Serialized Film & Serialized Fiction
When adaptations of literary classics mirror the novel’s structure
Like most Americans, I grew up with a television in my living room. Aside from a few episodes of Sesame Street, most TV content did not stimulate my imagination. I learned more from walking outside, searching for snails, talking to myself and to the trees, and watching the leaves fall on our lawn than I did from sitting in front of the TV.
I recall a few riveting episodes from the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, during which current US President Joe Biden trivialized Anita Hill’s experience of sexual harassment. The O.J. Simpson trial is another dim — and even more sensationalist — television memory. Aside from these exposures of the criminal underbelly of American politics and law, television figures as a monotonous background in my memory of growing up. I wish there were less of it in my past, not more.
It was not until I reached my mid-40s that I discovered a totally different kind of television: serialized adaptations of literary classics. Most of these productions were initially produced by the BBC and re-screened on the PBS television series Masterpiece during the 1980s and 1990s. Others were funded originally by Masterpiece itself. Although Masterpiece is alive and well, their…
