incoherent. To better understand how they do this, it is necessary to consider the concept of point of view in narratology. Point of View in Narratology The analysis of Undone offered in this chapter draws on cognitivist notions that can clarify the nature of the relationship between the spectator and the protagonists of the series. However, given its unique mise-en-scène, based mainly on the depiction of Alma’s internal conflicts, it is also necessary to consider the narratological concept of focalization. Some questions related to psychoanalysis and clinical psychology will also be drawn on to help unravel the plotlines of the series. Without delving into the debates over the concept, point of view is understood here as an element of literature and cinema that determines the character from whose personal perspective the events of the story are told (Casetti & Di Chio, 1991, p. 235). The character’s point of view acquires three dimensions: perceptual, cognitive-emotive, and ideological (Canet, 2009, p. 158). Perceptual point of view refers to what the character sees or hears, focusing on the character’s external action. Cognitive-emotive point of view refers to what the character knows, thinks, or feels, and thus focuses on the character’s internal action. Ideological point of view, which is determined by a system of values and beliefs, relates to the character’s biased version of the events. Genette proposed the term “focalization” (1989, p. 244) in an attempt to steer Brooks and Warren’s (1959) “focus of narration” in a cognitive and emotional rather than a purely perceptual direction; Genette’s focalization involves a relationship of knowledge between the narrator and the characters. Finding the concept inadequate and confusing for audiovisual narratives, Gaudreault and Jost shifted the definition from knowing to seeing, proposing the term “ocularization” to refer to “the relationship between what the camera shows and what the character supposedly sees” (1995, p. 139). According to Gaudreault and Jost, there are two types of ocularization: zero ocularization and internal ocularization, which in turn can be either primary or secondary. Primary internal ocularization means the camera stands in the character’s eyes; thus, “in the signifier there must be the materiality of a body or the presence of an eye […] Representation of Schizophrenia and Unconscious Mind 47 it is a question of suggesting the gaze, without the obligation to show it; to do this, the image is constructed as a hint, as a trace that allows the spectator to establish an immediate link between what he sees and the filming instrument” (2001, p. 139). Internal ocularization can take the form of blurred images to imply a character’s altered state of consciousness; framing thar suggests that the character is looking through a keyhole, a spyglass, or other such device; the presence of a part of the character’s body in the foreground; or subjective camera movements. Secondary internal ocularization is constructed by using match cuts to establish a reverse shot, while zero ocularization is not from any character’s point of view; it is a pure “nobody’s shot.” Gaudreault and Jost also consider mental images in relation to point of view: visions that are the product of a character’s mind, such as daydreams, memories, hallucinations, or other mental images. Gaudreault and Jost warn of the difficulty of differentiating these from images perceived directly in the diegetic reality. Filmmakers use all kinds of techniques to make the distinction clear, such as sandwiching, overlays, fades, and color grading; these codes are modalization operators that function as anchors so that viewers recognize the images they mark as mental images as opposed to “real” images of the diegesis. These images may be superimposed on the same shot with the character imagining them, although a more recent technique is to introduce them using a simple match cut with the gaze. According to Gaudreault and Jost, mental imagery is simply another form of internal ocularization. Ocularization is thus linked to vision, auricularization to hearing, and focalization to cognition. Animation has been used in many of the classical cinema’s most famous mental, oneiric or fantasy sequences, such as in Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) and Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964), or more recently in Frida (Julie Taymor, 2002), The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry, 2006) and The Congress (Ari Folman, 2013), thereby demonstrating its potential to create images portraying the emotional state of the characters. As Welles rightly points out, “animation allows easy shifts between different states of consciousness, apprehending memory and fantasy, and effectively re-enunciates the world with each new representation” (2013, p. 28). One of the creators who has contributed the most to the development of animation narratives that weave fantasy and reality was the late director Satoshi Kon, whose films belong to the seinen branch of anime, with more elaborate, adult themes (Montero, 2007, p. 47). Kon’s films are very critical of contemporary society and depict a tension between Japanese tradition and Westernization, consumerism, and loneliness through narratives that blur the 48 herráiz zornoza and lópez-díez boundaries of reality. In his films, “fictional reality gives way to real reality and vice versa thanks to a mechanism of mirrors manipulated by the filmmaker according to the intelligibility of the different narrative layers” (Montero, 2007, p. 46). Kon’s films establish a liquid relationship with space and time, in which the laws of nature are fragmented by the director’s unique idiolect. The use of memory is also recurrent in his films, not as “a faithful memory of past events, but of fragments that are blurred and even mythologized by the passage of time” (Montero, 2007, p. 47). This mode of representation is equally evident in Undone, as this series offers a multidimensional narrative that conveys what is not so much a sequence of objective facts as a mental reconstruction of the protagonist’s perception of events. In this sense, it seems to reflect Nichols’ (2008) notion of “reenactment,” originally proposed for the documentary field, which could be defined as the non-objective representation of the past: “the recreated event introduces a phantasmatic element that an initial representation of the same event lacks” (p. 73). How We Love or Hate the Protagonists The analysis of the protagonists of the series draws on a series of cognitive studies of engagement. Contemporary television fiction offers more elaborate plots, with more complex, difficult protagonists who are “unhappy, morally questionable, complicated and deeply human” (Martin, 2014, p. 18). According to cognitive studies, viewer engagement with a protagonist is triggered mainly by empathy or sympathy, which are not “in themselves emotions, but rather a capacity or disposition to respond with concern to another’s situation, and often an accompanying tendency to have congruent emotions, that is, emotions that share a similar valence” (Plantinga, 2009, p. 98). Viewers may identify physically, emotionally, or cognitively with the character. Sympathy for the character will cause the viewer to care about that character’s well-being, while at the same time eliciting emotions such as “happiness, fear, anger, compassion, resentment, moral disgust, and so on” (Plantinga, 2009, p. 98). Delving deeper into these emotions, Aertsen (2017) draws on cognitivist and psychological studies to propose a range of feelings that generate sympathy for fictional characters: approval, admiration, compassion, attraction, familiarity, homophily, and intimacy. The narrative constructions of contemporary television series are also considerably more complex, and consequently so are their characters, with arcs of transformation that can extend over several episodes or seasons. Far from conforming to traditional archetypes, these characters are represented with a Representation of Schizophrenia and Unconscious Mind 49 variety of visual, auditory and narrative effects that render them more complex, and more human, and facilitate the viewer’s immersion in the character’s inner world. Analysis of Undone Objectives The main objective of this research is to study how mental illness is represented in a television fiction series. Based on the review of the academic literature on the topic, the following three research questions were developed: RQ1: How is mental illness represented verbally in Undone? RQ2: How is mental illness represented visually and aurally in Undone? RQ3: How are visual strategies used to confuse the viewer about whether the protagonist of Undone is suffering from mental illness or has special powers? Methodology This study uses a mixed quantitative-qualitative methodology, triangulating content analysis with multimodal discourse analysis, applied to a sample consisting of the eight episodes of the first season of Undone. It also attempts to identify how animation can represent mental illness in a special or different ways to live-action productions. The series is analyzed from various perspectives, with the intention of gaining a broader view of both the disease and its representation. The results section below begins with an analysis of Alma’s character based on the work of Plantinga (2009) and Aertsen (2017), to characterize her personality and attitudes. Then, to explore how Alma’s mental condition is conveyed verbally, quantitative methods are applied to measure certain parameters of the dialogues. Measurable methods are also used to determine the time devoted to representing Alma’s subjectivity and reality in the series. Another important question is the identification of the symptoms of schizophrenia exhibited by Alma, to which end the categories listed in the DSM-5 are used. Finally, qualitative methods are used to analyze the visual strategies adopted to represent the effect of the illness on Alma’s subjectivity, visible especially in the temporal and spatial jumps and in the point of view. The title sequence is also analyzed due to its narrative and expressive significance. 50 herráiz zornoza and lópez-díez Content of the Series Undone currently has two seasons of eight episodes each, with each episode lasting 24 minutes. This research focuses on Season 1. The series tells the story of the family of Jacob Winograd, a researcher and university professor who died in a car accident when his two daughters were children. On the night of the accident, Alma, his eldest daughter, was with him, but after receiving an important phone call he abandoned her on the street, never to return. After wandering around lost for some time, Alma managed to get home, where she received the news of her father’s death. This traumatic event, will mark the protagonist’s life. After suffering a traffic accident herself as an adult, Alma begins to suffer hallucinations, including apparitions of her father, who tries to convince her of her extraordinary ability to manipulate time. The series alludes to a diagnosis of schizophrenia for Alma, her father, and her grandmother on different occasions, but the narrative itself plays constantly with the viewer’s confusion, veering back and forth between an explanation of Alma’s extraordinary powers based on science fiction—with arguments that are sometimes scientifically convincing—and a realistic account of hallucinations produced by mental illness. The viewer is confronted with reality when people in her direct environment warn her that she is not well and that she should take her medication, just as Sancho Panza tells Don Quixote that what he thinks to be giants are actually windmills. Schizophrenia makes patients believe that their delusional thoughts are real, and sometimes it gives them delusions of grandeur, such as the belief that they are in possession of knowledge of vital importance to society. Undone is told from Alma’s point of view and reconstructs the events that led to her peculiar behavior in the present based on her own memory of them. The narration brings us face to face with her trauma, her pain, and her unresolved grief. The other members of her family try to forget those painful events and to achieve a collective understanding in the face of the trauma, similar to Waltz with Bashir. The apparition of Alma’s deceased father is based precisely on this trauma, and confronts the protagonist with her fears, weaknesses, prejudices, and frustrations. As Marcela Visconti (2011) has observed in reference to Six Feet Under (HBO, 2001–2005), the dead can project an alternative universe of pure subjectivity onto the living, while their omniscience—as in Desperate Housewives (ABC, 2004–2012)—constitutes a recurring feature with extraordinary narrative potential in contemporary television series. Interventions by the deceased in the affairs of the living have experienced a shift from Representation of Schizophrenia and Unconscious Mind 51 the fantasy genre to diegetic universes defined by the logic of realism, with the consequent neutralization of ghosts and their integration into the diegesis as part of reality. On the one hand, the animation techniques used are anchored in reality through rotoscoping and backgrounds made in oil on 3D constructions with very realistic finishes, while on the other hand, the series exploits the freedom of animation to evoke a dreamlike state. Results Alma’s Character Alma is a rebellious, selfish, indomitable non-conformist, obsessed with escaping from conventionality, as can be seen in her conversations with her boyfriend, Sam, and in her reactions to her mother and her sister, Becca. She is also curious and conscientious. Her spontaneity borders on the unpredictable, a trait reflected in her irrepressible tendency to express her ideas or convictions in public and private even when they are not socially acceptable or embarrass others. This cocktail of personality traits can make the viewer apprehensive about Alma’s reactions, especially in relation to what is socially accepted; her refusal to conform drives both her mother and sister mad, and may also generate tension in the spectator, who might feel a combination of frustration and admiration for her boldness in speaking out. According to Plantinga (2009) and Aertsen (2017), the emotional relation - ships between the viewer and characters in a television series are built on sympathy, but Alma is not characterized as a sympathetic person. So how is this emotional relationship constructed in Undone? Considering the factors that contribute to the viewer’s approval of and empathy with characters (Aertsen, 2017), Alma earns this approval not so much through her own actions, which are hardly beyond reproach, nor through her contentious attitude, but rather through her opposition to the duplicitous behavior of the people around her who have the social approval she herself disdains: Becca is beautiful, upright, kind, and polite, but she also cheats on her fiancé on several occasions before getting married; Sam is dedicated and earnest, but he takes advantage of Alma’s amnesia to hide from her that they had broken up just before her accident; Alma’s father, whom she admires, has also made morally reprehensible decisions, in both his family and professional life. The duplicitous nature of all those around her seem to justify Alma’s refuse to submit to the rules of polite society. 52 herráiz zornoza and lópez-díez A second factor that has a strong impact on the viewer’s sympathy for a character is compassion, “one of the main feelings on which sympathy is built,” by presenting the characters as victims of an unfair situation (Aertsen, 2017, p. 114): Alma is descended from Mexican immigrants, which further hinders her acceptance in American society; she was also bullied at school because of her hearing impairment; and above all, as a child she suffered the traumatic event of her father’s death, after being abandoned by him in the street, which aggravated the emotional damage. As a result, Alma may appear strong on the outside, but she is extremely fragile and vulnerable on the inside. There are also other factors that contribute, albeit less intensely, to the viewer’s process of bonding with the protagonist, such as admiration for her bold frankness, or the appeal of her sense of humor, which enables her to point out the irony in the most serious situations. Verbal References to Mental Disorder Collecting information on the frequency of use of certain words in the series may facilitate a better understanding of how the subtext is conveyed. The first set of words of analyzed were terms related to mental illness. This analysis included the identification of the character who uses them: Alma, or other characters. Table 6 shows several words related to mental disorders and their treatment, the top five being “doctor/s”, “crazy”, “help”, “mad,” and “pills.” The frequency of these words suggests that there is a great deal of effort on the part of other characters to help Alma, find her medical advice, and encourage her to take the medication prescribed by the therapist: [Camila, to Alma] “Are you listening to me? You need to take these pills.” (Undone, Season 1, Episode 4, 00:18:25,147 – 00:18:27,758) It is worth noting that in some cases, the character referred to as mentally ill is not Alma, but her grandmother (Geraldine, Jacob’s mother). For example, the word “schizophrenic” or “schizophrenia” is used three times to refer to Geraldine, and once with reference to Jacob, who was also diagnosed with schizophrenia shortly before his death. The terms “lithium” and “shock treatment” are also used with reference to Geraldine. In general, this analysis reveals that Alma utters fewer words related to the illness than the other characters, who insist that Alma needs help (explaining the frequency of their use of the word “help”) while Alma does not admit to this need. Alma refers to her mental disorder either ironically or flatly denying its existence, but the other characters—her mother (Camila), her sister (Becca), her partner (Sam), or her boss (Tunde)—believe that she suffers from Representation of Schizophrenia and Unconscious Mind 53 a serious mental illness for which she needs help and must take the pills prescribed by her psychiatrist, Dr. Juno. Alma’s father (Jacob), on the other hand, maintains that Alma and her grandmother are not mentally ill, but are actually capable of accessing another reality, due to their special brain structure, as he himself explains in Episode 5: [Jacob, to Alma] “Research had recently come out showing that people with schizophrenia, like my mother, they have large ventricles. […] Ventricles are the central pockets of fluid in the brain. I know. What's sexier than big pockets of fluid? Right? So, okay, I got to thinking maybe mystics and priestesses and shamans, maybe they also have larger ventricles. Maybe their abilities come from a specific brain structure.” (Undone, Episode 5, 00:06:57,199 – 00:07:22,052) This evidence would explain why Alma, like many people affected by schizophrenia, denies that she has an illness. In any case, the number of words related to mental illness in the series is considered relatively low, which may be a clever attempt by the creators to keep viewers guessing about whether Alma has a mental illness or special powers. Table 6. Words related to mental health used by Alma or by other characters. Alma Other characters TOTAL doctor/s/dr. (related to mental health) 5 8 14 crazy 5 4 9 help (related to mental health) 1 8 9 Mad 3 4 7 Pills 1 6 7 schizophrenia/schizophrenic 4 4 