Drama series and serials: commentary

A commentary on the top 20 in this genre

Drama, particularly series and serials, lies at the heart of the TV schedules, delivering the largest audiences and the greatest kudos. At its best, television dramas reflect our lives or allow us to enter the lives of others, challenge our assumptions and play with our emotions. At the very least they entertain us. But drama is expensive, it takes a long time to produce and the failures bring huge disappointment and, sometimes, humiliation. But when the chemistry is right...

Today the stakes are higher than ever, leading to criticism that television is playing safe, with an ever narrower permutation of both subjects - police, hospitals, detectives, vets, GPs - and stars - Robson Greene, David Jason.

What lessons may be drawn from a list which covers almost 50 years and various sub-genres of TV drama series and serials?

Serialised stories have long been a staple of literature. Many classic novels were originally published in instalments: the crowds at the New York docks, awaiting the next episode of Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop, attest to their power. The form worked well on radio and proved equally popular when transferred to television, once the service resumed after the Second World War. All the early TV serials were adaptations of classic literature, usually but not exclusively transmitted in six parts. Soon more contemporary stories, some originally written for radio, and adventures written especially for television began to appear.

The first star writer of original TV serials was Francis Durbridge. His many thrillers, starting with The Broken Horseshoe in 1952, proved hugely popular with the small but growing television audience. Nigel Kneale's The Quatermass Experiment (1953) was a dramatic step forward, taking the television serial into the realms of science fiction and demonstrating that the form could suit many genres. The simple but effective idea of hooking viewers (or listeners, or readers) on a story that would unfold over a period of time was a winner. Today, more than 50 years after the television serial made its debut, it is as popular as ever.

The television series, also borrowed from radio (and the cinema), is an equally durable form that has shaped the schedules for many years. Successful drama series, alongside successful sitcoms, are the holy grail for broadcasters. Ongoing productions require large and loyal audiences; they must be both relatively cheap to make and able to serve as a foundation stone for an evening's schedule. Some series, like The Bill and Peak Practice, run for many years and provide valuable ammunition for the ITV companies in their quest to attract advertisers. Indeed it was ITV that dominated the field with their filmed action/adventure series (many from Lord Grade's ITC) in the 1950s and 1960s.

Open-ended serials that run for many years are undoubtedly the most popular television form with viewers, if not with our voters. Soap operas are the powerful giants of the medium, regularly annihilating all opposition in the ratings. They possess all the advantages of the traditional serial (complex storytelling, cliffhanger endings), mixed with the strengths of the ongoing series (long runs, viewer loyalty). They have long reigned supreme and show no signs of faltering, indeed all have increased the number of weekly episodes. Both Channel 4 and Channel 5 ensured they started broadcasting with a soap in their schedules.

Breaking down this genre list, we find that four date from the 1960s, three from the 1970s and four from the 1990s. Almost half the top 20, nine titles, come from the 1980s. Nine titles are made by ITV or Channel 4, with Granada particularly well represented, having produced a quarter of the top 20.

When we look at literary adaptations, as opposed to original work for television, the numbers are again encouraging. Seven of our top 20 were been adapted from novels, with the remaining 13 created specially for the small screen.

Television has traditionally been seen as an environment where writers are valued and recognised, where viewers will look out for work from a particular talent. The bfi list certainly bears this out, featuring original work from Alan Bleasdale, Troy Kennedy Martin, Dennis Potter (two entries), Peter Flannery, Jimmy McGovern, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, Alan Bennett and Lynda la Plante. The literary adaptations can boast an equally distinguished roll call: John Mortimer, Jack Pulman, Ken Taylor, Arthur Hopcraft and Alan Plater.

But even the most gifted writers would not see their work realised were it not for producers with the vision and courage to commission their work. Their names too are reflected in our list: Donald Wilson, who laboured to get The Forsyte Saga approved; Derek Granger, who nurtured Brideshead Revisited for nine years; Verity Lambert whose fortitude is acknowledged in Christopher Dunkley's introduction; Tony Garnett, who worked with Ken Loach on single dramas in the 1960s and in his new role at World Productions has given us Between the Lines, This Life and The Cops; and Michael Wearing who seemed to lie behind all the most challenging drama of the last 20 years, including Boys from the Blackstuff and Edge of Darkness. Encouragingly, a new generation is emerging, its most prominent member being Nicola Shindler, who cut her teeth on Our Friends in the North and has since produced Hillsborough, Queer as Folk and Clocking Off.

Drama serials fare better in the bfi list than series, perhaps having a greater resonance for our voters. When you look at the titles, you get an idea of the sheer diversity that television can encompass. Seven of the serials were adapted from literature; the remainder are original works created for television, including Boys from the Blackstuff - Alan Bleasdale's powerful analysis of the impact of unemployment - which tops this genre list and is number six overall.

The other original serials were, in order: the cult, nuclear thriller Edge of Darkness; Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective and Pennies From Heaven, idiosyncratic masterpieces which transcended the form and proved virtually inseparable for our voters; the epic Our Friends in the North, reflecting political events of the last 30 years through the lives of four friends; adult crime series, Cracker (a series of short serials); the comedy/drama about British brickies abroad, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet; Channel Four's brilliant drama about British politics, A Very British Coup; and the dark Prime Suspect which at last gave us a female detective tackling serious crime, just edging out Quatermass and the Pit.

The lyrical romanticism of Brideshead Revisited, number 10 in the overall bfi TV 100, made it our voters' favourite serial literary adaptation, closely followed by the gripping I, Claudius, the epic Jewel in the Crown, the murky realm of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Forsyte Saga, a literary soap which unexpectedly became an international smash with viewers.

The first entry in the list that can be truly classed as a traditional series (a collection of individual stories linked by a recurring theme and characters) is Inspector Morse, the Jaguar of cop shows and, of course, another borrowing from literature (original novels by Colin Dexter). The next series entry is the stylish 1960s spy spoof The Avengers. Then comes Z Cars, the landmark series that changed forever the way the police would be portrayed on the box and which boasts among its alumni many of the finest writers and directors.

The Talking Heads monologues don't quite fit into these genres but the brilliance of the writing and the wonderful individual performances prove that the small screen can handle the spoken word as well as stage or radio.

Perhaps the greatest surprise is that the only representative of the all-conquering soap opera is Coronation Street. Still topping the ratings after almost 40 years, even Corrie could only make number 10 in this genre list and number 40 overall.

So there they are: 20 examples of top-flight British television. Altogether, 27 drama series and serials appear in the bfi TV 100, with Between the Lines, Talking to a Stranger, House of Cards, Tutti Frutti, A Very Peculiar Practice, This Life, and Pride and Prejudice occupying the next seven places. The rich quality and diversity of the genre is further emphasised by three programmes just outside the top 100 (numbers 28-30 in this genre): The Prisoner, Queer as Folk and Oranges are Not the Only Fruit.

Pretty damned impressive...

Veronica Taylor