Table Of ContentEpic Television
Miniseries
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Epic Television
Miniseries
A Critical History
J D V and
OHN E ITO
F T
RANK ROPEA
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
For our parents:
David and Rose Tropea
John and Michelina De Vito
Who knew all along that
even the purest gold
passes through the fiercest fire.
All photographs are provided by Photofest
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
De Vito, John, ¡953–
Epic television miniseries : a critical history /
John De Vito and Frank Tropea.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4149-5
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
¡. Television mini-series—United States—History and
criticism. I. Tropea, Frank, 1949– . II. Title.
PN1992.8.F5D42 2010
791.44'75—dc22 2009043326
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2010 John De Vito and Frank Tropea. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover: Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder, Diana Quick as Lady
Julia Flyte, and Anthony Andrews as Lord Sebastian Flyte in
Brideshead Revisited, 1982 (Granada Television/PBS/Photofest);
background ©2010 Shutterstock
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640
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Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 • Beginnings: The Melodramatic Impulse 9
Chapter 2 • The Triumph of the Heroic Slave 30
Chapter 3 • The Extraordinary Ordinary 53
Chapter 4 • Visions, Values and the Void 81
Chapter 5 • Transitional Places 102
Chapter 6 • The Lady Is a Champ 127
Chapter 7 • Outer and Outré Spaces 154
Afterword: Where We Are and Where Are We Going 177
Epic Miniseries Credits 179
Chapter Notes 199
Bibliography 207
Index 211
v
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Introduction
The miniseries, at its best, offers a unique televisual experience, often deal-
ing with harrowing and difficult material structured into an often transfor-
matory narrative. The time lapse between episodes allows occasion for the
television audience to assimilate, discuss and come to terms with the difficul-
ties of the narrative. The extended narrative time offered by serialization
makes possible the in-depth exploration of characters, their motivations and
development, the analysis of situations and events. But the conclusive narra-
tive resolution of the series, also allows for evaluation and reflection.1
—Margaret Montgomerie
SIZE MATTERS. Indeed it is not going too far to say that ultimately, size
is all! For a full validation of that fact, all one has to do is consider the mono-
lithic obsession with the concept of “largeness” as it developed in the history
of the epic miniseries made for American television audiences. Not only is size
a factor in the strong emphasis placed on the amplification of running time (the
typical miniseries of the Golden Age of the Epic Miniseries [1974–1989] ran
from eight to twelve hours), size also gets factored into the equation by such
distinctive tropes of the serial drama as enormous casts (often numbering well
into the thousands); fullness or density of reference; lush, high-end produc-
tion values; superb atmospherics of place; and, of course, the larger-than-life
variety of mythic characters associated with the classic epic miniseries. Refer-
ring to the characters as mythic is especially appropriate. And it is for this rea-
son, we shall argue, the epic miniseries can very well be viewed as the stuff of
classic myth. For at its deepest level, the epic miniseries truly is a highly wrought
and richly detailed myth in which the trajectory of the epic narrative follows
all the classic stages of the mythical hero and heroine: from adventure to depar-
ture, initiation, a mysterious journey to the Lifeforce, transformation and,
finally, apotheosis.2
Traditionally, the epic miniseries functioned much like some great oral
epic, depending crucially upon its mythic characters and formulaic narrative
structure to keep its complex, multi-leveled plot humming along at a swift,
often cliffhanger-filled pace. The standard epic miniseries tended to contain
one or more—usually many more—of these key ingredients: square-jawed
heroes; supportive wives; shockingly beautiful, seductive mistresses and fiendish
villains; liberal amounts of poverty, and even more liberal amounts of fame,
fortune, intrigue and suspense; war, and most particularly World War II; tor-
1
2 INTRODUCTION
ture and human suffering of every conceivable kind; seduction (of many, many
different varieties), rape, murder, mayhem, and suicide; alcoholism, adultery,
drug abuse and plenty of sadomasochism; mysterious appearances and myste-
rious disappearances; a lusty heiress or two; skeletons pulled out of closets and
skeletons that should have remained locked in those closets; the Ku Klux Klan,
Nazis and Communists; forced marriages, lots of bad marriages, divorce, and
amnesia; naked ambition and nakedness in general; a great deal of vengeance;
and an ending that generally struck an amazingly happy note no matter what
may have transpired before. Some of the more memorable characters who peo-
pled this highly addictive televisual construct and have found a way to enter
our consciousness include: Tom and Rudy Jordache, Julie Prescott (Rich Man,
Poor Man, ABC, 1976); Kunta Kinte, Kizzy, Chicken George (Roots, ABC, 1977);
Rudi, Karl, and Inga Weiss (Holocaust, NBC, 1978); John Blackthorne, Lady
Mariko (Shogun, NBC, 1980); Charles Ryder, Sebastian and Julia Flyte
(Brideshead Revisited, PBS, 1981); Pug Henry, Aaron and Natalie Jastrow (The
Winds of War, War and Remembrance, ABC, 1983, 1988–89); Father Ralph de
Bricassart, Meggie Cleary (The Thorn Birds, ABC, 1983); Philip Marlow, Nurse
Mills (The Singing Detective, PBS, 1988); Gus McCrae, Woodrow Call, Lorena
Wood, Clara Allen (Lonesome Dove, CBS, 1989).