Medication 4 4 serious (referring to Alma’s mental health) 3 3 stranger (referring to Alma’s personality) 3 3 Insane 1 1 2 Sane 2 2 Shrink 1 1 2 Wacko 1 1 Psychiatrist 1 1 bad brain 1 1 broken brain 1 1 anti-psychotic 1 1 Lithium 1 1 shock treatment 1 1 54 herráiz zornoza and lópez-díez Most Frequently Used Words in General A second quantitative analysis involved the calculation of the words used most frequently in the whole series, whether meaningfully important or not. The results are shown in Table 7. As the table reveals, the most frequently used word is “know,” followed by “[I] am,” “okay,” “like,” and “Alma.” It seems significant that the most frequent word in the whole series is “know,” as this may be related to the ambiguity inherent in the story, as it is a key concern for viewers and characters to know whether Alma is schizophrenic or can actually access an alternate reality. Other words seem less significant because of their predictably high frequency (am, okay, Alma). Abnormalities and Other Criteria to Diagnose Schizophrenia Although Alma believes—or wants to believe—that she has access to an alternate reality and cites her PTSD as an excuse for not taking the pills prescribed by the psychiatrist, the rest of the characters (except her father) think that she has a serious mental disorder. Her mother describes the pills Alma has been prescribed as antipsychotics and compares Alma’s condition to her father’s diagnosed schizophrenia. Alma fears she has schizophrenia like her grandmother, and her boyfriend, Sam, says her abnormalities match those listed on a schizophrenia website. To determine whether Alma presents symptoms of schizophrenia in the series, the categories of abnormalities listed in the DSM-5 to diagnose this psychiatric pathology were used. Table 7. Word frequency. Word Frequency 1. know 216 2. am 196 3. okay 173 4. like 146 5. Alma 125 6. go 111 7. get 100 8. think 84 9. want 83 10. well 81 Representation of Schizophrenia and Unconscious Mind 55 Abnormalities As mentioned above, according to the DSM-5, there are five symptomatic abnormalities associated with this mental disorder: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, grossly disorganized or abnormal motor behavior, and negative abnormalities. In Episode 5, (“Alone in This (You Have Me)”), Alma confesses to Sam that she is experiencing some of these abnormalities, which she attributes to her extraordinary mental powers: “I’m seeing my dead father because of my big brain ventricles, and he’s training me to travel in time so I can save him from being murdered.” Conversely, in Episode 8 (“That Halloween Night”), Sam supports the idea that Alma has schizophrenia, based on the fact that she appears to manifest two of the main symptomatic abnormalities of the condition, namely, hallucinations and delusions: “I checked on your prescription. And it got me looking at this schizophrenia website. You gotta admit, these abnormalities kind of fit you: Hearing voices … believing you have special powers, feeling like you have some kind of grand mission to accomplish?” Alma dismisses her boyfriend’s argument with a sarcastic response: “Yeah, you got it, Sam! Yeah, you guys are doctors. I’m crazy, I’m … I’m wacko.” However, Sam firmly insists: There’s something serious going on with you. And I’m tired of pretending like there isn’t. […] Alma, I have to get you help. Even if it means you’re gonna hate me forever because that’s what love is. […] You want me to be totally honest with you? You’re mentally ill. You didn’t travel back in time and your father doesn’t talk to you because he’s dead! Assuming Sam’s view that Alma has schizophrenia rather than that she is actually accessing an alternate reality by means of special powers (which would ascribe the story to the realm of fantasy), what follows is an analysis of how the abnormalities associated with this mental disorder are depicted in Undone. (a) Delusions Alma’s most prominent delusions could be classified as “grandiose delusions”: she believes she can travel in time and space and alter past events (e.g., prevent her father’s suicide and the murder of his research student Farnaz). Similarly, her father—or her hallucination of him—believes that he can change his mother’s situation in the past and prevent her from being treated as mentally ill. Another manifestation of a grandiose delusion appears in Episode 8, when 62 herráiz zornoza and lópez-díez or movement. Thus, a shot cuts to its reverse shot and in that cut the space and time has changed. The same framing may also be used for one or more characters while the background changes, such as in Episode 1 when Alma talks about her routine, with the shot centered on her while the locations behind her change. But the animation can also provide other, more interesting types of anchors, such as the shattering of the screen like glass, employed on at least two occasions to snap us out of a dream (S01E02 and S01E08). Also used at least seven times over the course of the season is the simulation of an earthquake, whose destructive effect transports us to another time and space, such as in Alma’s conversation with Jacob in the hospital canteen and the transition back into her hospital bedroom (S01E02), or Sam’s huge head emerging from the ruins to fill the space of Alma’s room (S01E05). The series even plays with the involvement of the viewers, since the second time we witness an earthquake we will now understand that it marks a transition to another situation, yet on at least two of these occasions Alma manages to prevent this effect from destroying her surroundings, so that it turns out to be a false sign of change. As opposed to destruction, construction is also used to mark a transition, such as in the hospital corridor in Episode 2, or the change from Alma’s school to Sam’s in Episode 5. Morphing is also used, such as the shift from the child Alma dancing in the nursery to the adult Alma dancing in the ruins in Episode 5, or when the tape recorder that Sam had as a child turns into the bathroom in Alma and Sam’s house in the same episode. There are other more elaborate, dreamlike transitions, such as the multiplication of the birds to shift from the hospital garden to the universe in Episode 2, or when her father blows on her to change the setting and the stage revolving around her transports her from the house where she lives with Sam to the hospital room (S01E02). Other types of transitions include circles (S01E04 and S01E05), flashes (S01E02), and a special kind of dissolve, transforming the image into small dissolving particles (S01E04). Simultaneity is sometimes represented by two different moments and spaces coexisting in the same shot, using mirrors or other ways of integrating one frame into the other (S01E05 and S01E08). The most complex transition is an assembly sequence, such as the one at the end of Episode 4 when the camera passes through different spaces with different Geraldines at different moments in her life. Time can also be stretched by freezing the image to enhance the effect of a high-speed event, such as Jacob’s and Alma’s respective accidents, or compressed by speeding the scene up to give the sensation that time has passed, Representation of Schizophrenia and Unconscious Mind 63 such as in the sequence of Camila’s birth, growth and death through morphing in Alma’s hallucination in Episode 2. This device is also used on different occasions in Episode 4 to test Alma’s father’s theory about his power to alter time. Temporal alteration is also represented by repetition throughout the series, such as the different sequences involving dancing, Alma’s routines, or the repetition of the photo shoot in Episode 6. Making sense of all these layers and dimensions in the series is no easy task, but the anchors facilitate the viewer’s understanding; sound also supports each of these transitions with a combination of buzzes and chirps that serve to announce the time-space jump. Anchors are more commonly placed at the beginning of the hallucination or memory, although they are also sometimes used at the end. All episodes except the sixth include space-time jumps, with Episodes 2 and 5 having the most complex structures and the most elaborate anchors. However, the creators do not provide a fixed formula that would allow the viewer to associate an effect with a specific type of change; instead, they use a myriad of devices to confuse and hook the audience, sometimes upsetting viewer expectations of what these cues mean, with different effects. This helps maintain the tension and the ambiguous nature of Alma’s powers—or her skewed view of reality—right up to the very end of the season. Series Title The title sequence is included in this analysis because of its condensed narrative significance. The sequence itself changes as the series progresses with the intention of introducing certain unknowns or advancing the story. The appearance of the title in the credits sequence changes over the course of the first season of the series. The title itself (Undone) may refer to how Alma attempts to undo (reverse) her father’s death in an alternate reality, although it also suggests that she has not fully matured as a person. The different appearances of the title in the series credits may be intended to suggest a relationship to the state of Alma’s subjective reality in her effort to resurrect her father. In Episodes 1–3, when Alma is beginning to get acquainted with her new reality, the title maintains the same appearance: gray letters on a fading black background. In Episode 4, in which Alma learns how to time travel by “moving the keys” and remembers that she had broken up with Sam before the car accident, the letters of the title exhibit a simple effect: they appear and disappear, then the full title is visible, becoming less distinct until it finally fades away. 64 herráiz zornoza and lópez-díez Episode 5 is the only episode of the season in which the series title appears at the end. An effect is also added to the letters, which are more blurred than in other episodes, appearing and disappearing until they fade behind dynamic white and gray shapes in the background. This may be an allusion to the fact that, in addition to Alma assimilating her father’s knowledge of shamans’ ability to access other realities, at the end of the episode she confesses to Sam that she communicates with her father and intends to save him from being killed. She thus seems to have fully accepted this alternative reality. The title of the series in Episode 6 looks completely different from the rest, appearing in gray letters against an off-white background. This might be an allusion to the fact that there are no subjective reality scenes in this episode, which is mainly about Alma and Sam investigating Jacob’s death. Finally, in Episodes 7 and 8, the black background and effects on the letters return, while the shapes in the background become increasingly intense. In Episode 7, when we return to Alma’s subjective reality, the letters gradually emerge from some sort of clouds in the black background. In Episode 8, in which Alma attempts to undo past events, the title of the series begins with a point of light in the center of the frame; the light takes different shapes and the letters appear behind it without ever becoming completely clear and then finally vanish, as if to suggest that the episode will shed some light on the reality (or unreality) of Alma’s quest to bring back her father. Conclusions This chapter has sought to understand how schizophrenia is represented in Undone, focusing on its main character, Alma. Unlike the depiction of schizophrenic characters in many other films and television series, Alma is not portrayed as dangerous or violent (Wilson et al., 1999; Wondemaghen, 2019). She is a woman coping with the death of her father as well as a mental disorder. Everyone around her—her mother, her sister, her partner, her boss, the doctors—try to help her. They tell her she needs to act on medical advice and take the antipsychotic pills prescribed by her psychiatrist. Among the character types normally ascribed to mentally ill characters, Alma fits the category of rebellious free spirit (Hyler et al., 1991; Edney, 2004). She rejects the conventional values, practices, and opinions accepted by others in her environment. For example, she opposes marriage and having a family, and she is critical of the popular interpretations of U.S. history, such as the Representation of Schizophrenia and Unconscious Mind 65 American perspective on the Battle of the Alamo. Although this study has focused on the character of Alma, other characters with schizophrenia in the series are depicted differently. Apparently, her father was homicidal and suicidal, and her grandmother is a helpless woman who has ended up in a mental institution. The data collected on word frequency are consistent with the emphasis placed on seeking medical help in the series. The most frequently used word related to mental illness is “doctor” (“doctors,” “dr.”); the third most frequent is “help” and the fifth is “pills.” The most frequently used word of all is “know,” which evokes the ambiguous nature of Alma’s subjective reality. According to the symptoms of schizophrenia listed by the DSM-5, Alma’s condition is in keeping with this mental illness, as she suffers from at least two of the most characteristic abnormalities: delusions and hallucinations. The series does not make the mistake of confusing schizophrenia with multiple personality disorder, unlike other series and movies (McMahon-Coleman & Weaver, 2020). Furthermore, an evaluation of other criteria suggests that Undone offers a positive and accurate representation of schizophrenia, or at least of the initial phase of this disorder. An analysis of the cinematographic techniques used in the series reveals that the camera is not always placed in a subjective point of view (in this case, of the mentally ill character). During what appear to be Alma’s subjective perceptions of reality—including hallucinations, dreams, daydreams—we often see the scene from an external camera position, or from the perspective of another character (Jacob). This suggests to the viewer that the events shown are not merely taking place in Alma’s mind. Space-time jumps are recurrent throughout the series, except in Episode 6, where there is no room for a subjective perspective, as mentioned above. Such jumps obey a dreamlike “logic” whereby space and time fluctuate continuously; however, on the narrative level, the series employs a range of audio-visual anchors to signal these jumps to the viewer. The generic ambiguity of this television series constitutes a key limitation of this study, which has depended on the assumption that the story belongs to the realist genre, and that Alma’s altered perception of reality is the product of her imagination. However, as noted above, the story is not entirely clear on this matter. The use of point of view often suggests that the supposedly deceased Jacob does in fact belong to an alternate reality. In addition, there are things that Alma could not possibly know if her subjective reality is the product of mental illness—for example, the fact that her mother went into her father’s lab 66 herráiz zornoza and lópez-díez and fought with him on the night he died, which Camila confirms—or at least, the series does not explain how she knows them. If the events of subjective reality take place only in Alma’s mind, then what she discovers and what the viewer is led to believe (for example, that her father committed suicide and killed his student, Farnaz) may actually be false. On the other hand, if Undone is in fact a fantasy story in which ordinary physical laws can be broken, then it could not be described as a series about schizophrenia, or at least not in the same way, since in such a diegetic world Jacob’s theory that schizophrenia is a kind of superpower could be true. Research on Undone from this alternative perspective could take a completely different course. Note 1 They mention two examples of this kind of collaboration, in the series EastEnders (BBC, 1985) and Home and Away (Seven, 1988–). Bibliography Aertsen, V. (2017). ‘La simpatía hacia los personajes de ficción: un examen de los factores implicados desde la psicología social y la teoría fílmica cognitiva’, Doxa Comunicación: revista interdisciplinar de estudios de comunicación y ciencias sociales, 25, 107–128. https://revi stas cien tifi cas.usp ceu.com/doxac omun icac ion/arti cle/view/712/1325 American Psychiatric Association. (2019). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). American Psychiatric Association. DOI: 10.1176/appi. books.9780890425596 Bal, M. (2019). The point of narratology: Part 2. Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems, 17(2–B), 242–258. https://ideas.repec.org/a/zna/ind ecs/v17 y201 9i2-ap242-258.html Beveridge, A. (1996). Images of madness in the films of Walt Disney. Psychiatric Bulletin, 20(10), 618–620. DOI: 10.1192/pb.20.10.618 Byrne, P. (2000). Schizophrenia in the cinema: Me, Myself and Irene. Psychiatric Bulletin, 24(10), 364–365. DOI:10.1192/pb.24.10.364 Brooks, C., & Warren, R. P. (1959). Understanding fiction. Prentice-Hall. Camp, M. E., Webster, C. R., Coverdale, T. R., Coverdale, J. H., & Nairn, R. (2010). The joker: A dark night for depictions of mental illness. Academic Psychiatry: The Journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry, 34(2), 145–149. DOI: 10.1176/appi.ap.34.2.145 Canet, F., & Prosper, J. (2009). Narrativa audiovisual. Síntesis. Casetti, F. & Di Chio, F. (1991). Cómo analizar un film. Paidós. Representation of Schizophrenia and Unconscious Mind 67 Castello, A. K. (2020). What TV Gets Wrong about Mental Health. Northwestern Medicine. htt ps://www.nm.org /hea lthb eat/ heal thy-tips/emotio nal-hea lth/what-tv-get s-wrong-aboutmen tal-illn ess Conn, R., & Bhugra, D. (2012). The Portrayal of autism in Hollywood films. International Journal of Culture and Mental Health, 5(1), 54–62. DOI: 10.1080/17542863.2011.553369 Corrigan, P. W., River, L. P., Lundin, R. K., Penn, D. L., Uphoff-Wasowski, K., Campion, J., Mathisen, J., Gagnon, C., Bergman, M., Goldstein, H., & Kubiak, M. A. (2001). Three strategies for changing attributions about severe mental illness. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 27(2), 187–195. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.schbul.a006865 Cross, S. (2004). Visualizing madness. Television & New Media, 5(3), 197–216. DOI: 10.1177/1527476403254001 Cruikshank, E. C., & Sevigny, P. R. (2020). Reasons why not: A critical review of the television series 13 reasons why. Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 54(4), 803–818. DOI: 10.47634/cjcp.v54i4.69046 Edney, D. R. (2004). Mass media and mental illness: A literature review. Canadian Mental Health Association. Fawcett, K. (2015). How mental illness is misrepresented in the media. U.S. News Health. https://hea lt h.u sn ews .c o m/he a lth-news/hea lt h-welln e ss/artic les/2015/0 4/16/ how-men talilln ess-is-mis repr esen ted-in-the-media Ferguson, C. J. (2018). 13 Reasons why not: A methodological and meta-analytic review of evidence regarding suicide contagion by fictional media. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 49(4), 1178–1186. DOI: 10.1111/sltb.12517 García López, S. (2019). El documental de animación: un género audiovisual digital. Zer, 24(46), 129–145. http://hdl.han dle.net/10810/41295 Gaudreault, A., & Jost, F. (1995). El relato cinematográfico. Cine y narratología. Paidós. Genette, G. (1989). Figuras III. Lúmen. Barcelona Gronholm P. C., & Eaton J. (2020) Stigmatization and society’s inclusiveness across cultures. In: E. Taylor, F. Verhulst, J. Wong, & K. Yoshida (Eds.), Mental health and illness of children and adolescents (pp. 231–242). Springer. Hinshaw, S. P. (2005) The stigmatization of mental illness in children and parents: Developmental issues, family concerns, and research needs. