Recent years have seen television rise up to the level and status of film, paralleling the increasing popularity of streaming platforms and websites as well. TV is no longer the younger kid sibling of cinema, but instead has come to the forefront as a key player in the entertainment industry. Where movies may have large budgets and what seems like an unlimited supply of resources, television must be creative in this department. Cue in what media expert Jason Mittell regards to as the “special effects” of TV, the narrative complexity. Show creators must equip themselves with an arsenal of tools to differentiate themselves from the next program and capture the attention of their audiences (Mittell, 2015). While, content will continually remain
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At the end of Season 2, with the series in full swing, the creators of the show unleashed the infamous death sequence of its main character, Sherlock Holmes. The difference that sets this tragic death apart from ones in other shows lies in the progression of events and their inevitable shock factor. The audience is forced to first see the beloved main character fall to his death in order to save the lives of those close to him, then die in the arms of his best friend John Watson, and finally cut to a scene of Watson visiting Sherlock’s grave …only then to have Sherlock reappear out of sight from the other characters, alive and well, watching the aftermath that his death has caused (www.pbs.org). This particular plot device follows Mittell’s guidelines for operational aesthetics in that it leaves the audience not asking “What happened?” but “How in the world did they pull that off?” (Mittell, 2015). With a gap of two years between the release of the next episode, fans of the show did just that. The flood of fan theories and hypotheses overtook Sherlock websites and forums, as fans came up with their own interpretations for how the episode’s events played out. Websites dedicated solely to the “The Richenbach Fall” episode sprang up as well as many Tumblr Richenbach theory threads with endless pages of fan produced ideas, guesses and elaborate schemes (Manderino, 2013) and …show more content…
But, does this mean a series will ultimately be successful? In the case of Sherlock, it does and it has the logistics to prove it by analyzing the sequential growth of the series alone. Taking a look at just the data for the premieres of each season, 8.7 million viewers tuned in for in 2010, and subsequently 10.66 million in 2012, 12.72 in 2014 and 11.64 in 2016 (Quote BARB). On one hand, these statistics hold to the fact that as the series progresses more people are tuning in to watch or (DVRing) the season premieres. This may not be a direct link to the show’s popularity, but ultimately one could infer that the show is gaining a larger audience as it becomes more successful and popular. But what about the spike in viewers in 2014? This is a specific response to the previously referenced operational aesthetic device planted in the Season 2 Finale, with the “death” and “resurrection” of the main character. As mentioned before, not only did fans gather together in virtual communities to discuss the inexplicable puzzle given to them, but they also made sure to be tuned in to see the how the resulting events of the plot twist would play
At the end of Season 2, with the series in full swing, the creators of the show unleashed the infamous death sequence of its main character, Sherlock Holmes. The difference that sets this tragic death apart from ones in other shows lies in the progression of events and their inevitable shock factor. The audience is forced to first see the beloved main character fall to his death in order to save the lives of those close to him, then die in the arms of his best friend John Watson, and finally cut to a scene of Watson visiting Sherlock’s grave …only then to have Sherlock reappear out of sight from the other characters, alive and well, watching the aftermath that his death has caused (www.pbs.org). This particular plot device follows Mittell’s guidelines for operational aesthetics in that it leaves the audience not asking “What happened?” but “How in the world did they pull that off?” (Mittell, 2015). With a gap of two years between the release of the next episode, fans of the show did just that. The flood of fan theories and hypotheses overtook Sherlock websites and forums, as fans came up with their own interpretations for how the episode’s events played out. Websites dedicated solely to the “The Richenbach Fall” episode sprang up as well as many Tumblr Richenbach theory threads with endless pages of fan produced ideas, guesses and elaborate schemes (Manderino, 2013) and …show more content…
But, does this mean a series will ultimately be successful? In the case of Sherlock, it does and it has the logistics to prove it by analyzing the sequential growth of the series alone. Taking a look at just the data for the premieres of each season, 8.7 million viewers tuned in for in 2010, and subsequently 10.66 million in 2012, 12.72 in 2014 and 11.64 in 2016 (Quote BARB). On one hand, these statistics hold to the fact that as the series progresses more people are tuning in to watch or (DVRing) the season premieres. This may not be a direct link to the show’s popularity, but ultimately one could infer that the show is gaining a larger audience as it becomes more successful and popular. But what about the spike in viewers in 2014? This is a specific response to the previously referenced operational aesthetic device planted in the Season 2 Finale, with the “death” and “resurrection” of the main character. As mentioned before, not only did fans gather together in virtual communities to discuss the inexplicable puzzle given to them, but they also made sure to be tuned in to see the how the resulting events of the plot twist would play