Keeping Up With The Kings

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This article performs a close reading and quantitative analysis of the five shows of Robert and Michelle King—The Good Wife, BrainDead, The Good Fight, Evil, and The Bite—with respect to the series’ formal textual and paratextual elements. Comparing both the use of recaps and the lengths and “coldness” of opening sequences, this article argues that the Kings developed most of their aesthetic innovations within the broadcast context before further refining them in their streaming shows. A first look at the Kings’ oeuvre demonstrates the increasing blurriness between streaming and broadcast television poetics.