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 46(7), 714–734. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01456.x Hoffner, C. A., & Cohen, E. L. (2014). Portrayal of mental illness on the TV series Monk: Presumed influence and consequences of exposure. Health Communication, 30(10), 1046– 1054. DOI: 10.1080/10410236.2014.917840 Hyler, S. H. (2003). Stigma continues in Hollywood. Psychiatric Times, 20(6), 33. link.gale.com/ apps/doc/A102668384/AONE?u=anon~4ff4b65b&sid=googleScholar&xid=d9066a8f. Hyler, S. E., Gabbard, G. O., & Schneider, I. (1991). Homicidal Maniacs and Narcissisfic Parasites: Stigmatization of mentally ill persons in the movies. Psychiatric Services, 42(10), 1044–1048. DOI: 10.1176/ps.42.10.1044 IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base). (n.d.) Sort by Popularity—Most Popular Movies and TV Shows tagged with keyword “schizophrenia”. Imdb.com. https://www.imdb.com/sea rch/ keyw ord/?keywo rds=schizo phre nia 68 herráiz zornoza and lópez-díez Irfandina, R. H., & Indah, R. N. (2022). Speech abnormality of the schizophrenic main character in fractured movie. Call: Journal of Critical Analysis on Language and Literature, 4 (1). pp. 60–72. DOI: 10.15575/call.v4i1.17496 Link, B. G., Yang, L. H., Phelan, J. C., & Collins, P. Y. (2004) Measuring mental illness stigma. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 30(3), 511–541. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.schbul.a007098 Martin, B. (2014). Hombres fuera de serie: de Los Soprano a The Wire y de Mad Men a Breaking Bad: crónica de una revolución creativa. Ariel. McMahon-Coleman, K., & Weaver, R. (2020). Mental health disorders on television: Representation versus reality. McFarland. McNally, K. (2007). Schizophrenia as split personality/Jekyll and Hyde: The origins of the informal usage in the English language. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 43(1), 69–79. doi: 10.1002/jhbs.20209 Middleton, C. (2013). The use of cinematic devices to portray mental illness. eTropic. Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 12(2), 180–190. https://doi.org/10.25120/ etropic.12.2.2013.3341 Montero Plata, L. (2007) La disolución de las fronteras de la realidad: el cine de Satoshi Kon. Secuencias: Revista de Historia del Cine, 25, 46–62. https://revis tas.uam.es/sec uenc ias/arti cle/view/4081 Nichols, B. (2008). Documentary Reenactment and the Fantasmatic Subject. Critical Inquiry, 35(1), 72–89. DOI: 10.1086/595629 Nordahl-Hansen, A., Tøndevold, M., & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2018). Mental health on screen: A DSM-5 dissection of portrayals of autism spectrum disorders in film and TV. Psychiatry Research, 262, 351–353. DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2017.08.050 Owen, P. R. (2012). Portrayals of Schizophrenia by entertainment media: A content analysis of contemporary movies. Psychiatric Services, 63(7), 655–659. Doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.201100371 Pirkis, J., Blood, R. W., Francis, C., & McCallum, K. (2006). On-Screen portrayals of mental illness: Extent, nature, and impacts. Journal of Health Communication, 11(5), 523–541. DOI: 10.1080/10810730600755889 Plantinga, C. (2009). Moving viewers: American film and the spectator’s experience. University of California Press. Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory. (n. d.). Schizophrenia. Harvard Medical School. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/schizophrenia-a-to-z Renov, M. (2004). The subject of documentary. University of Minnesota Press. Rose, D. (1998). Television, madness and community care. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 8(3), 213–228. DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1298(199805/06)8:3%3C213::AIDCASP449%3E3.0.CO;2-C Rosenstock, J. (2003). Beyond a beautiful mind: Film choices for teaching Schizophrenia. Academic Psychiatry: The Journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry, 27(2), 117–122. DOI: 10.1176/ appi.ap.27.2.117 Sánchez-Navarro, J. (2013). Una verdad en Dibujos. Autobiografía, crónica y memoria histórica en la animación. In: R. Cueto (Ed.), Animatopia. Los nuevos caminos del cine de animación (pp. 193–210). Festival Internacional de Cine de Donostia-San Sebastian. Representation of Schizophrenia and Unconscious Mind 69 Edney, D. R. (2004). Mass media and mental illness: A literature review. s. Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario. https://onta rio.cmha.ca/wp-cont ent/files/2012/07/mas s_me dia.pdf United Nations. (2015). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The United Nations. http://www.un.org/en/ga/sea rch/view_ doc.asp?sym bol=A/RES/70/1&Lang=E United Nations. (2021, September 8). Make mental health a priority across the board, UN chief urges. UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/09/1099 402 Visconti, M. (2011). En cuerpo presente. Los personajes muertos en Six Feet Under. Imagofagia, 4. http://www.asa eca.org/ima gofa gia/index.php/ima gofa gia/arti cle/view/720 Votruba, N., Thornicroft, G., & FundaMentalSDG Steering Group. (2016). Sustainable Development Goals and Mental Health: Learnings from the contribution of the fundamental SDG global initiative. Global Mental Health (Cambridge, England), 3, e26. DOI: 10.1017/ gmh.2016.20 Wahl, O. F. (2003). Depictions of mental illnesses in children’s media. Journal of Mental Health 12(3), 249–258. DOI: 10.1080/0963823031000118230 Welles, P. (2013). An abnormal cinema: The post-millennial animated feature. In: R. Cueto (Ed.), Animatopia. Los nuevos caminos del cine de animación (pp. 193–210). Festival Internacional de Cine de Donostia-San Sebastian. Wilson, C., Nairn, R., Coverdale, J., & Panapa, A. (2000). How mental illness is portrayed in children’s television: A prospective study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 176(5), 440–443. DOI: 10.1192/bjp.176.5.440 Wondemaghen, M. (2019) Homeland and its use of bipolar disorder for sensationalist and dramatic effect. Social Semiotics, 29(2), 131–144. DOI: 10.1080/10350330.2017.1422900 World Health Organization. (2015). Global reference list of 100 core health indicators. Geneva: WHO Press. http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstr eam/10665/173 589/1/ World Health Organization. (2013). Mental Health Action Plan, 2013−2020. http://apps.who. int/iris/bitstr eam/10665/89966/1/978924 1506 021_ eng.pdf?ua=1 World Health Organization. (2020). Mental Health. https://www.who.int/docs/defa ult-sou rce/men tal-hea lt h/sli des-virt ual-consu ltat ion-who-compre hen s ive-men tal-hea lt h-act ion-plan.pdf?sfv rsn=2998 a555 _10 ·4· THE AWKWARDNESS EFFECT: ENGAGEMENT WITH CLUMSY CHARACTERS IN TV SERIES Marta Boni In this chapter, I will outline a theory of uncertainty in TV series by describing the current trend of awkwardness with regards to the depiction of non-cishetero characters. The chapter’s primary contribution lies in a discussion of the multiple effects of awkwardness as both a way to transport viewers into the fictional world, tapping into our personal experience of failure, with simultaneously acting as a disruptive force, unsettling the seamless flow of immersion. As we will see, our understanding of such uneasy moments in a TV series could benefit from queer theory, which helps us display the contradictions between an expected linear path and the creative possibilities of unruliness, imbalance, and failure. For a start, let’s consider the way We Are Who We Are (HBO, 2020) introduces its main character. Fraser, a pale teenager with tousled, dyed blond hair, in a designer t-shirt and leopard print pants struts on a beach. He is trying to look cool, distant, and superior, in front of two other teenagers, who gaze upon him cheerfully, and chuckle. At fifteen, he is tall and gangly, with large feet, the faint shadow of a mustache growing above his lip. As he strolls in the sand uncomfortably, he suffers from the natural awkwardness of his adolescent body and his conflicted desire to make a good impression on his peers. Unbeknownst to him, they asked him to show off his gait so they could imagine the size of his 78 marta boni his 1956 article about “embarrassment and social organizations”. He points out that sweating, blushing, retreating, or laughing are all reactions that we put on to avoid embarrassment, when we feel that we might not fit in. Fleabag’s father experiences anxiety and his reactions do not make it easier for himself and others. All the guests react uneasily. The camera pans across their embarrassed gazes, their hands suspended in air, still holding the glasses of wine. Fleabag, meanwhile, turns to the camera and looks towards the audience, further emphasizing the embarrassment she is experiencing, and encouraging us to share it with her. She is literally the “non-attuned” subject who is alienated from “the table of happiness” (Ahmed, 2010). The awkwardness applies here also to the father who is the protagonist of failure ; to the guests who happen to share the same space and to us, witnesses of the scene, even more because of the gaze of Fleabag who demands our complicit commitment. Another sequence of awkwardness and discomfort can be found early in Sex Education (Netflix, 2019–), a series that focuses on teenagers grappling with the discovery of sex. In S01E01, “Episode 1”, Otis, the protagonist, prepares very seriously and a little embarrassed for his first masturbation session with a porn magazine, lotion, and handkerchiefs. Before he begins, though, one of his mother’s lovers, in a flamboyant bathrobe, barges in without knocking, because he mistook Otis’s room for the bathroom. While the man is embarrassed and surprised to meet his lover’s child—before speaking, he says “Awkward”—Otis appears quite accustomed to these kinds of situations. His mother is a sexologist and an oversized character, who sometimes takes too much social space, which embarrasses Otis endlessly. Being caught while masturbating is the embarrassing scene par excellence in coming-of-age films. The man tacitly agrees to keep Otis’s masturbation a secret from his mother. They shake hands, which again makes him uncomfortable, although Otis reassures him by saying, “Don’t worry. Left-handed.” Fleabag and Sex Education share a sense of clumsy disorientation that is comedic and, at the same time, reveals something about us and about the limits of our experience in the world. This is important also because of the transformative nature of serial characters. With Otis, we are promised an evolution, a set of discoveries and learning, whereas Fleabag’s dad is destined to his peripheral, quite static role—and yet, because of this, extremely funny and “productive” for the whole series. Unlike solid, monumental representations of the classic complex TV, which Brett Martin (2014) describes as “a storytelling architecture you could picture as a colonnade” (p. 6), contemporary series create, with abundance of detail, an effect of awkwardness. They represent Awkwardness Effect Engagement with Clumsy Characters 79 characters in transition, who hesitate in space, find themselves in dubious situations, or who make missteps, because of naiveté, excessive enthusiasm, or an ignorance of social rules. In the case of Fleabag’s father, because the character is not the protagonist of the narrative, we can understand that he suffers from anxiety, which we empathize with, but while his speech remains comical, we are not upset by his discomfort; his awkwardness doesn’t make him any more engaging. However, Otis, clearly designated as the protagonist of Sex Education, becomes, also through this sequence of discomfort, more endearing. We better understand his psychology, we share with him a moment which—even if it is not decisive for narrative development—helps us place him in the network of characters— notably, his troubled relationship with his mother. This might help us feel reassured about our own hardships when we try to be “normal”: … watching such a wide breadth of people struggle to figure out their different sexualities reveals how not being normal is normal. The only commonality to be found in our bedroom experiences is the certainty that we’re grotesque weirdos doing it all wrong. And if we all feel that way, then that’s the definition of normal. (Joho, 2019) Characters such as Otis, who are moved by uncertainty, who do not find their place because of their social, intellectual, or physical characteristics and face failure, offer a critique of the norms. The one who is awkward manifests a society’s oppressions. As Sara Ahmed puts it, “Discomfort involves this failure to fit. A restlessness and uneasiness, a fidgeting and twitching, is a bodily registering of an unexpected arrival” (feministkilljoys, 2013). Moved by such emotions, they react, they act. And we, moved by their emotions, feel for them. Awkwardness becomes a component of a feminist politics (Reeser, 2017; SmithPrei & Stehle, 2016). Teenagers Awkwardness results from an aesthetic of “queer failure” (Halberstam, 2011), or a glitchy textual structure, which moves away from linearity toward collapse, unexpected narrative directions, abrupt cancelation, or recasting … The awkwardness effect signals the impossibility of following a straight path, and it creates a desire for more, which signals the limits of the present. Nothing more than adolescence highlights such a queer state, a period of transition, an exploration of possible worlds. In recent serial narratives, adolescent characters are displayed as clumsy and awkward. The adolescent 80 marta boni is self-conscious, centered on his own body, preoccupied with creating a suitable external image. Construction goes through deconstruction or destruction. Awkwardness is found in their bodies, as well as in the framing. They disrupt the linear mode of experiencing a series, deepen our attachment to them, and push us to question the limits of the male gaze, or the dominant perspective. We Are Who We Are (HBO, 2020) is a drama series driven by the theme of transitional adolescence, both of their bodies and life projects. The series’ title signals an attachment to the dimension of the present, the impossibility, or the unwillingness to see beyond, to make plans, to adhere to a posture of productivity and performance, or even of success that would be measurable according to adult standards. Inherently queer, such title perfectly contains both teen’s angst (even a “no future” death drive (Edelman, 2005)) and awkwardness. The eight fifty-minute episodes have space to provide —with an irregular rhythm— in-depth insights into certain events and certain characters, while maintaining the central focus on two characters: Fraser and Caitlin/Harper. Guadagnino’s filming style is intimate and begins the show with close-up shots on the teenagers’ faces which reveal their imperfections and emphasize their awkwardness and disorientation. As described at the beginning of this essay, Fraser is not in sync with the world, and his gestures are limp and not very agile. He is awkward, and the show’s serial structure allows us to follow Fraser and Caitlin/ Harper’s several, inevitable disappointments. Over the course of their development in the show, we also see how an inchoate, utopian force arises out of his powerful imagination and, above all, their friendship. Fraser’s physical awkwardness marks his human interactions. The cinematography frames him in large, empty spaces, like a beach or a field in the military base where he lives. In those spaces, he moves freely, hopping like a child, or hurtling through space on his bike. His conquest of space is clumsy. He acts out of place, either unable to harmoniously blend in with or unwilling to integrate into the physical and social environment. Let us think of Marcel Mauss, who studied the gait of nurses he met during his stay in a hospital in New York (Mauss, 1950). He found their walk mimicked the characters in cinema and mainstream culture. These women knew how to move in space because they imitated dominant visual culture. In contrast, Fraser moves his body differently, and the show’s framing highlights his awkwardness. Clothes are another crucial element in the individual’s relationship to the world and to society (as we also see in the Instagram account mentioned above). His clothes similarly express his awkward dissonance. He wears garish colors, irregular sizes, and tends to blur binary gender boundaries tendency. Awkwardness Effect Engagement with Clumsy Characters 81 These elements clash with the dreary landscape of the countryside or in the uniformity of the beach, or the cohort of its peers. The camera and editing create an effect of illness, which emphasizes his discomfort. At the same time, these formal elements urge the viewer to get to know this character and, with him, the world he discovers. Typical of seriality, we can feel close to Fraser, through that disorientation. Like our own experience as teenagers, we recognize the gap he strives to fill between his desired image in society and his actual appearance. We understand this awkwardness within the context of a serial television show, when confronted with it in the first episode, “Right Here, Right Now,”1 and see that the characters can potentially develop throughout the series, and the situations will evolve into something other than mockery or comedic action. It is a state we try at all costs to avoid, but through this dissociation, the show has space to question norms, and it contributes to the poetic effect. Awkwardness is therefore an expression of the polymorphic modalities of desire, an alternative form of jouissance that the characters discover and explore. Willful Characters Characters who are moved by uncertainty, who are out of place because of their social, intellectual, or physical characteristics and therefore face failure, display a show’s complexity. They also become moral examples. Moved by emotions, they react, they act. And we, moved by their emotions, might change our perception of the world. The characters transition from one state to another, as it is typical of serial complexity. Their clumsiness thus becomes the marker of this very mutation. And sometimes, or for some individuals, it is harder to fit into social norms. This is the case for clumsy, queer characters. To sum up, then, we perceive television series’ clumsiness from a distance, as an incongruity. We also recognize the characters’ situations as familiar and close to us. With their long duration, series are capable of reproducing micro-events of everyday life, and this familiarity is even more present. For viewers, awkwardness is a source of embarrassment, discomfort, disorientation. When such discomfort occurs in a serial narrative, rather than a random accident, it could, disturbingly, become a character trait. When repeated, the audience wonders if the awkwardness will develop into something else. How much is bearable and under what conditions is it a sign of narrative or character development? 