Marina Grishakova

Previously On: Prime Time Serials and the Mechanics of Memory

In recent years, American television has embraced a model of narrative complexity that has proven to be both artistically innovative and fi nancially lucrative. Dozens of series across genres, from comedies like Seinfeld and Arrested Development to dramas like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 24, have explored serialized forms and non-conventional storytelling strategies such as intertwined fl ashbacks and shifting narrative perspectives that had previously been quite rare within mainstream American television. Serialized television has emerged as a vibrant artistic form that many critics suggest rivals previous models of long-form narrative, such as 19th century novels. Television’s poetics of narrative complexity are wide ranging. Series embrace a balance between episodic and serial form, allowing for partial closure within episodes while maintaining broad narrative arcs across episodes and even seasons. Such programs also embrace more elaborate storytelling techniques, such as temporal play, shifting perspectives and focalization, repetition, and overt experimentation with genre and narrative norms. Many contemporary programs are more refl exive in their narration, embracing an operational aesthetic, encouraging viewers to pay attention to the level of narrative discourse as well as the storyworld. In all of these instances, narratively complex television programs both demand that viewers pay attention more closely than typical for the medium, and allow for viewers to experience more confusion in their process of narrative comprehension. In short, television has become more diffi cult to understand, requiring viewers to engage more fully as attentive viewers (see Mittell 2006). In this essay, I want to explore how complex serials strategically trigger, confound, and play with viewers’ memories, considering how television storytelling strategies fi t with our understanding of the cognitive mechanics of memory and highlighting the poetic techniques that programs use to engage viewers and enable long-term comprehension. The television medium employs specifi c strategies distinct from other narrative