But what were such larger-than-life characters supposed to be all about
anyway? Who were they exactly, all these towering, square-jawed heroes and
beautiful heroines who dared to venture out onto that vast formulaic landscape
of the epic miniseries? And what were they like, these highly adventuresome
and highly mythic men and women? Well, actually, they were quite an inter-
esting variety of extraordinary presences upon whom we will bestow such curi-
ous names as the Heroic Slave, the Adventurer, the Wife, the Whore, and, later,
the Avenging Angel. Iconic stereotypes from the start, they were essentially
designed for the same desired effect: to command the full attention of the Amer-
ican television audience, and keep that audience glued to the TV for the dura-
tion of the miniseries. And that is in fact what all five types accomplished, for
the most part, and a great deal more. The early years of the epic miniseries are
important, not just because they provide us with a deeper appreciation and
fuller understanding of how these five types operate, but also because four of
the five were introduced to audiences very early on.
The Heroic Slave
In the beginning, there was the figure of the Heroic Slave. Although this
might initially strike us as a contradiction in terms, it is not. Despite the less
than satisfactory circumstances of his lot in life, the Heroic Slave still possessed
the attractive attributes of the traditional mythical hero: bravery, a keen intel-
ligence, and true nobility of spirit. But heavy with disadvantage, his world was
Introduction 3
a teleological closed-off site of crushing limitation, which nonetheless could
not stop him from dreaming of something beyond those limitations. Two excel-
lent examples of such an intolerable televisual space are projected onto the
American South of Kunta Kinte at the time of slavery as depicted in Roots, and
the profoundly anti–Semitic Nazi Germany of brothers Rudi and Karl Weiss
depicted in Holocaust.
The Adventurer
Not too long after the debut of the Heroic Slave, a second mythic figure
made his debut on the epic miniseries scene—the Adventurer. Although not
as legendary a type as the Heroic Slave (owing, principally, to the lofty canon-
ical status the latter came to achieve as a result of his appearances in Roots and
Holocaust), the Adventurer is, hands down, the most popular of all five types.
Upon first encountering the Adventurer, we cannot help but be struck by how
much more inviting a place his world is compared to the one occupied by the
Heroic Slave. Because of this, we tend to view the Adventurer as the very
embodiment of a character destined for a more promising future. In fact, the
future seems to be offering him one exciting adventure after another. What the
Heroic Slave was only permitted to dream about suddenly seemed a real pos-
sibility for the Adventurer. And much of this was usually connected to the
American ideals of wide-open spaces, the connection back to the openness of
Eden: the visionary equation between an Edenic pastoral and the inviting sense
of an endless space always beyond the horizon. Therefore, how could we not
also view the Adventurer as someone who, if he did not already have it all, was
fast on his way to acquiring it all for himself? And yet, for all his admittedly
appealing heroic activity, his indefatigable optimism, and his high hopes for a
more promising future, the Adventurer could also strike us as something of a
naïve figure, ultimately as trapped and defeated in his own way as was the
Heroic Slave. For he, like his less privileged predecessor, was still a victim of
the often-brutal consequences of being stuck in time and space. Two paradig-
matic incarnations of this mythic type can be found in the dashing characters
of John Blackthorne in Shogun, and in the ultimate adventurous patriarch Pug
Henry in both The Winds of Warand its even more magisterial sequel War and
Remembrance.
The Wife and the Whore
Standing faithfully by the Heroic Slave and Adventurer (or, as was often
the case, sprawled out in a state of seductive repose) were the third and fourth