82 marta boni Within the televisual panorama that interests us here, awkwardness becomes an element of dramatic depth, for characters who are full of nuances. Awkwardness also reveals the background and environment in which the character evolves. It is a form of disruption which encourages a reconfiguration of standards. Therefore, it is also the starting point for a critique of social norms and a way of making room for alternative or even subversive forms, figures, and situations. Awkwardness can also characterize a form of resistance, as noted by Leperchey (2011). For characters whose superior qualities lead them to risk and chance, like the chivalry of Don Quixote, awkwardness becomes daring, like a leap into the void. Several serial characters, we might add, perform this in stories that highlight self-discovery, change, and transition; for example Transparent (Amazon, 2014–2019) Mrs. Fletcher (HBO, 2019) and We Are Who We Are. All these shows portray willful subjects who resist normative behavior (Ahmed, 2014). The discrepancy between our perception of ourselves and how the world sees us makes it difficult to perceive ourselves as solid, unitary, and cool individuals. Awkwardness is the lack of dexterity within a given environment. Clumsiness has a critical function: “And if moving in time feels good, no wonder a clumsy subject can feel herself a killjoy: your own body can be what gets in the way of a happiness that is assumed as on its way” (Ahmed, 2014, p. 50). In all these examples, we see states of discomfort: characters and stories opposing (or not fitting into) normative behavior. They desire too much or too strongly, fail, fall flat, transition, sit on the brink of a breakdown, or recover from it. We understand how uncomfortable their position must be. Conclusions In the landscape of complex television, I am interested in characters’ disorientation outside of the norm of the cis-hetero male: marginal figures or transitional figures. The uncertainty surrounding these characters creates a form of suspense that maintains narrative tension. Such ambiguity creates cognitive engagement. We care because characters are imperfect; we want to know more because the narrative is structured on imbalance. Through fiction, we vicariously experience situations that we might want or need to live, without personal risk. Within the fictional pact, we might feel vulnerable because of the disorientation and therefore we could be more empathetic towards other people beyond the confines of the television show, learning as well how to better act in society. Awkwardness Effect Engagement with Clumsy Characters 83 Awkwardness is therefore thematic, and pragmatic: we live it along with the characters. It is a form of disorientation related to the changing states of serial protagonists, and to the multiple levels of a series’ unfolding. And while we should certainly raise questions about its universality—do these cues result in the same affective and cognitive responses in all viewers? —the awkwardness effect can function as a political (queer) driving force, which helps us imagine or experiment alternative ways of being in the world. It also provides us with a new path to engage with stories—contextualized within our current reality of social, ecological and economic crisis—through a structure of feeling discomfort and indeterminacy. Bibliography Ahmed, S. (2014). Willful subjects. Duke University Press. Ahmed, S. (2010). Polyphonic feminisms: Acting in concert. The Scholar and Feminist Online, no Issue 8.3 (Summer). http://sfonl ine.barn ard.edu/pol ypho nic/prin t_ah med.htm. Baharudin, A. A. (2018, February 9). Different ways to show embarrassment in writing OTHER THAN blushing and stuttering. Medium. https://med ium.com/@aa13 707/differ ent-way s -to-s how-embarr as s m e nt-in-w rit ing-o ther-t ha n-blus h in g-a n d-stu t t e r in g-81286 354d d91 Bazin, A. (2018). André Bazin: Selected writings 1943–1958 (T. Barnard, Trans.; First edition). Caboose. Burch, N. (1973). Theory of film practice. Praeger. https://bac-lac.on.world cat.org/oclc/463094 435 Bergson, H. (2007). Le rire: Essai sur la signification du comique (13e éd. “Quadrige”). Presses universitaires de France. feministkilljoys. (2013, September 4). Clumsiness. Feministkilljoys. https://femin istk illj oys. com/2013/09/04/clu msin ess/ Edelman, L. (2005). No future. Queer theory and the death drive. Durham: Duke University Press. Eyal, K., & Rubin, A. M. (2003). Viewer aggression and homophily, identification, and parasocial relationships with television characters. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 47(1), 77–98. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1550 6878 jobe m470 1_5. Freud, S., Strachey, J., Richards, A., & Strachey, A. (1953). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (A. Freud & C. L. Rothgeb, Eds.). Hogarth Press. Giles, D. C. (2002). Parasocial interaction: A review of the literature and a model for future research. Media Psychology, 4(3), 279–305. https://doi.org/10.1207/S153 2785 XMEP 0403 _04. Goffman, E. (1956). Embarrassment and social organization. American Journal of Sociology, 62(3), 264–271. Halberstam, J. (2011). The queer art of failure. Duke University Press. Havas, J. & Sulimma, M. (2020). Through the Gaps of My Fingers: Genre, Femininity, and Cringe Aesthetics in Dramedy Television. Television & New Media 21(1), 75–94. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1527476418777838. 84 marta boni Joho, J. (2019, January 11). Netflix’s “Sex Education” finds the humanity in awkward teen sex: Review. Mashable. https://masha ble.com/arti cle/sex-educat ion-rev iew-netfl ix Lacalle, C., Gómez-Morales, B. M., et Narvaiza, S. (2021). « Friends or Just Fans? Parasocial Relationships in Online Television Fiction Communities ». https://doi. org/10.15581/003.34.3.61-76. Leperchey, S. (2011). L’esthétique de la maladresse au cinéma. L’Harmattan. Lotz, A. D. (2007). The television will be revolutionized. http://hdl.han dle.net/2027/heb.08239 Martin, B. (2014). Difficult men: Behind the scenes of a creative revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Penguin Books. Mauss, M. (1950). Les techniques du corps (1936). In Sociologie et anthropologie (pp. 365– 386.). PUF. Middleton, J. (2013). Documentary’s awkward turn: Cringe comedy and media spectatorship. Taylor & Francis Group. O’Falt, C. (2019, June 5). The “Fleabag” awkward family dinner is a cinematic comedy masterpiece. IndieWire. https://www.indiew ire.com/2019/06/flea bag-sea son-2-epis ode-1-awkw arddin ner-cinema tic-com edy-mast erpi ece-pho ebe-wal ler-bri dge-120 2146 412/ Reeser, T. W. (2017). Producing awkwardness: Affective labour and masculinity in popular culture. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 50(4), 51–68. Smith, M. (1999). Engaging characters: Fiction, emotion, and the cinema. Clarendon Press. Smith-Prei, C., & Stehle, M. (2016). Awkward politics: Technologies of Popfeminist Activism. McGill-Queen’s University Press. https://www.deslib ris.ca/ID/450 221. Susman, G. (2013, May 12). Notes From Dunder-ground | Discomfort Zone: 10 Great Cringe Comedies. Time. https://entert ainm ent.time.com/2013/05/13/dis comf ort-zone-10-great-cri nge-comed ies/ Thompson, R. (1997). Television’s Second Golden Age: From Hill Street Blues to ER. Syracuse University Press. ·5· COGNITION AND EMOTION IN DYSTOPIAN TV SERIAL WORLDS: THE PURGE Alberto Hermida and Jesús Jiménez-Varea “Violent Passion Surrogate. Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It’s the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences” (Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 2007 [1932], p. 211). “The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic” (Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, 1949, p. 30). During the last decade, marked by a context of socioeconomic, political and cultural crisis and uncertainty, speculative narratives have acquired significant relevance in popular culture. Specifically, in the field of television serialized fiction, dystopian worlds have figured prominently throughout a number of international productions. Titles such as Black Mirror (Channel 4, 2011–2014; Netflix, 2016–), The Man in the High Castle (Amazon Prime, 2015–2019), Westworld (HBO, 2016–), 3% (Netflix, 2016–2020), The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu, 2017–) or Years and Years (BBC & HBO, 2019), to name a few, propose 86 hermida and jiménez-varea speculations on the drifts and extrapolations of contemporary society as a consequence of—and with a focus on—technological, demographic, and/or ideological aspects, among other variables. In connection with such issues, this chapter reviews the predominant dystopian categories in the landscape of television fiction; and then studies the case of The Purge (USA Network, 2018–2019). This television series is part of the lucrative transmedia franchise of the same name, created by James DeMonaco, who has written and directed the first three films—The Purge (2013), The Purge: Anarchy (2014) and The Purge: Election Year (2016)—and has written the other two to date—The First Purge (Gerard McMurray, 2018) and The Forever Purge (Everardo Valerio Gout, 2021). In addition, DeMonaco has served as executive producer of the television series and has written some of its episodes. The Purge’s fictional universe features a United States ruled by an authoritarian party, the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA), which has instituted a new national holiday, the eponymous Purge, consisting of one night a year during which all citizens can legally unleash their aggression, ostensibly to eradicate violent crime for the rest of the year. Drawing from notions such as Carl Plantinga’s “cinematic emotions” (2009) and Noël Carroll’s “erotetic narrative” and “criterial prefocusing” (2010, 2019), the case study delves into how the specificities of serial fiction contribute to the emotional and affective dimensions of the “critical dystopia” (Sargent, 1994), with special attention to how artifact emotions, direct emotions and metaemotions interact with the generic conventions and thematic preoccupations on which this series pivots. Dystopia and TV Series Definition, Criteria and Categories of Dystopia It is well known that the term “utopia” comes from the title of Thomas More’s seminal book of 1516, although the phenomenon to which it refers obviously existed before this canonical work, for example—in its most pronouncedly philosophical aspect—within the works of Plato, where he describes Atlantis (Timaeus, Critias) and other ideal states (The Republic, The Laws). According to Lyman Tower Sargent (1994), a utopia is “a non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space” (p. 9), upon which is projected some form of utopianism, that is, “social dreaming—the dreams and nightmares that concern the ways in which groups of people arrange their lives and which usually envision a radically different society than the ones in Cognition and Emotion in Dystopian TV Serial Worlds 87 which the dreamers live” (p. 3). Thus, this genre focuses on the fictional representation of some kind of sociopolitical system very different from that of its creators and the audience to whom it was originally addressed. In reality, it can be oriented not only towards the desirable dream, as established by its most frequent use of utopia as a synonym of a perfect society, but also towards a nightmarish state of affairs that would be best avoided at all costs. In etymological rigor, “u-topia” is a non-place, a place that exists only in the fiction in question. When it serves to propose a better world, it is to be known by its phonetic twin, “eutopia,” a good place, while when it points towards degrading extrapolation the term is “cacotopia,” a bad place, or the better known “dystopia,” the deviation from a (good) place into a much worse one (Gómez, 2021, p. 28). Addressing the genre’s rhetorical dimension (Miller, 1984), Pamela Bedore argues that utopia and dystopia represent two different rhetorical responses to the same social anxieties: the former describes a society where the problem has been solved and thus provides us with a “blueprint for the solution,” while in the latter “our worst fears have become reality,” so it functions rhetorically as “a cautionary tale” (Bedore, 2017, p. 10). Probably the most hyperbolic expressions of the two utopian extremes are Heaven and Hell, understood as places beyond earthly life to which, according to Christian doctrine, people’s actions will lead them: the virtuous to the former, the sinful to the latter. From this perspective, Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy (c. 1320) is an interesting case of successive presentation of the dystopia and the eutopia par excellence, as the author-turned-character of his own narrative moves from one to the other in his wandering through the afterlife. It is worth remembering here that the fictional Dante is also a witness to that zone of expiation that is Purgatory, not only because of its etymological and semantic relationship with the title of the television series addressed below, but above all because it represents the shades of gray that almost inevitably permeate every utopian narrative. So much so that More’s Utopia itself is far from being purely eutopian, for it does not represent a perfect society, insofar as “its alternative to More’s Tudor England includes slavery, capital punishment, and a significant divide between social and economic classes” (Sands, 2017, p. 178). This observation brings out the conflicting essence that makes the utopian genre such a stimulating narrative framework for the debate about reality and the direction of societies: the eutopia of some may be the dystopia of others with different ways of thinking and/or under different circumstances (Pineda, 2021, p. 15). In this regard it is illustrative to consider one of the earliest examples of utopian literature—of the dystopian subgenre in particular—in the United 94 hermida and jiménez-varea and folk horror in a small Californian town that goes murderously insane on that very night (Muir, 2007, pp. 29, 37, 140). Other classic anthology series also occasionally gave space to dystopias and/or elements akin to The Purge, including Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone (CBS, 1959–1964), specializing in science fiction and horror: “The Obsolete Man” (S02E29) and “Number 12 Looks Just like You” (S05E17) present two textbook dystopian futures—in the former, an atheist dictatorship that has banned books sentences a librarian who believes in god to death, while in the latter, citizens are forced to undergo cosmetic surgery when they reach adulthood to conform to the canons of beauty; “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”(S01E22) and “The Shelter” (S03E03) highlight the Cold War climate of paranoia that leads to mass hysteria and violent chaos in seemingly peaceful communities, with the ultimate moral that human beings are their own worst enemies; and “The Masks” (S05E25) is a tale set at Mardi Gras in New Orleans where grotesque masks reveal the equally monstrous nature of those who wear them. The long-running science fiction series Doctor Who (BBC, 1963–1988; 2005–) has also included important doses of skepticism about the perfect society and alarm about dystopias: the main character himself is a Time Lord who sets out on adventures on board his old-fashioned time machine, TARDIS, bored with the monotony of his species; and over the series’ many decades, the various incarnations of the Doctor have repeatedly had to contend with the threat of the belligerent civilization of the Daleks, as well as the organicmechanic hybrids called Cybermen, who seek to turn other unfortunates into beings like themselves—not to mention the Doctor’s visit to an alternate universe where Britain is a fascist state (S07E19-S07E25: “Inferno”). Likewise, the first Star Trek series, mentioned above, and its successors in the franchise have offered myriad examples of undesirable civilizations in the form of the totalitarian enemy powers faced by the techno-utopian United Federation of Planets, from the classic Romulans and Klingons to the Cardassians and the multi-species Dominion, as well as the ultra-capitalist Ferengi. But probably the most imposing of these dystopian threats for their total absence of humanity was the Borg collective of Star Trek: The Next Generation (syndication, 1987–1994), with its incessant slogan, “Resistance is futile,” which continues to plague the franchise’s series to this day (Chaires, 2003, p. 273). In addition, Star Trek has progressively questioned the eutopian perfection of the astrofuturist Federation, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (syndication, 1993–1999) to Star Trek: Picard (CBS All Access, 2020; Paramount+, 2022–2023), but undoubtedly Cognition and Emotion in Dystopian TV Serial Worlds 95 the franchise’s most obvious exercise in anti-utopia is the Mirror Universe, an alternate reality populated by perverse doppelgängers of the generally noble members of the various Starfleet crews. However, there is one particular episode of the original series that The Purge creator, James DeMonaco, has acknowledged as a direct inspiration: “The Return of the Archons” (S01E21) depicts a planet dominated by a computerized intelligence, whose generally docile inhabitants periodically indulge in the so-called Festival, a day of violent debauchery (Vaux, 2021). In his cultural history of science fiction film and television, Lincoln Geraghty (2009) explains that the genre was invested with a “negativity” in the late 1960s that continued into the following decade, probably driven by two very different films, 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) and The Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968). Precisely, the latter, with its shocking post-apocalyptic ending, gave rise to a sequel and several prequels that explained how apes came to subjugate humans, as well as a short television series, Planet of the Apes (CBS, 1974), which took up the approaches of the first film installment for the small screen. This was not the only time that American television followed this strategy of borrowing from film hits to satisfy the demand for science fiction series; thus, the film Logan’s Run (Michael Anderson, 1976), which portrays a questionable utopia in which everyone must die on reaching the age of 30, also gave rise to a short-lived series of the same title (CBS, 1977–1978). In the 1970s, Hollywood cinema hosted other now-classic examples of the dystopian genre, such as Silent Running (Douglas Trumbull, 1972), Soylent Green (Richard Fleischer, 1973), Rollerball (Norman Jewison, 1975) and Death Race 2000 (Paul Bartel, 1975). Especially the latter two are interesting in relation to The Purge because they describe dystopian societies in which aggression between citizens and even between different states has drastically decreased thanks to the promotion of lethal sports competitions that everyone follows passionately. This premise had a recent precedent in the Italian film La decima vittima (Elio Petri, 1965), set in the post-World War III year of 2079, when governments have designed a method to dispel violent instincts: “The Big Hunt,” a kind of reality show in which contestants hunt and kill each other. The theme of the hunt for human prey has its great referent in Richard Connell’s story “The Most Dangerous Game” (Collier’s, January 19, 1924) and its multiple film adaptations from 1932 to the present (The Most Dangerous Game, Justin Lee, 2022). Likewise, this idea was embodied in the dystopian variant of deadly sports from the films mentioned above to others such as The Running Man (Paul Michael Glaser, 1987)—on 96 hermida and jiménez-varea a novel by Stephen King (1982)—or the film series The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012; Francis Lawrence, 2013–2015)—on the novels by Suzanne Collins (2008–2010). Close to this category are also the films Westworld (Michael Crichton, 1973) and Futureworld (Richard T. Heffron, 1976), as well as the television series inspired by them, Westworld (HBO, 2016–2022), all about the concept of a theme park where visitors can unleash their worst instincts on androids indistinguishable from human beings.5 Also, the combination of lethal contests with aporophobia and radical social Darwinism—all essential ingredients of The Purge franchise—has resulted in series like the Brazilian 3% (Netflix, 2016–2020) and the South Korean hit The Squid Game (Netflix, 2021–), which depict how hopelessness debases the underprivileged to the point of killing each other to amuse the affluent, hoping for a chance to move up the social ladder. It is interesting to consider here the dystopian aspects—rather than being dystopias per se—inherent in the invasion genre, propelled primarily by the popularity of George Tomkyns Chesney’s The Battle of Dorking: Reminiscences of a Volunteer (1871). This novella recounts from the perspective of a 1920s narrator a fictional invasion of England by a German-speaking power in the present of its original publication. Chesney’s intention was to warn of what he perceived as a real danger from Prussia and to call for preparedness. As detailed in Clarke (1995), up to the eve of World War I such narratives proliferated, including its alien invasion variant, initiated by H. G. Wells with his The War of the Worlds (1898). Descendant of this idea is the popular multi-series V / V: The Final Battle / V: The Series (NBC, 1983–1985)— remade as V (ABC, 2009–2011)—where human-looking aliens known as the Visitors arrive on Earth, ostensibly intending to help humanity with their more advanced technology. However, a surprising plot twist then reveals that these aliens are actually rat-eating reptilian beings in disguise, whose real goal is stealing the planet’s water. V enters dystopian territory when the Visitors occupy the United States and declare martial law, resulting in a scenario in which most humans are simply subdued and some are collaborationists, while the series’ heroes form armed resistance militias, as in the European countries occupied by Germany during World War II. In fact, the design of V’s alien civilization, from its own swastika-like insignia and SS-style uniforms to the fascistoid regime itself, was inspired by the Nazis (Sherman, 2022, pp. 48–49). Other narratives have addressed the possibility of the United States being occupied by the Nazis without resorting to extraterrestrial subterfuge, most Cognition and Emotion in Dystopian TV Serial Worlds 97 notably by replacing the premise of an alien invasion with the resort to alternate history. At this point, it is necessary to return to the figure of Philip K. Dick, insofar as his novel The Man in the High Castle (1962)—recently turned into a television series—is the paradigmatic example of this dystopian category: a storyworld in which the German-Japanese Axis won World War II and the two countries split the domination of the planet, so that the East and West coasts of the United States are occupied respectively by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Dystopian twists regarding the development of World War II are a favorite of alternate histories and there is no shortage of other examples, such as Len Deighton’s novel SS-GB (1978), adapted into a television series (BBC, 2017), or Robert Harris’ novel Fatherland (1992), turned into a television movie (HBO, Christopher Menaul, 1994). In the last years of the Cold War, U.S. screens also harbored fantasies about the possibility of a Soviet invasion: this is the case in John Milius’ film Red Dawn (1984)—in the 2012 remake (Dan Bradley), the invaders are North Koreans—featuring a group of young patriotic guerrilla fighters resisting occupation. Likewise, the television series Amerika (ABC, 1987) presents a 1997 United States that has been under USSR control for a decade. But threats to democracy do not come exclusively from external forces; often the worst enemy has always been within. Narrative speculation about a fascist party coming to power in the United States had a pioneer in the first U.S. Nobel laureate in literature, Sinclair Lewis, who wrote It Can’t Happen Here (1935) in response to the rise of fascism in Europe. Lewis’ novel is based on the premise that President Franklin D. Roosevelt would be defeated in the 1936 election by a populist senator who, upon reaching the White House, would implement a repressive regime similar to that which, at the time, existed in real-world Germany and Italy. It Can’t Happen Here was not adapted as such to the big screen, although the cult film It Happened Here (Kevin Brownlow & Andrew Mollo, 1964) makes an obvious nod in its title to Sinclair’s novel; in this amateur production, the prospective dystopia about the United States of the late 1930s becomes an alternate history transplanted to a Britain occupied by the Nazis since their victory at the Battle of Dunkirk. On the small screen, Lewis’ book inspired the television film Shadow on the Land (also known as United States: It Can’t Happen Here, ABC, Richard C. Sarafian, 1968), which loosely updated the novel’s plot to the late 1960s. Over a decade later, in 1982, television writer Kenneth Johnson drew on It Can’t Happen Here to develop a series project tentatively titled Storm Warnings that he pitched to NBC; however, the network’s executives rejected the idea that US citizens could elect a 98 hermida and jiménez-varea fascist President, preferring instead to have Johnson rework his proposal as a Nazi-like alien invasion, resulting in the V series mentioned above (Sherman, 2022, p. 48). In recent times, the premise of an authoritarian government being installed in the United States or some other country with a democratic tradition no longer seems so far-fetched or uncommercial, perhaps because of the political evolution of the real world. Indeed, the so-called alt-right has been on the rise internationally over the last two decades, reaching positions of power even within well-established democracies. In that sense, and as far as the subject of this chapter is concerned, the most relevant example is undoubtedly that of Donald Trump, who held the office of President of the United States between 2016 and 2020. The fascist and even Hitlerian echoes of Trump’s public manners and ideological discourse have not gone unnoticed by political analysts: Certainly, Trump is not Hitler and his initial followers during the 2016 election were not technically fascists, although we believe that we can use the terms authoritarian populism or neo-fascism to explain Trump and his supporters in the lead-up to the 2016 election and into his presidency. Authoritarian movements ranging from German and Italian fascism to Franco’s Spain to Latin American and other dictatorships throughout the world, which center on an authoritarian leader and followers who submit to their leadership and demands. We argue that Donald Trump is an authoritarian leader who has mobilized an authoritarian populist movement that follows his leadership. (Akande & Kellner, 2023, pp. 5–6) The fictional extrapolation of such authoritarian drifts are the starting point for some of the most outstanding examples of contemporary television dystopias, such as The Handmaid’s Tale, based on the classic by genre specialist Margaret Atwood (1985): in the series, a coup d’état has installed in the United States a misogynist theocracy known as the Republic of Gilead that sexually enslaves women for procreation. On its part, the miniseries Years and Years, a future story that takes place between 2019 and 2040 through the experiences of an average family, describes the ascension to the British government of an outspoken businesswoman combining traits of real alt-right leaders from Trump to Giorgia Meloni. Finally, to get to the series on which the rest of the chapter will focus, The Purge, as part of the franchise of the same title, takes place in a United States governed by the NFFA, a reactionary party whose flagship policy to end crime and unemployment is to institute a new national holiday whereby, one night a year, it is legal for any citizen to commit almost any kind of act, no matter how violent. Cognition and Emotion in Dystopian TV Serial Worlds 99 From Film to Seriality: Emotions and TV Series Carl Plantinga’s Cinematic Emotions This chapter adapts to television series the classification of emotions that Carl Plantinga develops in relation to cinema in his text “Emotion and Affect” (2009). In it, the author specifies the differences between extracinematic and cinematic emotions, and determines three fundamental categories of the latter, which he explores in depth. To begin with, Plantinga (2009) identifies the “fiction emotions”, subdivided into “direct” and “sympathetic/antipathetic emotions” (p. 90). While the former, such as curiosity or fascination, take as their object the development of the narrative itself, the latter, in connection with “character engagement” (Smith, 1995), take as their object the nature, attitude or situation of a specific character in the film (and these can be “pro-emotions”, such as admiration or compassion, or “con-emotions”, like contempt or disgust) (Plantinga, 2009, p. 90). Secondly, the author distinguishes the so-called “artifact emotions,” that is, those that take the film itself as their object, derived therefore from issues rooted in the particularities of the production (p. 89). Thus, the viewer may be fascinated by the production design and art direction, seduced by the cinematography and the technical expertise of the camera movements, or feel admiration for the narrative construction of the story. Finally, Plantinga puts the spotlight on “metaemotions,” those centered on the viewer’s own response in a reflexive way (p. 89). For example, feeling disappointed with oneself after having unfairly judged the protagonist of the story, or satisfied after having placed trust in the right character. Thus, transferring Plantinga’s classification to television seriality, the following pages look at the case study of The Purge, in order to explore outstanding manifestations of artifact and direct emotions and metaemotions, in connection with the Noël Carroll’s models that are presented below. Noël Carroll’s “Erotetic Narration” and “Criterial Prefocusing” Models In “Movies, Narration and the Emotions” (2019), Carroll delves into the model of “erotetic narration” he had previously developed to explain how commercial film narratives get and keep the viewer’s interest (Carroll, 2010), as well as the 100 hermida and jiménez-varea process of “criterial prefocusing” that guides the viewer’s attention, demonstrating the feasibility and advantages of their methodological conjugation. In this section, we take these film-based theoretical proposals and adapt them to the specificities of television series, considering the particularities that seriality brings in this sense. To do so, we necessarily take into account that the series object of the case study is part of a film franchise, which extends its narrative universe to the realms of television fiction. Specifically, Carroll’s (2019) erotetic (from the Greek “pertaining to questioning”) narration model focuses on the characteristic way in which mass-market movies work in terms of four key aspects: “(1) how a movie holds our attention […]; (2) how spectators are able to follow its unfolding; (3) how it succeeds in making us feel that it is unified; and (4) how it engenders a feeling of closure” (pp. 209–210). From these, Carroll conceives such movies’ narrative as a process of posing questions and answers, in a permanent “dialogue” with the viewer that feeds his curiosity and maintains his uncertainty. All these questions, with their respective answers, constitute an “evolving network” that gives the work (the appearance of) uniqueness and coherence (p. 211). In this process, a hierarchical dynamic is imposed, descending from the “presiding macro questions”, dominant and of global nature in relation to the story, to more localized/more limited scope “micro questions”, subordinate to the previous ones and of local character, elementary to weave the seams between scenes and sequences (pp. 212–213). Following this model, its application to television fiction allows to expand the network of questions and answers to the structural particularities of seriality, as a global piece subdivided into seasons and episodes. This is not a far-fetched extrapolation, since television writers often work on the assumption that, In conceiving a TV pilot, your initial creative process might be very similar to writing a screenplay for a feature-length movie: premise, setting, character development— but the tricky part is recognizing that you’re not writing toward the ultimate payoff at the climax. Instead, you’re getting your audience up to speed on the "arena" (setting, logistics, characters, layers of back-story) of your series—and then setting the stage for a story that unfolds from episode to episode and/or week to week. In this way, the end of your pilot is the beginning of your series. (Landau, 2022, p. 88) Therefore, when it comes to a television series, the erotetic model expands to macro questions capable of covering an entire series at its highest level, progressively descending to the levels of seasons, episodes and, within each of these, questions of increasingly smaller scale down to the micro questions envisaged by Carroll. Cognition and Emotion in Dystopian TV Serial Worlds 101 With regard to the criterial prefocusing process, as the author argues, “emotions are psycho-physical mechanisms that we use to negotiate the environment” (2019, p. 214); an environment that, unlike everyday life, in films “has already been designed to make certain emotional themes such as, for instance, danger or injustice stand out” (p. 216). Thus, with criterial prefocusing, the main way in which films attract the viewer’s emotions according to the author (p. 217), Carroll concentrates on those elements that configure the shot, the scene and the sequence and that have been previously selected and highlighted by the filmmaker through visual, sound, narrative and dramaturgical devices. There is, therefore, a prior filter established by the filmmaker, which guides the viewer’s attention to the elements that require a specific, intended and conditioned emotional response: “This prefocusing, moreover, is criterial because the selected objects of attention are criterially appropriate to the intended emotion” (p. 216). Thus, consequently, characters and situations have been criterially prefocused, obeying a previous design that directs the viewer’s emotions in the planned direction. Case Study: Dystopia and Emotions in The Purge The Purge is a film franchise created by James DeMonaco, produced by Blumhouse Productions and Platinum Dunes and distributed by Universal Pictures that presents “a dystopian picture of the United States that conceptualizes and challenges the intersections of structural economic inequality and racism in the neoliberal state” (Armstrong, 2019, p. 377). Under the government of the NFFA, the country perpetuates the prevailing economic and racial injustice through a violence not only permitted, but also encouraged, understood as cathartic and healing, which crystallizes in the so-called “Purge Night”. This materializes during 12 hours a year in which anarchy is imposed, giving free rein to murder and reckoning; a situation of exceptionality conceived as a right, and in which vulnerability and marginality go hand in hand, as opposed to the privilege of the powerful, less exposed to “cleanliness” and barbarism. More specifically, as the security message that begins the Purge Night states: This is your emergency broadcast system announcing the commencement of the Annual Purge sanctioned by the US Government. Weapons of class 4 and lower have been authorized for use during the Purge. All other weapons are restricted. Government officials of ranking 10 have been granted immunity from the Purge and shall 102 hermida and jiménez-varea not be harmed. Commencing at the siren, any and all crime, including murder, will be legal for 12 continuous hours. Police, fire, and emergency medical services will be unavailable until tomorrow morning at 7 am, when the Purge concludes. Blessed be our New Founding Fathers and America, a nation reborn. May God be with you all. Following the franchise’s fictional chronology, the fourth film, The First Purge, is a prequel that recounts the experimental test of this practice, geographically restricted to Staten Island, in the year 2017. The original film, The Purge, is set on the fifth night of the Purge and centers on the suburban home of James Sandin, a successful security company executive who has grown rich precisely because of the demand for protection during that violent annual holiday.6 The second film, The Purge: Anarchy, moves the action to the streets of a big city with multiple characters and plot lines that intersect during the sixth Purge Night. The third film installment, The Purge: Election Year, jumps forward to the year 2040, reprising a character from the previous film, former police sergeant Leo Barnes, here a bodyguard for anti-Purge presidential candidate Charlie Roan, whom the NFFA wants dead; at the end of this film, Roan is elected President of the United States and abolishes the Purge. The fifth and final film to date, The Forever Purge, is set a few years later, when the NFFA has returned to government and reinstated the Purge, but there are radical groups all over the country who refuse to limit their armed violence to one night a year, so the situation escalates into total nationwide chaos, thus demonstrating the ultimate futility of the Purge. The television series, which premiered on USA Network with Thomas Kelly as its showrunner, expands the narrative universe of the film franchise, with two seasons of ten episodes each, originally broadcasted in 2018 and 2019. Fictionally, the events of the series fall between those of the films The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year, with the first season taking place during the Purge Night of 2027, while the second season primarily covers the year from Purge Night 2036 to Purge Night 2037. Both seasons follow multiple protagonists, whose lives run on the edge and in parallel, immersed in a dystopian cocktail that explores themes such as violence, catharsis and purification, economic and racial inequality and injustice, government corruption, or control and surveillance, among many others. Erotetic Narration and The Purge Franchise as a Whole The Purge franchise is a clear case of diegetic expansion from the enticing embryo of a dystopian storyworld encapsulated in its first installment. In Cognition and Emotion in Dystopian TV Serial Worlds 103 that case, the high concept of a national holiday/social-engineering policy consisting of legalizing for one night a year any kind of violent act served to rationalize a home invasion horror story. In the original The Purge film, this rationalization sought to answer the question of why a group of young masked killers besiege and then invade the Sandin family home in an affluent Los Angeles suburb. Here it is interesting to note that, at the beginning of one of the most relevant audiovisual dystopias, A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971), the protagonist and his gang perpetrate a shocking home invasion that characterizes them as the brutal result of a messed-up society. On the other hand, in Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah, 1971), most of the film is devoted to building up the hostility of the locals towards the mild-mannered protagonist and the escalation of affronts that eventually activates the latter’s capacity for violence when it comes to putting down the attackers in the climactic home invasion. However, the home invasion horror subgenre evolved in such a way that siege-and-invasion itself progressively took center stage as well as the bulk of the footage, often to the detriment of the causes of the attack. In fact, the reasons for the invasion do not even figure among the presiding questions that characterize the subgenre’s formula in line with Carroll’s erotetic model. As Dario Macucci (2020) argues, “the questions generating suspense in home invasion movies are: Is someone trying to enter the house? When this is affirmatively answered: Will the intruders succeed in killing the residents?” (p. 251). The original The Purge does indeed conform to the interrogative formula outlined by Macucci, but it also incorporates some questions specific to the franchise’s particular premise. Since any kind of violent act is permitted for a few hours a year, there is always the possibility that someone will take advantage of them to retaliate expeditiously even for petty quarrels. Such is, in fact, the case in the film that opens the franchise when the boyfriend of the Sandins’ daughter unexpectedly tries to kill her father, James, who is not enthusiastic about their relationship. From that moment on, new questions arise: who else might have plans to kill whom during this night and why? At the end of the film, the viewer’s curiosity is satisfied when the same neighbors who had behaved conventionally friendly to the Sandins on the eve of the Purge, now want to kill them because they envy their economic prosperity. In short, the core concept of The Purge serves to provide the springboard for the home invasion, in a subgenre that seemed to have fallen into a nihilistic drift in terms of the motivations of the aggressors, especially after the 9/11 attacks. This is best represented by The Strangers (Bryan Bertino, 2008), where, to the victims’ 110 hermida and jiménez-varea the siren is imposed, the identifying signal that initiates and closes the Purge Night. Over this score, the dominant uneasiness is reinforced by the selection of images, at times more ambiguous or abstract (mainly in the case of the first season) or in clear connection with the contents of the series, as happens with the video surveillance recordings or the representative GOD mask of the second season. The images are also conditioned by their visual treatment, both from the chromatic point of view, and especially by the use of filters and textures that deteriorate and distort them, as happens, graphically, with the broken typography that titles the series. In this sense, there are numerous resources of the moving image language that serve to configure/shape a specific “mood” (Smith, 2003, p. 42), which envelops the narrative, defines the series, and guides the viewer’s emotions along a traced path.8 Frequently, there are expressive solutions which are common to the franchise—that is, recurrent style marks inherited from film productions—as opposed to other particular resources, which belong instead to the specific sub-universe of the television series. Under this approach, production and costume designs, art direction and photography assume a prominent role, essential for the setting and, therefore, for the configuration of an atmosphere in accordance with the story, aesthetically recognizable and emotionally shaping. Thus, for example, the viewer is immersed in the nighttime environment of the Purge, where uncontrolled violence reigns, exercised by individuals who hide behind masks and disturbing costumes, which facilitate anonymity and foster confusion, a sense of danger and, ultimately, fear. The fascinating visual design lends a grotesque quality to a “dehumanized” night during which the showcase of sinister masks endows the story with the ingredients of horror and slasher; codes that appeal to the emotional in a visceral way. The nocturnal nature as a time frame plays a determining role to enhance the sensations described and activate the duality of darkness/light, which is established as a dynamic of marked contrast in The Purge. In addition to this duality, there is also the external/internal binomial, in the game of oppositions that the series unfolds. In the darkness of the night, the “hunt” unfolds savagely in the streets, on those who are exposed and vulnerable, at the mercy of sadistic fantasies. Photographically, the lighting oscillates between absence and presence, between the coldness and warmth of contrasting color temperatures. At times, even the night vision filters the image and reveals to the viewer the prevailing atrocity, thus facilitating the (ocular) identification and the process of immersion in the scene (S01E02: “Take What’s Yours”). However, no shelter Cognition and Emotion in Dystopian TV Serial Worlds 111 seems safe in The Purge, despite the sense of apparent protection it may confer. The threat is always latent, and distrust is omnipresent, which introduces the viewer into an atmosphere of constant tension; a permanent state of uncertainty, intensified by the aesthetics that shape the story. In addition, there is a wide range of visual representations that spectacularize the normalization of violence prevalent in the series, with the Purge itself turned into a spectacle in various forms. Thus, the gruesome events of that night are broadcast on television in the manner of a reality show spiced with ambushes and chases, which some viewers—such as those attending the NFFA party—enjoy from the safety of fortified mansions, while other citizens—such as Miguel—risk their lives in the streets (S01E02: “Take What’s Yours”). In its storyworld, the Purge also inspires a virtual reality videogame that invites to “Test your kill skills” through an interactive knife-controller, with which Ben unsuccessfully tries to quench his craving for violence (S02E02: “Everything Is Fine”). Also, the Purge serves as an elitist entertainment, in which the targets of the manhunt are death row convicts, exposed as prey with no possible escape, for the whim and delight of the powerful (S02E09: “Hail Mary”). And to name just one more of the many ways in which the Purge becomes spectacle and entertainment within the series, there is the so-called that is the Carnival of Flesh, also described as the “McDonalds of the Purge” (S01E04: “Release the Beast”). Especially this sinister carnival propitiates a scenographic display that elevates the dystopian mood to a level where the concepts of amusement park and house of horror converge in a space where the martyrs are treated like cattle and delivered to the highest bidders for the satisfaction of their most macabre desires. Beyond its narrative value, the mise-en-scène also nourishes artifact emotions in representations such as those mentioned above, which not only allow the viewer to enter the portrayed universe and enjoy its visual construction, but also facilitate a better understanding of the story. In turn, as previously noted about the opening sequence, aural components also assume a significant role in the series, to the extent that it is fundamental in the creation of atmospheres and elementary determinants of the viewer’s mood. For one thing, music fulfills its external, internal and technical functions at the service of the narrative, underlining the genre’s key, with a manifest emotional use and an outstanding power of anticipation, suggestion and dramatic intensification. The instrumental and rhythmic particularities of the musical pieces fit the dark nature of the story and the events narrated, while acquiring protagonism by themselves. Also, it is worth mentioning again the film franchise’s quintessential aural element, which is also present in the 112 hermida and jiménez-varea series: the sound of the siren that punctuates the beginning and end of each Purge Night, its narrative implications coupled with the activation of the state of alertness in characters and spectators, underlining the lurking danger. All these elements, moreover, are embedded in an indispensable framework for the story and the emotional preconfiguration, as is the narrative structure itself: the arrangement of the events of both seasons, organized around the countdown; a narrative against the clock. As already noted, the first season focuses on the development of the Purge Night, from beginning to end. The second, on the other hand, does so around the year that passes from one Purge Night to the next. The countdown marks both seasons, either discounting the time remaining until the end of Purge Night in the first season or the beginning of the next in the second season; one way or another, this resource sets the pace and plays with the expectations and emotions of both the characters and the viewers. In this sense, The Purge presents other storytelling strategies that expressively enhance emotions derived from narrative events and generate artifact emotions about themselves. Thus, for example, the multi-plot and multi-character design of the series—with a parallel follow-up of (interconnected) characters, accompanied by time jumps between their presents and pasts—are established as mechanisms that enable the dosage of information, playing with the narrative times and sustaining the tension, suspense and uncertainty experienced by viewers. The Purge and the Metaemotions In the case of The Purge, metaemotions acquire a prominent value in a double sense. For one thing, the disturbing universe posed by the franchise seeps into the viewer’s mind in the form of the aforementioned presiding macro-question, “What would I do?”, which remains present throughout the course of the series. There are not few occasions in both seasons in which the moral conflict that assails the characters is not only evaluated, but also “assimilated” by the viewer, who projects him/herself into the described situations to elucidate what would be his/her attitude towards them, what would be his/her position in such a dystopian context. The presence of the “What if …” transferred to the spectator in first person seems inevitable. Even towards a more intimate field, issues such as the “purge lists” (S01E02: “Take What’s Yours”), which include those people in our lives that we would purge, transcend fiction to make the audience a special participant in the “game” that The Purge poses. That feasible projection Cognition and Emotion in Dystopian TV Serial Worlds 113 into and “dialogue” with the viewers’ respective realities—those questions that resonate and assail during the viewing of the series—stir their emotions and make them aware of such dilemmas, putting them at the center of a moral target beyond the story itself, but intimately connected to it. Of course, it is fascinating to immerse oneself in the context of The Purge from the comfort of the couch, but the idea of this possible (near) world and its implications on a personal level accentuate the emotional reactions and their questioning. Secondly, considering the narrative particularities of both seasons, the series makes the characters of Joe Owens and Ben Gardner cases of significant relevance from a metaemotional perspective. Derived mainly from the fiction emotions (sympathetic/antipathetic) in relation to the behaviors and situations faced by the characters, viewers move between the “pro-emotions” and the “con-emotions” already specified, depending on the evolution of the characters’ behaviors as the events unfold. In this way, viewers react to their own emotional responses, conditioned by processes of identification, mirroring, empathy, sympathy, or antipathy, among others. In addition, the prolonged duration inherent to television seriality implies a generalized increase in the time spent with the characters, which not only allows for a deeper understanding of their motivations and external/internal conflicts, but also favors the feeling of familiarity and attachment to them (Blanchet & Vaage, 2012). This intensifies the possibilities of the viewer’s emotional flow in correlation with the evolution of the characters, thus enhancing the “meta-emotionality” according to the situation. In the cases of Joe and Ben, it is the progressive unfolding of their respective natures and deep motivations that generates in the viewer a marked change of attitude towards them. Following the “structure of sympathy” of character engagement (Smith, 1995), both characters go far beyond the limits of sympathetic allegiance, corresponding to the audience’s cognitive and affective adherence to the character’s values and moral point of view. Regarding Joe, it is the dosage of information and the uncertainty that surrounds him that make possible an a priori misinterpretation of the character by the viewer. Initially, the enigmatic masked man seems to assume the role of a well-meaning vigilante, hunter of hunters, liberator of victims in distress (S01E03: “The Urge to Purge”; S01E05: “Rise Up”). In the absence of a more detailed portrayal, given that his appearances are initially limited to sparse episode-closing brushstrokes, viewers tend to align themselves with Joe. Even more so when some explanatory flashbacks highlight the injustices and 114 hermida and jiménez-varea hardships he has endured throughout his life, whether in the work, family or personal sphere (S01E06: “The Forgotten”). The same happens when he bursts into David Ryker’s depraved party to save Jane Barbour, accompanied by the pro-Purge motivational speech that resonates in his vehicle stating: “The Purge is your chance to rise up, to stand tall and reclaim your power. So rise, slay your oppressors. On Purge Night, the exploited, the persecuted, the broken will all rise up together and march hand-in-hand to victory” (S01E07: “Lovely Dark and Deep”). The construction of the character certainly seems designed to support his cause, were it not for the fact that appearances hide some true deviant motivations (S01E09: “I Will Participate”). When viewers discover and collide with the reality that the supposed savior is just the opposite, they are forced to revise their emotional bond with the character, reacting with dislike and rejection towards him, but perhaps without completely abandoning a certain “complicity”. Compared to the mystery that accompanies Joe during most of the first season, the case of Ben Gardner presents substantial differences. In this case, viewers also tend to initially align themselves with the character, who has become a victim from the outset (S02E01: “This Is Not a Test”). However, here the loss of complicity with Ben does not occur abruptly as with Joe, but gradually, as the character’s transformation arc progresses from victim to unscrupulous executioner. The traumatic experience Ben undergoes at the beginning of the season is the trigger for his latent thirst for violence, nurtured since childhood by an indoctrinating system that encourages it (S02E09: “Hail Mary”). Even if the protagonist’s descent into hell from one Purge Night to the next entails a struggle and suffering on his part that encourages viewers’ empathy, the cruelty that the so-called “Campus Killer” ends up embracing leaves no room for approval. Despite the inquiry into the character’s internal conflict, which brings us closer to his feelings, and regardless of being able to understand him as a victim of the system, any doubt in favor of a remote sympathetic allegiance vanishes completely, if not earlier, when he murders his dying partner with his own hands (S02E07: “Should I Stay or Should I Go”) and when he perpetuates the slaughter of his college mates (S02E08: “Before the Sirens”). In the end, the character’s reality becomes apparent both to the audience and to Ben himself, who ultimately comes to accept his vicious nature. However, the darkness that defines the protagonist does not deprive him of appeal, quite the contrary, in that it provides fertile ground for the viewer’s metaemotional conflict at the base of the bad protagonist era. Cognition and Emotion in Dystopian TV Serial Worlds 115 Conclusions As a transmedia franchise, The Purge fits through both its film and television installments into a continuing legacy of audio-visual depictions of dystopian societies that remains fully relevant to the present day. Under the guise of a narrative somewhere between action thriller and survival horror, it presents a United States ruled by an authoritarian party that promotes the illusion of having succeeded in drastically improving the nation’s economy and internal security thanks to the institution of the annual Purge Night. Through a review of the notions and works related to the utopian genre and to the dystopian subgenre in particular, we have shown that the latter consists of cautionary tales about the perilous directions in which a society may evolve. To effectively perform such an admonitory function, dystopias must establish that whatever imagined sociopolitical system is involved has caused an undesirable reality, even to nightmarish extremes. In contrast to the more intellectual and philosophical essay-like character of eutopian narratives, their dystopian counterparts articulate their discourses through stories in which the embodied and emotional dimension of the characters takes on prominence and is projected towards the audience. As Carroll’s criterial prefocusing model postulates, when it comes to film and television dystopias such as The Purge, the precise enhancement and foregrounding of well-chosen stimuli through audiovisual resources ensures to a large extent that viewers vicariously experience the emotional desolation of the characters in their unsavory reality. In this chapter, we have analyzed in detail how the two-season extension of The Purge series has allowed its creators to orchestrate and deploy a whole repertoire of mise-en-scène, directorial and post-production resources—both common to the franchise as a whole and some indigenous to the series—that shape the impression of a social hell and elicit a corresponding emotional response from viewers. For this analysis we have relied on Plantinga’s model of artifact emotions, direct emotions and metaemotions, of which we have been able to find relevant examples throughout the series, observing also how the long-term character engagement proper to seriality can reinforce them. The key role of embodiment and emotionality in dystopian narratives does not invalidate the fact that it is a genre of speculative fiction intended to deliver a cognitive impact to the audience in the hope of promoting attitudinal and even behavioral changes that will contribute to prevent a world like the one being depicted. At this cognitive level, we have relied on Carroll’s theory concerning the erotetic structure that typically underlies mass-market 116 hermida and jiménez-varea film narratives in the form of questions that drive plot lines while simultaneously piquing viewers’ interest in anticipation of answers that might satisfy their curiosity. While this approach by Carroll points to the self-conclusive nature of the single film, we have extrapolated his erotetic model not only to the series but to The Purge franchise as a whole. In doing so, we have drawn on Kelleter’s concept of popular seriality, whereby narratives come to proliferate as a result of a dialectic between the tendency to closure and the opposite tendency to revisit and further explore the story in question and its world. Indeed, we have been able to see how the pairs of questions and implicit answers at different levels of amplitude assemble the plots of both the original film—on which we have focused as an illustrative case—and the episodes of the series in the conventional sense proposed by Carroll. But the fact that we are studying a serial narrative developed over several film and television installments has led us to notice that questions also arise aimed at learning more about the storyworld built by this franchise and how it has come to be so. In particular, we have observed that the serial format has proved particularly appropriate in the second season of The Purge series to depart from the fixed formula of the films—employed also in the first season—and satisfy viewers’ curiosity as to what this dystopian society is like between two Purge Nights. In this regard, we postulate that, at the level of intertextuality inherent to a transmedia franchise such as The Purge, the growing network of diegetic interconnections between its various installments may constitute a source of interest for followers of a serial proliferation narrative, added to that of the erotetic structure at the level of each separate installment or singular story. In another vein, the interrogative nature of dystopian speculation has also led us to address the power that Carroll attributes to questions as narrative engines not only in relation to the plot but also in a thematic sense that directly interpellates the viewer. Thus, it stands out that the entire The Purge franchise is traversed by the basic dilemma “During the night of the Purge, would you purge or would you be purged?” Finally, we have determined that up to a certain point The Purge poses as a critical dystopia in that it shows a society undesirable to terrible extremes but leaves room for hope. So much so that the second season of the television series connects in the fictional chronology with the film The Purge: Election Year, which shows how the opposition to the NFFA government manages to reach the White House and abolish the Purge. However, the latest cinematic installment, The Forever Purge, depicts the United States as the Purge tradition resumes, but is Cognition and Emotion in Dystopian TV Serial Worlds 117 no longer limited to one annual night in such a way that it plunges the entire country into a post-apocalyptic nightmare. This evolution highlights how The Purge franchise is a dynamic phenomenon that evolves in terms of popular seriality, thus raising new questions about the possibilities of avoiding or overcoming a dystopian reality. Notes 1 The full text of A Sojourn in the City of Amalgamation, in the Year of Our Lord, 19-- is available online at: https://arch ive.org/deta ils/soj ourn inci tyof a00b olo/page/n5/mode/2up 2 It is no coincidence that Esmail previously created Mr. Robot (USA Network, 2015–2019), a series well known for its pessimistic—bordering on dystopian—view of the omnipresence of technology in society. 3 In this adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the sadistic O’Brien was played by Lorne Green, who ironically would soon be cast as the benevolent patriarch in the optimistic western Bonanza (NBC, 1959–1973) and then in the space opera Battlestar Galactica/Galactica 1980 (ABC, 1978–1980). In the 2000s, a taciturn Edward James Olmos would take on the role of Commander Adama in the dystopian remake of the latter series (Battlestar Galactica, Sci-Fi, 2003–2009). 4 The figure of the masked psycho-killer consolidated by Halloween’s Michael Myers along with Carpenter’s films Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and Escape from New York (1981) were instrumental in shaping The Purge franchise (Cotter, 2021, September 19). At this point, it is also interesting to mention that James DeMonaco’s previous writing credits include a remake of Assault on Precinct 13 (Jean-François Richet, 2005), starring Ethan Hawke, who later played James Sandin, the protagonist in the original The Purge film. 5 A not-too-different techno-dystopian premise serves as the basis for Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse (Fox, 2009–2010). 6 The ill-fated James Sandin illustrates Bedore’s aforementioned observation about how dystopian narratives often pivot on central characters who are part of the system but discover, often to their misfortune, how terribly flawed the system is. 7 For an interesting update on this paradox that broadens the spectrum of “painful” fictions beyond horror and tragedy, see Marta Boni’s chapter on the “awkwardness effect” elsewhere in this volume. 8 Plantinga (2009) points out in relation to Smith’s concept of “mood” that “Stylistic ele - ments cue emotions by way of associations, rather than by way of the appraisals associated with narrative and character, and it is affective experience via association and other less prototypical means that most interests Smith. Thus Smith turns, first, to the stylistic cues designed to elicit emotion, and thus differs from the majority of theorists/philosophers, who would put narrative and character at the center of emotion elicitation, and who would argue that moods and stylistic cues in films gain their salience in relation to overarching character goals and narrative situation” (p. 93). 118 hermida and jiménez-varea Bibliography Abbott, S. (2021). “When the Subtext Becomes Text”: The Purge takes on the American nightmare. In: W. Proctor & M. McKenna (Eds.), Horror franchise cinema (pp. 128–142). Routledge. Akande, A., & Kellner, D. (2023). Donald Trump, populism, and the struggle to save democracy. In: A. Akande (Ed.), U.S. democracy in danger: The American political system under assault (pp. 3–25). Springer. Aristotle (1996). Poetics. Penguin. Armstrong, M. A. (2019). “A Nation Reborn”: Right to law and right to life in The Purge Franchise. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 13(3), 377–392. DOI: 10.1080/17502977.2018.1562683 Baccolini, R., & Moylan, T. (2013). Introduction: Dystopia and histories. In: R. Baccolini & T. Moylan (Eds.), Dark horizons: Science fiction and the dystopian imagination (pp. 1–12). Routledge. Balasopoulos, A. (2011). Anti-Utopia and Dystopia: Rethinking the generic field. In: V. Vlastaras (Ed.), Utopia project archive (pp. 59–67). School of Fine Arts Publications. Bedore, P. (2017). Great Utopian and Dystopian works of literature. The Great Courses. Blanchet, R., & Vaage, M. B. (2012) Don, Peggy, and other fictional friends? Engaging with characters in television series. Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind, 6(2), 18–41. DOI: 10.3167/proj.2012.060203 Cairns, B. (2018). Night of terror: Gerard McMurray Talks The First Purge. Scream: The Horror Magazine, 49, 74–76. Cappelli, M. (2022). Why it is good to experience some emotions described as negative. Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 114, 189–207. DOI: 10.3917/rmm.222.0189 Carroll, N. (1990). The philosophy of horror, or paradoxes of the heart. Routledge. Carroll, N. (2010). Narrative closure. In: N. Carroll (Ed.), Art in three dimensions (pp. 355–372). Oxford University Press. Carroll, N. (2019). Movies, narration and the emotions. In: Ch. Rawls, D. Neiva, & S. S. Gouveia (Eds.), Philosophy and film. Bridging divides (pp. 209–221). Routledge. Claeys, G. (2017). Dystopia: A natural history. Oxford University Press. Clarke, I. F. (Ed.). (1995). The tale of the Next Great War, 1871–1914: Fictions of future warfare and battles still-to-come. Liverpool University Press. Cotter, P. (2021, September 19). John Carpenter Should Direct The Next Purge Movie. Screen Rant. https://scr eenr ant.com/purge-john-carpen ter-sho uld-dir ect-movie-why/ Cotter, P. (2021, October 3). The Purge’s Second Season Is the Best of the Entire Franchise. Screen Rant. https://scr eenr ant.com/purge-tv-show-sea son-2-best-franch ise-why/ Denson, S., & Mayer, R. (2017). Spectral seriality: The sights and sounds of count Dracula. In: F. Kelleter (Ed.), Media of serial narrative (pp. 108–124). The Ohio State University Press. Feagin, S. L. (1983). The pleasures of tragedy. American Philosophical Quarterly, 20(1), 95–104. Feagin, S. L. (1992). Monsters, disgust and fascination. Philosophical Studies, 65, 75–84. Geraghty, L. (2009). American science fiction film and television. Berg. Cognition and Emotion in Dystopian TV Serial Worlds 119 Gómez, I. (2021). La tradición de la ficción distópica. In: A. Pineda (Ed.), Poder, ideología y propaganda en la ficción distópica (pp. 25–54). Tirant lo Blanch. Hume, D. (1757). Four dissertations. A. Millar. Huxley, A. (2007 [1932]). Brave new world. Vintage Books. Kelleter, F. (2017). Five ways of looking at popular seriality. In: F. Kelleter (Ed.), Media of serial narrative (pp. 7–34). The Ohio State University Press. Landau, N. (2022). The TV Showrunner’s roadmap: Creating great television in an on demand world. Routledge. Marcucci, D. (2020). Strangers at the door: Space and characters in home invasion movies. In: F. Pascuzzi & S. Waters (Eds.), The spaces and places of horror (pp. 251–264). Vernon Press. Miller, C. (1984). Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70, 151–167. DOI: 10.1080/00335638409383686 Morreall, J. (1985). Enjoying negative emotions in fictions. Philosophy and Literature, 9, 95–103. DOI: 10.1353/phl.1985.0118 Moylan, T. (1986). Demand the impossible: Science fiction and the Utopian imagination. Methuen. Muir, J. K. (2000). The films of John Carpenter. McFarland. Nanay, B. (2018). Catharsis and vicarious fear. European Journal of Philosophy, 26, 1371–1380. DOI: 10.1111/ejop.12325 Oddo, M. V. (2022, March 1). “Metropolis” series inspired by Seminal Fritz Lang Film Coming from “Mr. Robot” Creator Sam Esmail. Collider. https://colli der.com/met ropo lis-ser ies-sam-esm ail-mr-robot-fritz-lang-apple-tv/ Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen eighty-four. Harcourt, Brace and World. Palardy, D. Q. (2018). The Dystopian imagination in contemporary Spanish literature and film. Palgrave Macmillan. Parrinder, P. (2015). Utopian literature and science: From the scientific revolution to brave new world and beyond. Palgrave Macmillan. Pineda, A. (2021). Introducción: Poder, ideología y propaganda en la ficción distópica. In: A. Pineda (Ed.), Poder, ideología y propaganda en la ficción distópica (pp. 13–23). Tirant lo Blanch. Plantinga, C. (2009). Emotion and affect. In: P. Livingstone & C. Plantinga (Eds.), The Routledge companion to philosophy and film (pp. 86–96). Routledge. Price, A. (1998). Nietzsche and the paradox of tragedy. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 38(4), 384–393. DOI: 10.1093/bjaesthetics/38.4.384 Radish, C. (2021, July 08). “The Forever Purge” was supposed to be the final “Purge” Movie; James DeMonaco reveals why he changed his mind. Collider, https://colli der.com/is-thefore ver-purge-the-last-movie-james-demon aco-interv iew/ Sands, P. (2017). Utopias and Dystopias. In: Mark J.P. Wolf (Ed.), The Routledge companion to imaginary worlds (pp. 177–183). Routledge. Sargent, L. T. (1994). The three faces of Utopianism revisited. Utopian Studies, 5(1), 1–37, https://www.jstor.org/sta ble/20719 246 126 jared w. aronoff could tie its whole story together, but ultimately structuring itself to prioritize in each moment the here and now. As a product of American network television Lost needs to support what Raymond Williams (2003) describes as “flow”—to balance its own needs as a contained serial with its network’s need to craft a sequence of units best suited to retain viewer engagement throughout a given evening (p. 86). Lost therefore structures each episode not around the grand cosmic puzzle of its own mythology, but around an intimate weekly character study. Individual episodes of Lost most often focus on a single character, explaining the motivations for actions they take on the island through flashbacks to their former life that inform their history and interiority. For Lost this results in a narrative structure that grounds itself in character drama while gesturing vaguely to imply greater, more complex meanings that must be uncovered and interpreted by the show’s more dedicated or passionate fans. Warren Buckland (2009) identified a popular cycle of films from the late 1990s and early 2000s that he called “puzzle films,” a trend in popular cinema which “rejects classical storytelling techniques and replaces them with complex storytelling” (p. 1). Buckland described these texts as presenting narrative information in an arrangement that is not just complex but deliberately perplexing, entangling plot events in non-linearity, time loops, or fragmented spatio-temporal reality (p. 3). The elusive narrative meanings of Lost, along with its fragmented temporal structure, situate the series firmly in conversation with the puzzle film cycle. It is not uncommon to watch Lost and feel challenged to seek out full comprehension of its narrative, and this challenge marked a key feature of the show’s appeal for many viewers. This cognitive challenge in making sense of the puzzle narrative is expanded on by Miklós Kiss and Steven Willemsen in their book Impossible Puzzle Films (2017), a text which narrows Buckland’s initial definition and expands upon the cognitive tools that audiences use to make sense of these puzzle narratives. Kiss and Willemsen argue that complexity in narrative is pleasurable because the presence of textual contradictions or disunities produces a form cognitive dissonance (p. 66). This dissonance can take the form of an irresolvable contradiction either between narrative action and real-life logic, or more notably for our purposes between two narrative events that diegetically contradict one another. The authors argue that these contradictions produce a discomfort that the viewer is motivated to resolve through strategies of dissonance reduction, typically meaning-making and interpretation (p. 109). There are many different forms that a complex narrative can take, but a common tactic described by Kiss and Willemsen that is particularly relevant to Lost is referred to as Temporal Unity and Discontinuity 127 “dismantled chronology”—in which plot events are placed in non-chronological order (p. 38). The key pleasure of the “dismantled chronology” text is argued to be the mental reorganization that viewers must participate in so as to piece together the completed narrative, asking viewers to hold events or ideas in their memory for long periods of time before they are resolved or connected with other events (p. 40). Experimental research is cited indicating that this form of memory—holding nonsequential events for long periods of time—is where memory is most likely to suffer, suggesting that these films strengthen this cognitive process for real-world situations (p. 40). Lost, by presenting in each episode events that take place in a present and in a past—two distinct points in a complex, non-linear timeline—embodies this dismantled chronology on a particularly large scale. The challenge to memory posed by dismantled chronology narratives is already dramatic when presented in a two-hour film such as Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000), but is something else entirely in a long-running television series spanning six seasons. For Lost, viewers are expected to hold nonsequential narrative information in their minds for over 5,000 minutes of screen time delivered (at time of original broadcast) over the course of six years—and navigate on top of this the shifting narrative meanings and disparate continuity that the series came to be somewhat notorious for. Joseph Magliano and Jeffrey E. Saerys-Foy (2021) describe how audiences comprehend this wealth of information by constructing mental models of a story world that are used to organize events and actions (p. 101). The structures used to comprehend and sort through narrative information include rules of the main story world, embedded sub-worlds within that world or story, and character models that organize emotional states, goals, and traits into a set of assumptions that would line up with those made about real people (p. 102). Magliano and Saerys-Foy describe how series which contain frequent flashbacks and interweave multiple timelines can pose a distinct challenge to viewers hoping to construct a timeline of story events (p. 110). Lost can be positioned as a particularly dramatic example of this phenomena, posing a distinct challenge to the comprehension of its full narrative. Despite this challenge inherent in making meaning out of complex narration, cognitive research has demonstrated that readers are nevertheless highly motivated to pursue coherent understanding from the texts they consume (Graesser et al., 1994, p. 379). Artuhr C Graesser et al. (1994) describe a dis - tinction between “local-level coherence” that organizes the elements contained in short sequences of narrative information and “global-level coherence” that 128 jared w. aronoff organizes those local chunks into higher-order chunks. The authors describe how readers will experience a sense of “harmony” when they feel as though individual explicit ideas within a text—ideas that make up a local coherence individually—produce a global coherence when taken together (p. 374). These local and global levels of coherence are used by readers to contextualize events, actions, and states within the text, allowing a viewer to build narrative meaning (p. 378). This establishment of global coherence is achieved to the extent that most or all moving parts of a text can be linked together through a series of overarching themes or ideas (p. 378). This is a structure of meaning-making that maps remarkably well onto that of serial television. Individual episodes act as distinct units that contain chunks of narrative information that will most likely cohere at a local level within that isolated space but, when taken together, form parts of a larger text at the global level of a season. These seasons can thus become the local chunks cohering in the overall global structure of a series, and certain series beyond this may represent local-level structures in relation to a franchise, spinoffs, or other extended narrative material. Christian Metz (1986) described the main syntagmatic types used in cinema—breaking down a scene or sequence into smaller and smaller units of information including various syntagmas and autonomous segments (p. 45). A reverse of this pattern can be similarly observed in the opposite direction, as larger and larger chunks of localized narrative information can be identified as they are made to cohere globally. In the case of Lost, each individual episode will usually cohere at a local level— providing a thematically-cohesive set of two snapshots linking events from the past with events from the present. However, the information provided in each episode of Lost is almost always incomplete, presented with some question left unanswered or mystery unresolved after each 45-minute installment. This can make it challenging for many viewers to form a sense of global-level coherence out of the overall narrative of Lost. Graesser et al. (1994) also describe how audiences are motivated to organize these local-level chunks into global-level coherence, stating “in many contexts, readers have a general goal of reading a coherent text for understanding or for entertainment (rather than an idiosyncratic goal)” (p. 379). This coherence can also be broken, often when an “incoming clause” cannot be explained either by the prior text or by background knowledge structures. When a break such as this occurs a reader will either wait for a subsequent text to explain it, or piece together an explanation themselves from fragments of information that they already have access to (p. 379). If the reader is unsuccessful at resolving this Temporal Unity and Discontinuity 129 break in coherence, if global coherence between local chunks of information cannot be achieved, Graesser et al. describe the reader as concluding the text to be “inconsiderate” and even abandoning the search for meaning altogether (p. 372). This can be interpreted as a form of evaluative response, mediating the cognitive dissonance caused by contradictory narrative information by concluding that the text itself is unwilling to provide global-level coherence— essentially, that it was just never very good to begin with. This evaluative strategy of mediating the cognitive dissonance caused by contradictory narrative information, notably, was not described by Kiss and Willemsen (2017). For a narrative such as Lost, a series that motivates passionate fan engagement, it is perhaps possible that another form of cognitive dissonance could also arise. A fan’s personal investment in the narrative or world of the show can come into conflict with that narrative itself as it poses a challenge to the global coherence that allows the text to operate within a structure that is deemed “considerate”. For a viewer invested in Lost, one who enjoys the setting, characters or mysteries, it may pose a contradiction to conclude that the narrative itself is inconsiderate. This dissonance can (and in the case of Lost frequently has been) resolved through evaluation, but it can also be resolved through the strategies of interpretation and meaning-making described by Kiss and Willemsen. It is perhaps unsurprising then that for many Lost fans, the key driving pleasure of the series was not so much in its character drama as the way that its overall narrative functioned as a puzzle to be solved. Lost provides its viewers with consistently incomplete information—brief snapshots of past events, mysterious properties of the island that defy explanation—and withholds the tools needed to piece these fragments of information together. Constructing the mental model of the story world described by Magliano and Saerys-Foy (2021) thus becomes a priority for these viewers as this core pillar of meaning making is left just out of reach. This priority has been observed by a number of television scholars writing on the series. As Jonathan Gray (2010) describes in the context of why Lost viewers enjoy spoilers: Many [fans] saw Lost as a giant puzzle, and their primary interest lay in solving the puzzle rather than in following the plot in a linear fashion. Lost, after all, is a slippery, "messy" text that tells its story across time […] watching requires that viewers piece together information from an erratically drawn timeline. (p. 151) This is a popular viewing stance to apply to Lost, one that is arguably encouraged by the text of the show itself, and yet this runs counter to the 130 jared w. aronoff framework described by the aforementioned television scholars. The “untidiness” described by Kelleter (2017, p. 16) that comes from reading Lost as a unified narrative is not dissimilar from the narrative incongruities that Kiss and Willemsen describe as producing cognitive dissonance. When narrative events do not quite line up, when plot threads go unresolved, when chronologies are disrupted and must be reorganized on a massive scale, this motivates a viewer to employ strategies that mediate the resulting dissonance. Typically, as Kiss and Willemsen (2017) suggest, this takes the form of interpretive exercises or attitude shifts to reframe the way that viewers look at their object. This is proposed to be because the viewer does not have the option to make changes to the text itself (p. 109), however, with access to DVD ripping and editing software, this is no longer necessarily an impossibility. Chronologically Lost: The Viewership and Experience of This Fan Text Chronologically Lost, therefore, can be understood to function as an interpretive tool, working to aid both in the process of making meaning out of the main text of Lost the main text and resolving dissonances that result from that text’s incongruities. In an interview with creator Mike Maloney on Pushing the Button: A Chronologically LOST Podcast, Maloney describes how most fan theories when the original series aired did not focus on the characters the way the show itself did. He expresses “how interesting the show would be if you could see it from the perspective of the island” and that part of his initial goal behind the edit was to re-frame the story from this perspective that fan communities appeared more invested in. Maloney describes how “Lost is a show about the characters and Chronologically Lost is a story about the island” (Agliato & Edwards, 2021). The function of a fan made paratext such as Chronologically Lost can thus be understood to aid understanding of the narrative from the perspective of the story world, consistent with Magliano and Saerys-Foy’s (2021) suggestion that audiences make sense of complex narratives through constructing story world models. This emphasis on re-framing the familiar story in a new way is also notably consistent with how the edit is talked about in fan spaces. The common viewer of Chronologically Lost appears to be the fan who has already seen the main series on a number of separate instances. As various Reddit users describe, a new appreciation for the series can be found in seeing it reorganized in this way. Temporal Unity and Discontinuity 131 I’m in the middle of Chronologically Lost right now. It’s a completely different way to watch the show, and it makes everything feel really fresh again. I definitely don’t recommend anyone watch it before they’ve rewatched the show in its entirety at least once, but I definitely think it’s worth a watch by every major LOST fan otherwise. (Petrichor02)3 To me the edit was incredibly helpful. It also made me really appreciate the actual broadcast order. There is so much artistry in the scene changes. Nuances. Watching Chronologically highlights these by their absence. Yet it’s a totally different experience. That’s I think why rewatching (in the regular order)is continually interesting. You realize that Lost is like a great novel with all its layers and storytelling art. (user4815162342)4 It was really fun watching it all cut together in chronological order. Some of the jumping around time stuff was hard to follow because of the nature of their jumps, but it was really cool to see the future losties occupying the same time and sometimes same space “as it was happening.” Plus it was way easier to follow all the backstories. (Fulmersbelly)5 [The] most surprising thing about watching Chronologically Lost is how quickly everything happens! During my previous rewatches, I always assumed that Jack and co. were in the 70s for several weeks … nope, it was just a few days. Definitely an entirely different experience! (Fred_the_skeleton)6 These are people who want to find new ways of looking at this object, to turn it over in their hands and uncover new details, crevices or nuances, to further their understanding of what Lost is, how it works, and how they can build a better understanding of its narrative. Chronologically Lost offers to fandom spaces the opportunity to renegotiate their appreciation for this text, experience it in a new way, and build a deeper understanding of it. It is also not uncommon for viewers to use this edit as a tool for selectively re-watching the series, skipping to when the characters reach the island and avoiding the flashback sections of narration. Flashbacks may be a central tool that Lost uses to convey characterizing information, but for those already intimately familiar with these characters they only become delays to narrative movement. As another Reddit user describes “I can watch the whole way through or just jump in around the plane crash. Sometimes I’ll jump to episodes around Exodus and just [watch] the on-island stuff” (cgbrannigan).7 This provides one of the key strengths of the edit, as the delivery of narrative information taking place on the island is streamlined in a way that is often more satisfying to watch. Early in the second season, for example, the main series takes its time resolving the multi-layered cliffhangers from the end of season one. Flashbacks are used in the original episodes to extend time, elongating 132 jared w. aronoff the period of narrative tension by leaving multiple threads unresolved, likely designed to retain viewers at the start of a new season. This viewer retention strategy can, however, make for a frustrating experience if an already committed fan wants to see narrative action proceed uninterrupted. The chronological edit resolves this frustration by the nature of its structure, delivering narrative information in a way that feels more efficient and logical, resolving a number of plot threads in a shorter period of time. Despite improving the pacing of the original series in some places however, it would be inaccurate to describe Chronologically Lost as producing an overall satisfying narrative experience. Segments of the narrative taking place off the island, framed usually as interruptions in the source text, tend to jump through time rapidly and make for a very fragmented and disorienting narrative structure when watched consecutively. Further, many of the disparities that characterized the original show are only highlighted by this edit, as the series’ propensity to brush aside inexplicable contradictions becomes even more visible. Narrative lines of cause to effect become in some cases dramatically broken up as narrative information originally provided through flashbacks may not be made relevant until much later. This breakdown of the cause-effect relationship over as much as tens of hours of viewing time can be observed in the season four episode “The Constant” (S04E05). In this episode, a handful of the castaways manage to break away from the confines of the island to find a boat supposedly able to rescue them, but the supernatural properties of the island cause Desmond to experience unusual “side effects” associated with this attempt to leave. Desmond’s consciousness spends the duration of this episode time travelling between 1996 and 2004, a narrative problem that can only be resolved when he is able to connect via phone call with his ex-girlfriend Penny—his “constant.” This episode provides a unique break to the formula of Lost without fundamentally changing anything. The episode is still structured around the experience of narratively jumping between two different temporal instances, one on the island and another not, but makes the small change of drawing explicit causality between these two threads. Desmond’s experiences in the present thus affect the actions he takes in the past, and vice versa, making his character arc in this episode uncharacteristically linear for Lost—closely following the order of plot events as presented despite the narrative jump through story time. This episode was well-received in fandom spaces for this subtle innovation to an established formula, and is currently the highest rated episode of the series on IMDb. When these scenes are distributed throughout the chronological Temporal Unity and Discontinuity 133 fan edit however, sixty-three episodes are placed in between these two temporal streams. Only minimal context is available to the 1996 stream, making it more confusing, and the 2004 stream is left to read as an unnecessary delay to narrative movement. Thus, a unique event episode becomes buried within the rest of the series’ timeline to make it far less memorable. Further, the narrative contradictions of the original series are drawn out through this edit. The return to the same chronological moment in different source episodes can result in some characters who are revealed to have been both on and off the island at the same time, or inhabiting two different bodies at the same time. This introduces new contradictions, new forms of dissonance not present in the source text, rather than making that easier to resolve. The edit also functions to inadvertently emphasize different moments of narrative action from the main series. In Lost, an episode might highlight narrative drama by cross-cutting between the “present” and the “past,” drawing attention to the importance of narrative information being delivered through editing. In the fan edit, these moments play as entirely unremarkable non-events. Instead, the editing of Chronologically Lost places emphasis on moments in the series’ chronology that the show returned to multiple times from different perspectives, as these become highlighted themselves through 24 (FOX, 2001–2014)-style split screens that indicate their simultaneity. The impact of this can be observed in the ending of the season one episode “Walkabout” (S01E04). Two scenes are intercut at the end of this episode—one from the present and another in the past. In the latter, character John Locke is seen insisting that he be allowed to attend a Walkabout in the Australian outback, met with opposition from a travel agent who insists that he not participate due to an as-yet unmentioned “condition.” Locke then turns around to reveal that he is seated in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down without access to the use of his legs, a piece of information concealed from the viewer up until that point in the original episode. As Locke in the past shouts to the travel agent “don’t tell me what I can’t do!” and the soundtrack swells alongside his outburst of emotion, the episode cuts to Locke at the moment of the plane crash as he discovers that the island has mysteriously restored the functionality of his legs. The affective significance of this reveal is heavily informed by the cross-cutting of these two moments and the withheld information about Locke’s disability. In the chronological edit, the first moment falls flat when placed unceremoniously between Boone investigating the whereabouts of his sister and Jack identifying the body of his deceased father, and the latter moment is nearly imperceptible when buried within the chaos of numerous 134 jared w. aronoff strains of action across the many split screens depicting the plane crash from every on-screen perspective from which the event had been presented. It is perhaps inevitable that Maloney’s goal, to tell the story from the perspective of the island rather than the characters, would come to disrupt the character beats that the original series builds itself around. It makes sense that this moment revealing Locke’s disability would go underplayed when the story is no longer about him, or that the events of an episode like “The Constant” would read less as the product of an experimental event episode and more as a largely-unnecessary postponement to narrative progression. Yet an unavoidable sense of formal disunity can be nevertheless observed in the disconnect between structure and content that remains. Because it would be outside of the scope and spirit of Chronologically Lost to conduct reshoots or cut out unnecessary scenes, while the structure of the edit may be telling the story from the perspective of the island, the moment-to-moment narrative action still frames events as if they are part of a character drama. Where fan reception would express an investment in information about the nature and history of the island, the series itself only offers this information once it becomes relevant to the characters. This can be exemplified through an arc in the fifth season, in which half of the main cast time travel to the 1970s and participate in the Dharma Initiative. This arc answers audience questions about the role of Dharma in the island’s history while presenting that history primarily through its importance to the ongoing character development of these established audience avatars. Thus, character development building off of four seasons of established information is the primary emphasis of the momentto-moment structure of these scenes, but in the chronological fan edit this arc begins in just the fourth episode. From the perspective of the island this may be in chronological order, but the characters experiencing these events are influenced by and reference developments that have not happened yet in story time. The result is that, if read as a standalone work, Chronologically Lost feels ultimately unfocused—visibly unsure of which story it wants to be telling and producing what I found, personally at least, to be a generally unsatisfying narrative experience as a result. Chronological Paratexts and the Unification of Narrative Meaning The fact that Chronologically Lost has sustained its fan presence—despite, in my own perception, not reflecting especially well upon its source text—suggests Temporal Unity and Discontinuity 135 that this fan-made paratext is one that holds a kind value for this community that is not necessarily aesthetic. I may not have found it personally satisfying to watch as a more casual viewer of the series, but as Jonathan Gray (2010) describes, many fan-made paratexts such as this will address only those within the fandom, not designed with outsiders in mind (p. 17). Just as Gray argues that official paratexts such as advertisements and DVD special features can aid viewers in the process of making meaning out of a text, fan-made paratexts are tools not only that can give us insight into the meanings that viewers are already making out of these narratives, they are tools that the viewers themselves use for making and communicating textual meaning. Fan paratexts, as pointed out by Henry Jenkins (1992), “cannot simply be interpreted as the material traces of interpretive acts but need to be understood within their own terms as cultural artifacts” (p. 228). If Chronologically Lost is to be understood on its own terms as a tool for making meaning, the functions of this tool can be seen to directly contradict the common position of television scholars described earlier. For a committed fan to spend the time re-editing such a large dismantled chronology narrative into chronological order serves the function, I propose, to aid in the development of a global-level coherence in the source text. Buonanno (2019) may have argued that it is enforced interruptions—waiting weeks for new episodes or months for new seasons—that make a text serial, but Chronologically Lost serves to make some of these divides almost imperceptible. Many cliffhangers are resolved immediately, many questions answered without hesitation, many source episodes stitched together into single episodes of this fan edit. The finale of the third season and opening of the fourth, for example, occur in the same video file, discouraging any break between one season and the next. To watch Chronologically Lost is to see the narrative presented, not only without the interruption of jumps through time, but without the weekly interruption between episodes. This edit serves to make ambiguous many of the hard lines that separate local chunks of narrative information from the global whole, functioning as a tool for viewers who want to make it easier for themselves to conceptualize global narrative meanings. This is not dissimilar to the goals of viewers who consume television narratives in binge—attempting to make easier the process of comprehending global meaning by removing the divisions that separate local chunks. Perhaps, despite such viewing stances forming global-level narrative coherence that is consistently inconsiderate, messy, or untidy, these are nevertheless the goals that television viewers are motivated to pursue in the process of narrative comprehension.